28 – ROLE PLAYS CON. – CTW-2022-E

28 – ROLE PLAYS CON. – CTW-2022-E

CHALLENGED TO WIN by Gregory Fernandez

Chapter 28 – ROLE-PLAY CONFLICTS

We cannot often explain family conflict, especially when both people are good and have no vices like drinking, smoking, affairs on the side, in-laws; both practice their religion correctly, etc. The problem may involve a ROLE PLAY CONFLICT. It happens more often than we are willing to admit. (Even to ourselves.)

Whether we like it or not, we follow certain norms; society expects specific standards of us. These norms could be personal, interpersonal, cultural, traditional, and occupational. There are many other norms too. For example, people expect us to dress up in specific ways, behave in certain ways, and follow particular manners, codes, and customs. We are also to follow typical man or woman roles. Generally, the norms are broad, and wide varieties and variations are accepted, but people are disturbed when someone steps outside the standard. Certain deviations from accustomed norms would upset people, like husband and wife or even family members.

Let us take a case of attire. If a man were to wear trousers, this would be perfectly acceptable. He could have his pants in various colours, but not all would be OK. Just think about your reaction if your husband showed up at your office wearing pink trousers. He would be the talk of the office, and so would you. A step further, If a man chooses to wear a skirt to the office, this will create an uproar. By comparison, women could wear dresses, skirts, saris or slacks, which would be considered acceptable for her as a woman. Further, she could wear several colours.

Now let us take the case of a family. If a husband thinks he should be at home and look after the children while his wife goes out to work. The chances are that friction will arise sooner or later in that family. The peace that the couple may claim will quickly disappear. Deep down, in the heart of every man is the need to know that he is the family’s primary provider. Deep down, every woman feels that she should not have to be the leading provider for the family. She is responsible for being the primary provider, and she will resent that. If the opposite should happen and no tangible reason is available, like ill- health, invalidity etc., Role Play conflicts are bound to brew. Some people may pretend that there is some novelty and euphoria. Sooner or later, the thrill will wear out, and then role-play conflict will happen.

As things change, society also changes and with change, newer forms of role-play conflicts emerge. They become more frequent. One such area is girls’ and ladies’ academic and career advancements. It is the highest time to rectify inequality. Besides, educational or career advancement for girls and ladies is not imperfect in any way, but simply that there is to be a harmonious bridge between the quadrangle of:

There are new thinking and equal opportunity.
There are old thinking and segregated way of past years.
There is fundamental nature between male and female preferences.
There are individual outlooks, personalities, expectations, and desires.

In academic and career advancement, girls and ladies have equal opportunities. They are just as capable as their male counterparts. So consequently, they can practice the same profession and rise just as much, with no differences in earnings. This advancement has the potential for at least two kinds of role-play strains between husband and wife.

A man feels he is not “looked up to” sufficiently. Or, at least by comparison to peers with less qualified wives, he feels he is not getting enough “esteem value.” So secretly, or at least silently, there is a strain. This strain will sooner or later influence his personality.

The wife “feels” she does not have sufficient stimulation to “look up” to the man she married. Here again, there is a comparative factor. She feels her other lady friends have such rare happiness of being able to look up to their husbands and know they have someone to “Esteem.” So this lady feels a sense of “deprivation.” With this sense of deprivation is a sense of lack of romance. Her thoughts focus not on all she and her husband have (and can have) but on what is missing. That bit which is missing hurts her a lot. So she may feel cornered between two bad options, either giving up the job and feeling deprived by the lack of a career or keeping the job and lacking romance.

The substitutes are poor.

She could hope the money she earns will enable her to achieve the “looking up satisfaction” in her children’s academic and career achievements, which hopefully will be beyond her level of achievement. And the children’s accomplishments will provide the “Look Up Value.”

Find another idol to admire. Therefore, people should take sufficient time to consider this point and its far-stretching implications. And even more important, how they can cope with the Odds.

Some of the situations that lead to Role-Play conflicts are:

Wife has a better career.

Wife earns more.

Wife has a job, while the husband does not.

Wife must go out to work while the husband remains at home.

Wife has a place of public prominence, while the husband does not.

There are many such areas of role-play conflicts in marriage, and it is impossible even to list them all out, let alone discuss any detail. However, the main point is that Role-Play conflicts are a potential source of marriage strain.

Role-Play strife can start at any point depending on parameter changes either in self or with the spouse. Either good or bad changes have the potential to create strife. For example, promotion can be a good change, but old age or ill health can be harmful. While change challenges the role-play equilibrium, it has no power if the individual outlooks are firm and not negatively oriented or tainted with traces of jealousy, threat, fear, etc.

Role-Play mismatches can even happen before marriage. Let us look at the proposal stage. The modern young man has many girls and ladies throughout his school days and working environment. Most of them are as equally efficient and capable as their male counterparts. The result is that, gradually, a culture of equality happens. Even working-world respect. Respect for others’ opinions, technical knowledge, skills, efficiency, reliability etc. The young man who grows up in this society takes the same norms and yardsticks even into other areas of his life. Let us see how this young man tries to approach a young lady while he is on his search to find a bride:

Typically, he approaches the subject like this:

Do you like me? (He may not be so direct or blunt. There is, however, some factual directness along with the vibe to receive either answer.)

Would you like to settle down with me? (Note the highly equalitarian choice of words!)

The typical response he gets sounds like this:

“I do not know whether I would like to settle down” (in theory-yes-but), “Perhaps, I should think about it.”

In this very equalitarian approach, both give the VIBES of being vague. Him for the way he asks and she for the way she replies. Both seem to send out unspoken messages; it does not matter because I am self-sufficient.

Even if she answered, “Yes, I like you,” He would still interpret it as somehow vague.

The Role-Play problem with such cases is that each one does not see A COMPLIMENT ROLE in the other. They feel it is two SELF-CONTAINED ROLES. They do not think they need to complement each other except for social reasons.

Eventually, he feels she is uninterested and wonders what is wrong with him. He knows he has climbed the educational and career ladder further than most others. Besides, he can provide for a wife much better than most other men. But, on the other hand, she feels another case: “The prospect looked hopeful, but somehow something is missing.” She cannot describe what she means by ‘missing’.

The fallthrough:

This situation is not a result of not being a gentleman, nor has it anything to do with not giving the young lady a fair choice in her expression of self-opinion. From her side, it was not that she was being coy. On the contrary, the man was highly equalitarian in his approach and was honest in her response at face value. So, where is the Role-Play conflict?

The conflict is that there are no results. There is neither a ‘Yes’ nor a ‘No’, and this open-end situation leads to frustration of at least two kinds, namely:

His frustration with approaching ladies. (Possibly one of many approaches to different, eligible and very appealing young ladies).

The frustration of not knowing how long this search will go on.

The question is:

What happened each time? The answer is that the man, in this case, addressed the woman’s rational mind, not her heart. This approach is what is a “fair transactional approach.” This method is excellent in business and dealing with the world. But this is not what the woman was expecting; she was missing the romance component. Hence, she could only process the question in her rational mind . She did not have the code words to send the message to her heart. The well-being of her love life is in her heart. She has not felt the aura of romance in her heart, and consequently, her answer is, I do not know (because she feels something is missing; she knows something is missing even though she may not fully understand what that something is).

Here we see a situation: A young woman is perfectly able in the rational academic and career world, but her private life and love life are missing romance. Romance, in her heart, is still a vital ingredient of her well-being. She must contend with this lack.

We also see how the man misses this point, not through willful neglect but gross ignorance.

The question is: If both have gone through the same academic and career process, how come one has the component of romance, and the other has missed it? The answer is:

Romance is still a fundamental part of a girl and woman, while it is an acquired skill in man.

Childhood stimulations are different; for example, Girls play with dolls and have toys that are small home equipment and dollhouses. They have clothes in specific girl colours. She is more inclined to play indoors; creativity is usually through indoor hobbies; she reads sooner. And her book often has a fair amount of romantic daydreaming stimulation to be considered valuable.

On the other hand, the boy is encouraged to be an outdoor creature. At least that way, he will not create permanent havoc in the home. Consequently, he reads less, and even those books are full of wild stories about cowboys, knights, wars, wild animals, guns, planes, etc. His creativity is to build things, usually outside; otherwise, the house will become a mess. He also plays boy’s games, which are outdoor games and must hold his grounds and prove his worth among many fellows, who have been fueled and fired with tales of hunting and police and robbers, and other test-of-strength manoeuvres. He has no time even to notice romance. If he has a mild inclination to think about romance, he will be met with scorn, ridicule, wolf whistles, and branded as a Sissy. It is hardly any wonder that the young man has no sense of true romance.

A young adult man needs a fair amount of coaching if he must know the infinitely complicated expectations of feminine romance values. But unfortunately, there are no schools where they can go for a properly organized course in ‘Woo-Manship’. So he goes through this area in his life, tripping over his shoelaces.

Romantic awareness does not only mean flowers and perfumes, nice words and love songs. It also means stability both in kind as well as in self. Trust, loyalty, steadfastness, clarity of vision for self and his lady. The qualities to lead, firm commitment through good times and bad, health and sickness, and the stamina to go on till death do them part. This trust, loyalty, steadfastness, and clarity of vision, not only for self but also for his lady, is what young women look for in the eligible young man.

She is looking for someone who will say, First! – “I will marry you.”

And the question of: “Will you marry me?” is only Second.

The First and Second Questions are Role-specific. Not only because of traditions but because it is even more ‘nature specific’ to her.

Unfortunately, most young men today are never made clear about this point. While a few men may fluke a correct approach, many hardly ever make a good move. Instead, they most often communicate the phrases in the reverse order—making the situation such that the young woman should propose to them. And hopefully, expect her to allow them to ask whether they can also voice their consent.

The wrong order of questions is a typical example of the gross ignorance of young men, even educated ones! He is ignorant of a woman’s heart (on these matters, her heart comes first, and her mind is secondary). Therefore, he does not realize that somewhere in her is a yearning to surrender to the man she loves.

Sometimes it is incredible how well the lyrics of songs have brought home these little pieces of knowledge. Take the words of old English poetry, like.”. . My heart was captured. . And my soul surrendered. . .” Or.”. . He quaff’d down the wine, threw down the cup, grabbed his lady love and bolted away on horseback… . “

Even though men wrote these words or poems, these men were rare creatures, way out of the mainstream species. As a result, girls and women may find the lyrics quite captivating, while boys and men may listen in some confused way. Or they may skillfully try to use romantic phrases as subject matter for their next joke.

To some extent, the lady wants to be fought over and won. She feels the young man of her dreams (daydreaming is an undeniable part of her preoccupation) would swoop down, come, see and conquer and then make her Queen of his heart. It gives her a sense of worth and importance. She wants to be his Sweetheart. She yearns for the touch of continuity of this romantic overture in the form of, – – – “they lived happily ever after.”

Unfortunately, neither the young man nor the husbands realize that such thinking exists. In his world, there are no fairy tales or poetry. He left those things when his teachers changed from ladies to men. To a large extent, his world centres around the present. The reality of competitiveness, advancement and career-oriented climbing is his driving standard. To him, acquiring a wife is a milestone he must hack off on his long list of “Things To Be Done.” Sure, in his heart, he hopes and expects he will find love, a loving wife, children, joys of family life etc.

Romance is not a cultivated activity. But, sure, some thought has been given, much like the Eskimos may have thought about growing fig trees on the North Pole.

At other times, males may do romantic things like taking their girlfriends to see factories, to enjoy the manufacture of spur and bevelled gears. It may never cross his mind to explain the use and application of these items.; he imagines every intelligent and romantic young lady knows these things.

Men work with an “ALL’S WELL” approach. For example, – “I have set out to do these things – Done, Complete, Over – All’s well – Hack it off the list.”

This Done, Complete, Over is Romantic for him. “Wife is there; Children are there; the job is OK, the car is working well, the food is there, and no nagging – Therefore, All is well.” This approach is romantic for him; he can at least get on with his hobbies and have a face to show to his buddies at the next football match.

Sometimes he is mildly lucky in that he chances to stumble upon some recipes in romance. He may intelligently note pieces of information as “Success Bridges.” But the chances are that he does not fully understand the chemistry of such recipes (nor does he care to). These little recipes are about Valentine cards, chocolate hearts, flowers, and other customer luring marketable. These drives are usually from advertisements, office talk, and reminders from his mother and family.

He may have experienced a “Back-Lash” when he forgot an anniversary, birthday etc. But he knows an efficient manager does not drop the ball.

Quite efficiently, but rather unromantically, he goes over to his secretary and tells her to remind him when to send flowers and cards to whom and see it done! He tells her to mark it out in the year planner if necessary. He settles down in his chair and feels everything is now under control.

The difference in the thought processes is that while his wife was looking for romance, he was content to plug every hole from where unhappiness could seep in.

These little niceties of romance, lovingness, thoughtfulness, caring etc., are not impossible tasks. A person can learn them remarkably, but who will teach them? And even more important – How? The answer to the first is that the wife will probably need to teach it because then it would have an exact tailor-made fit to fit her. And the answer to the second question is, with love, God’s help, and guidance. The mistake often made is to resort to nagging and bossiness; these tactics and manoeuvres only bring negative results.

Sometimes reading books can be helpful. Somewhere Rose may have read that husbands, good as they always are, can forget wedding anniversaries almost annually. So armed with this knowledge, she did something to prevent mishaps on our wedding anniversaries. Let me tell you how my wife achieved remarkable and joyful results in this area. Through being loving. While I was half asleep, she sweetly whispered, “Greg, Today is our wedding anniversary. “So, I knew it was time to switch the Romantic mechanisms. I also went to the children’s bedroom and told them they were allowed to wish me a “Happy Wedding Anniversary.” And while I waited with my eyes closed for their kisses and greetings, they pushed past me and went rushing to wish their mother instead. With much pandemonium, whoops, yells, and loud choruses, they declared the event the whole day. It all started with just one small, tiny sentence. And that sentence worked like magic the entire day through. This example shows subtle yet powerful substitutes compared to day-long pouting, fretting and turmoil. The subtle way is LOVE.

Since we discovered this little trick, Rose reminds me every year on the morning of our Wedding Anniversary that today is our wedding anniversary. Then all the fun starts, and I yell at the children that they should first congratulate ME on my wedding anniversary. Somehow, they miss their orientation because they still kiss and congratulate her first! Even the dog gets confused and goes to her side of the bed first. She gets her “Romantic treats for the Day, and I get my All’s Well accomplishment for the Day.”

I am convinced that the wife is the husband’s best romance teacher, but she must do it well.

Many years ago, while I was in technical marketing of control engineering teaching equipment, I visited the College Principal’s Office; I saw the following inscription on the wall. I thought it was a splendid collection of words to bring wisdom and inspiration. I had many delightful experiences bringing up my children and teaching control technology. I want to share this guideline rule with you:

A bad teacher complains

 A good teacher teaches

 But the best teacher inspires

This rule is equally suitable for children, toddlers, school children, university graduates, and factory training programs. It can even be for work for husbands, but the teacher can only do it with love.

Sometimes we get so frustrated with the way things are going on. We cannot find comfort or answers to the endless questions we ask. So in confusion and lack of knowledge, we blame the spouse for our woes, misfortune and unhappiness. When this feeling comes, it is worth remembering what the Bible says. It is such an important message that the words are from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself:

JOHN 16:33

33 “THESE THINGS I HAVE SPOKEN TO YOU,THAT IN ME YOU MAY HAVE PEACE. IN THE WORLD YOU WILL HAVE TRIBULATION: BUT BE OF GOOD CHEER, I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD.”

In this life, we are going to have our share of tribulations. It has nothing to do with “how” or “what” the spouse does or does not do. Tribulation is a way for us to earn DIVINE CURRENCY. THROUGH TRIBULATION, this DIVINE CURRENCY is the only standard method we have to be eligible to avail of God’s generosity to reach Heaven. Tribulation is the only universal component that everyone has, regardless of whether they are king or clown; religious or irreligious; rich or poor; man or woman; educated or uneducated; young or old or whatever other differences we have.

Some thoughts:

Tribulation is what WE WILL GET from time to time;

DISCOURAGEMENT is its Follow-Up.

PERSEVERANCE is our combat manoeuvre.
Our DRIVE is CONFIDENCE in the words of the LORD JESUS. “BUT BE OF GOOD CHEER, I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD.”

Again:

JOHN 16:33

33 THESE THINGS I HAVE SPOKEN TO YOU, THAT IN ME YOU MAY HAVE PEACE. IN THE WORLD YOU WILL HAVE TRIBULATION; BUT BE OF GOOD CHEER, I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD.”

The church and all religions have the word of Marriage Vows in their marriage ceremonies, which the bridegroom and bride PROMISE to each other. The vows contain the promise made to each other in front of the priest and all present. These vows are not fancy sets of words to tickle the romantic emotions of the bride and other female guests. Nor were the words intended to be a kind of an added “Spin” to the festivity. Regardless of their religions, these Religious Fathers realized that marriage was a vocation similar to theirs as religious people. It will have its fair share of tests and trials. And the devil will try to sift the couple like chaff before a thresher’s floor. There will be Good Times, and these bring their set of challenges, and there will be Bad Times, and those will get other and different groups of challenges. There will be Riches and Reverses of fortune, Sickness and Health; all have challenges. Tribulations can use many methods to find us.

In many customs and cultures, marriage is a kind of a “SHOW OFF” activity. A way to have the grandest party, the costliest meals and expensive drinks, and gala receptions. Some even want entertainment like importing doves, having fellows in white gloves and tuxedos, and releasing them into the air with pomp and showmanship. The Guests come to see a spectacle and go home to talk about whose wedding was more expensive, whose party had more guests, and the food and drinks. Others were wondering how they should strain to keep up. The whole gambit of society seems to have forgotten that the true spirit of the party at the marriage is to BLESS the newlywed couple. If the Wedding party is not on providing a proper venue for all to come and BLESS the couple, the whole idea is a total farce. For this farce, people spend big money.

So, a couple would do well to go over their Wedding Vows and see how the Lord’s words and His gift of a spouse and their vows fit together. A sample of the vows is listed below:

Male

I _____, take you ______, to be my wedded wife. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or health, to love and to cherish ’till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness.

Female

I, _____, take you ______, to be my wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, ’till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you, my faithfulness.

God Bless You