Love and Security
Security is an essential ingredient for
intimacy. Security results from a feeling of predictability and safety, which
in turn arises from consistent benevolence on the part of others. If we are
randomly attacked by our lover, we can never feel safe or secure. If we have to
use a rickety old footbridge to cross a chasm, each wobbly step will be a
fearful nightmare.
Why do we stay in relationships where we
do not feel safe and secure?
One central reason is that we have a
habit of listening to people’s words, rather than
regarding their actions. The old adage “actions speak louder
than words” has fallen out of favor in our modern age, but it is essential for
evaluating potential relationships of any kind.
Abusive behavior always results from a
lack of integrity.
If, on a first date, a woman tells you
openly that she will attack you whenever she feels insecure, angry or
vulnerable – and promises to blame you when you get upset about being attacked
– you would be very unlikely to continue dating her.
No, people always tell you that they are
acting virtuously, even if their actions completely contradict their stated
values. If a woman has a habit of attacking others when she feels anxious, that
behavior can only be maintained if she
redefines her abuse as virtuous in some manner. She will say that she is only
defending herself, or that she has been patient for a long time but “enough is
enough,” or that the other party started the conflict, and so on.
If her culpability can be proved beyond a
shadow of a doubt, she then reverts to the secondary defense of abusers, which
is to say that it is ignoble to point fingers and play “the blame game” that
“forgiveness is a virtue, and we need to move on now.”
In other words, she will openly state
that unjustly attacking others is wrong, and then will unjustly attack others.
This lack of integrity ensures that no one around her will ever feel a
consistent sense of security or safety. (In fact, that is exactly what it is designed to
do, since destabilizing people is an essential prerequisite for controlling
them.)
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