You must love me. After all, I made you who you are.
When she met Emeka, he didn’t have a degree. In fact, no one in his family had been to university. But they were successful businessmen. All of them. And there was Chinny, with her fancy MBA, keeping him at her beck and call like a lapdog. She insisted that he take a degree. Any course, it didn’t matter. It’s all very well flaunting his money, but she’d like for her man to at least have a degree.
Grudgingly he accepts, completes the degree, and is a changed man. He goes back to the school, drops a huge pile of money and gets an honorary doctorate. Now he insists everyone calls him “Doctor”, his dear Chinny included; Emeka has developed an arrogance she could never have fathomed. Before long, he meets and falls for a fellow “Doctor” on some development committee at the university, and has traded up. Doctorate sha pass masters. “Men are such pigs”, she cries!
When Joey met Kanny, she was the happiest flight attendant on earth. She ferried a few items for sale between Lagos and London which helped her make a little extra on the side. And she was happy. As it turned out, she had quite the flair for entrepreneurship, but flying was her passion. But Joey insisted she looked closer at trading, offered to set her up, and boom, she was soon raking it in.
She was doing so well, she paid Joey back his seed money, and resumed her frequent flying; only this time as a trader spending weeks and weeks in China ensuring her transactions went through. Joey sees her even less than before, and now, they’ve drifted so far apart, the relationship is all but over. “After all I’ve done for you“, he screams!
Now let’s scrutinize these 2 “you must love me” stories a little. On the one hand, our MBA girl wanted a graduate husband to be proud of. She needed to change him to suit her purpose.
Joey on the other hand, didn’t like the exposure his dear Kanny was subjected to as a flight attendant and figured, keeping her grounded would fit better into his idea of a wife or partner.
In both cases, our 2 protagonists were playing God, molding their partners “in their own image”. But as is too often the case, we cannot determine the outcome of our unsolicited interventions in other people’s lives. In fact, more often than not, things never end the way we want. Just think of the Nigerian-American nurses, trained by their husbands, who eventually turn on them, when it becomes apparent that there’s room for only one captain on the ship.
So what’s at play here? Well, love, at its core, is a delicate and typically organic emotion—a mutual exchange of vulnerability, respect, and acceptance. The last part – acceptance – is key. Enter “procrustean love”.
The term “Procrustean” originates from the myth of Procrustes, a figure who would stretch or amputate his victims to make them fit his iron bed. In the context of love, this idea becomes a metaphor for the oftentimes destructive tendency to impose our desires, expectations, and ideals on others, usually at the expense of their autonomy and individuality.
What we demand as love in these cases is simply compliance. This demand is inherently Procrustean because it seeks to reshape the other person to fit our needs, rather than embracing them as they are. It is an attempt to control proceedings in a manner that suits us.
The Illusion of Control
At the heart of this mindset is a desire for control. You must love me…, as the person I choose you to be. It is a way to satisfy our own egos, or overcome our fears. It is also a clear indication of a lack of trust and self confidence. There’s no way I’m going to marry an “OND”, never mind she’s the best digital marketer on the Island. Se has to have a degree, and you will make sure she gets one. Are you honestly thinking about the other person or about yourself?
Killing Individuality
A Procrustean approach to love denies the other person their individuality. It sends the message that who they are is not enough, that they must change to meet our expectations. In this case, you’re not just looking to enhance the other person’s current status, you’re looking to change it completely. You’re not advocating a degree to make her a better digital marketer, you’re in fact asking her to take a degree in accounting!
When we try to mold someone into our ideal partner, we are not loving them—we are loving an idea of them. This creates a disconnect between reality and fantasy, leading to disappointment and frustration. They will not thank you in the end, rather, they’ll resent you.
On the other hand, they may of course embrace their new personalities so completely, all thanks to you, and then quickly outgrow you altogether and want out of the relationship. In other words, “Dr. Frankenstein, meet your monster”!
The Path to Authentic Love
An authentic relationship requires letting go of the need to control. It means accepting the other person as they are, flaws and all, and allowing the relationship to evolve naturally. This is not to say we should stand idly by while our partners languish incompetently at their chosen vocations. We can and should help each other grow. But that growth area must be mutually agreed. Ideally, it should be the other party’s decision to make. Once that is established, then we can offer support, and help them be the best road sweeper in the history of road sweeping. OK, that’s extreme, but road cleaners’ lives matter as well.
Conclusion
The Procrustean approach to love—forcing someone to fit into our idealized version of them—is a recipe for disaster. Just ask the good Lord how things turned out with his first 2 prototypes “created in his image”. Love is not about making someone fit into our world—it’s about meeting them, then validating them in theirs.
