Forever In Debt to Your Priceless Advice
Do you think that to be happy in a relationship, two people have to have comparable intellectual prowess?
I’ve met a lot of people who say things like, “I love my wife because she challenges me,” or “my boyfriend is great because he doesn’t let me get away with things.” It makes sense, of course, to want to be with a mate that serves as an intellectual counter in your life. But my question is, for an educated person (and education comes in many forms, formal and informal), is it possible to be content with someone who is well, not very educated? (Perhaps the better word is “intellectual,” rather than “educated,” if that helps.)
But let’s assume that a husband is significantly less intellectual than his wife, does it mean that she is “shallow”? Does it mean that she has an empty space in her life? Let’s say she’s an engineer, finds her work and co-workers interesting and stimulating, loves her book club, and goes to see theatre regularly with her brother. Her husband is kind, caring, a fantastic father to children they both adore, and shares with his wife a love of restaurants, the Kansas City Chiefs, gardening and kayaking. But husband doesn’t read much beyond the sports section in the USA Today, and would rather be caught dead than spend time doing traditional “cultural activities.” And he has a 12th grade education.
In other words, they have much, but not everything in common. But frankly, while they have interests in common, she’s never found a single thing he’s said remotely intellectually challenging. And she swears she’s delightfully happy because she thinks it is absurd to expect one-stop shopping in life. Moreover, her job is stressful (but satisfying), and it can be so full of “intellectual” conflict with co-workers and clients, one of the things she claims to cherish about being at home is that it’s a significantly more harmonious environment.
And because husband and wife aren’t real people, I am asking people to judge them – no, actually, judge her. Forget the fact that they have kids, and go back to the beginning of the relationship. If you were friends with wife, would you tell her she “could do better” than husband? Would you think it?
Is it reasonable – or just lazy – to value being content over being challenged? Is she compromising herself? Her self-worth? Her gender?
I’ve met a lot of people who say things like, “I love my wife because she challenges me,” or “my boyfriend is great because he doesn’t let me get away with things.” It makes sense, of course, to want to be with a mate that serves as an intellectual counter in your life. But my question is, for an educated person (and education comes in many forms, formal and informal), is it possible to be content with someone who is well, not very educated? (Perhaps the better word is “intellectual,” rather than “educated,” if that helps.)
But let’s assume that a husband is significantly less intellectual than his wife, does it mean that she is “shallow”? Does it mean that she has an empty space in her life? Let’s say she’s an engineer, finds her work and co-workers interesting and stimulating, loves her book club, and goes to see theatre regularly with her brother. Her husband is kind, caring, a fantastic father to children they both adore, and shares with his wife a love of restaurants, the Kansas City Chiefs, gardening and kayaking. But husband doesn’t read much beyond the sports section in the USA Today, and would rather be caught dead than spend time doing traditional “cultural activities.” And he has a 12th grade education.
In other words, they have much, but not everything in common. But frankly, while they have interests in common, she’s never found a single thing he’s said remotely intellectually challenging. And she swears she’s delightfully happy because she thinks it is absurd to expect one-stop shopping in life. Moreover, her job is stressful (but satisfying), and it can be so full of “intellectual” conflict with co-workers and clients, one of the things she claims to cherish about being at home is that it’s a significantly more harmonious environment.
And because husband and wife aren’t real people, I am asking people to judge them – no, actually, judge her. Forget the fact that they have kids, and go back to the beginning of the relationship. If you were friends with wife, would you tell her she “could do better” than husband? Would you think it?
Is it reasonable – or just lazy – to value being content over being challenged? Is she compromising herself? Her self-worth? Her gender?
posted by Jason at 18:52
5 Comments:
There are of course two sides to every coin. On the one hand, it's nice to have a counterpart that stimulates intellectually and is on your level. On the other hand, if you feel comfortable in your relationship then it shouldn't matter as long as you're happy.
That being said, there is going to come a time in their lives when the children are grown and their common interests are all that is going to carry them through. As some one who is married to a person who shares very few of my interests (reading, theater, local Irish pubs)it is challenging. My children aren't grown but we are at a place in life where the oldest can babysit. Which means we can have more adult time together. But often, since my interests are different than his, we don't spend our adult time together.
For example, I go out of my way to take an interest in sports and try to follow it as much as possible to keep up communication. However, I do not want to spend every night of the week in front of my TV watching sports center, this week in baseball, PTI, baseball tonight, NFL tonight, etc. I would rather go out to the PH and hang out with the girls/guys and chat. Husband doesn't like this because 1) he isn't Irish and 2) he hates the PH. So what happens 9 times out of 10? I go out, he stays in OR we'll go out to a non-PH bar for a little while and then he goes home to watch ESPN and I end up meeting my friends. Sometimes it sucks, other times it's liberating.
So in answer to your question, you have to find a common ground and compromise on the other details. That's what marriage is about. You accept the person's foibles faults and all and do your best to make it work.
Good sex doesn't hurt either!
I'd like to make a distinction between intellectual and cultural as two kinds of being educated. For instance, there was a very intellectual discussion about guns at my dining room table last night, about loading mechanisms and licensure laws, etc. I would say it was intellectual, although not the kind of information you'd cover in school.
And I've been to "cultural" events that can be called so because you have gotten out in public to mix and mingle, but there is no real purpose except to drink and be social. Although fun, it doesn't fit the cultural mode of theatre or ballet or Shakespeare.
While I think the question is about what works for you, I know I couldn't have married someone who wasn't interested enough in bookish stuff to not have gone to college or at least self-educated to that degree.
On the other hand, my husband and I have different levels of social interaction that sometimes cause conflict, so it's all a balancing act. I chose smarts over the life of the party but I imagine there are people who do the opposite.
I think theres' a good point there about what to do when your kids are raised and you have to hang out together a lot more. This seems to be when divergent parents break up and surprise everyone.
I would rephrase the question as whether your intelligent friend can remain involved with someone who does not seem to enjoy being engaged intellectually. I think it all depends on how much the intellectual enjoys being thoughtfully engaged. My experience has taught me that people who may not seem outwardly intelligent are some of the most genuinely kind and giving people I have met. Their motivations may seem trivial to me, but these people seem to still have a sense of fulfillment. Maybe her husband is one of these people. A kind and giving nature is worth a great deal.
The problem I have experienced, with this kind of relationship, however; is that at some point it always starts feeling like a sinking ship. As I keep proving, if the so-called intellectual craves intellectual engagement, she will likely reward her partner’s kindness by becoming involved with someone else who can engage her intellectually. Hell, a really good conversation can be intoxicating. The result has always been a mess in my experience. Borrowing from the captioned song, one or both of them may find themselves “trapped in a heart-shaped box.” How do you extricate yourself from a relationship because the other party is not “intelligent” enough, particularly if you really love the person? It can be grueling. My advice (which I may have to actually follow next time around) is don’t get involved with someone who can’t engage you.
So to answer the remaining questions; is it reasonable for an intelligent person to value contentedness above intellectual engagement? Yes, but if your friend is one who needs the engagement then she probably isn’t truly content and maintaining the relationship will become self-flagellation at some point. Is she compromising her self-worth? No, because clearly she saw something of real value in her husband. Is she compromising her gender? NO! Give me a break; women have no moral duty to look beyond a hot body and/or an attractive personality. Blither, blather…sorry for the length.
Speaking from experience, I can tell you that it is more important to like the other person than it is to be their equal or even their counter. My wife and I are totally different. She is more concerned with ensuring that we have a good meal to enjoy and a clean house than in fixing the world's problems. I, on the other hand, am very concerned with the "big picture" issues. Because we like each other and enjoy each other's company, none of these things matter much.
I would point out that all people are intellectual in some manner, but maybe in an area I don't appreciate. Even my most remedial students have a leg up on me somewhere. They'll laugh at my ignorance about cars or guns and such. I'm ignorant about those areas.
So, I would say that it is much more important to share moral values than intellectual abilities. My wife knows art and computers inside out, and I don't know squat. She reads magazines, and that's about it, and never writes anything beyond letters to relatives. But I hardly put myself either above or below her, simply different, even though we rarely have what anyone would call intellectual conversations that aren't of the broad, conceptual/philsophical nature (but even then I ain't that bright).
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