the more sense it makes, the less sense it makes

I was watching the movie Nowhere in Africa, which is about a German Jewish family that moves to Kenya at the start of WWII. One thing, as a side note, that I didn't know until I saw the movie, is that the Jews in Africa were interred at one point during the war, by the British. They weren't kept in the same conditions as a concentration camp, though the movie clearly shows that the British didn't really like the Jews. Eventually the men were allowed, if selected by the British forces, to fight in Germany against the Germans. Anyway...

In the movie the wife Lisl, is about to depart to meet up with her husband, who's been in Kenya for 6 months getting things ready. It's obvious Lisl is not happy about going to Africa. She meets with her husband's father, who tells her "In any relationship, one person always loves more. And that person always suffers." It's obvious the person who loves more is Lisl's husband, who puts up with her affairs until he finally gets to the point where he leaves her.

I had been thinking about that quote for a while, when someone else, in an email, asked the question "why would anyone have sex with someone who was treating them badly?" The asker was a guy of course. I started to wonder, should you not have sex with someone who is treating you badly?

Of course, there's bad and then there's bad. Would I have sex with someone who was treating me like a punching bag? No. Would I have sex with a partner that had cheated on me? Maybe. And does cheating fall into the category of treating someone bad, or is it something else? And don't most relationship guides say that you should have sex even if you're mad at your partner because it can help relieve the tension and make you less mad?

Maybe the logic goes something like this...a person is ignoring you. Then that person suddenly shows interest in you. You don't know why that person was ignoring you but now you're happy that they seem to like you again. It's a common thing in relationships, summed up nicely in TTMR when Marge says (paraphrased) "When he is paying attention to you it's like the sun is shining on you. And when he loses interest it's very cold". So what do you do? Try to use intimacy in the hopes of keeping their attention, while giving yourself the impression that you are somehow connected to the person. Is this incorrect logic?

Or should you assume, if they don't give a shit about you before you have sex with them, they won't care afterwards either. In fact, they'll probably resent you even more. It may work for people that are avoiding a relationship due to emotional issues, but I imagine that's not a very large group. So, I guess I concur with the idea of not having sex with someone who is being an asshole.

But, then there's the whole relationship dynamic. What if you are the person who loves the other person more? Should you leave that person and find someone that loves you more than you love them so you can be the asshole? And not get laid? Unless the person you are with thinks it's okay to have sex with someone who is treating them badly? Or maybe find someone that loves you equally as much? You'll never get laid because that relationship does not exist.

People are either going to try to work a relationship to their advantage, or give everything to a relationship. I haven't met a single couple that doesn't have that dynamic. Which is not to say it doesn't shift over time, but isn't that what draws people together? You meet someone that you can take care of, and that person is attracted to you because that person wants to be taken care of. Or vice versa. I love people that say you should not need to be in a relationship before you get into a relationship. Isn't that against everything that makes us human? If someone doesn't want to be in a relationship, why WOULD they be in a relationship? And if someone wants to be in a relationship, why wouldn't you want to be in a relationship with them, because you know that they are willing to devote time and effort into making the relationship good. That's like saying you shouldn't want to have kids before you have them. It's stupid.

Take a mountaineering example. Say I'm going to climb denali. I want to climb it by myself because I'm such a self sufficient mountaineer I don't need anyone else's help. Then along comes some guy who wants to climb with me. Am I going to welcome him with open arms? No, I'm going to resent the shit out of him and hate him. Say another self sufficient mountaineer shows up. Do I care? No, because I'll have no interaction with him, and he won't interact with me, because we're doing our own thing. In either case, there's no relationship that could come of climbing Denali with either of those two people.

But say I'm a mountaineer who wants to climb denali, and I know what my weaknesses are. I would try to find a partner that could help me with those weaknesses, and that I could hopefully help in some way. The experience is good for both of us because we can relax and focus on our strengths because we know our partner has our back on the things we are not as good at. And maybe, over time, we learn to build up our weaknesses by having help from our partner.

Of course, during the duration of the climb, I might fight with my partner, especially if he is doing something that emphasizes my weaknesses. But am I going to desert my partner for treating me badly? Maybe, if I suck. But if I don't suck maybe I will use the situation as an opportunity to help my partner and myself.

So really, if you want to be in a relationship, the key is not to NOT want to be in a relationship. The key is to understand WHY you want to be in a relationship and what you need to get out of your relationship.

Of course, I could be wrong about all this. But no one else has provided me with a more logical explanation.