Each time I return to my family home in the Philippines, I open up one of the boxes containing my writings (journalistic and creative) dating back to the fun years I spent working in Manila, as well as to my superficially normal childhood.
This year, one box yielded a clutch of magazines from the Summit group, which published the Philippine edition of Cosmopolitan. I wrote for Cosmo in the late 1990s, and now that nearly 30 years (gasp! I was a veritable kid!) have elapsed, it's time to share them with a digital community.
How will they be read by young women who have been formed, over the last 15 years, by the visual platforms of Instagram and Tiktok, for whom Facebook probably resembles a retirement home? Will the tales of breakups and tears, of crafty manipulation and the quest for sexual fulfillment, ring true, though they doubtless have found other ways of articulating their experiences?
At the time I was finishing this article (to be printed and faxed a few minutes later to my editor at Cosmopolitan-Philippines), the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Love Rollercoaster" was on my TV (eternally tuned to MTV in those days, haha).
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Riding the roller coaster of love
Lakambini A. Sitoy
Cosmopolitan Magazine-Philippines
October 1997
Kira knows that she should have kept quiet this time, and let Jimmy run on and on about how she’s always late for their dates. After all, she’s been an angel for the past three weeks, saying nothing about his drinking and the way he patronizes her in front of his friends. Too good, she thinks, in the split-second before her control snaps and she tells him the rush hour traffic held her up, something he would understand if he quit trying to broker shady business deals and got himself a real nine-to-five job like her own.
She’s hit a sensitive nerve. For the rest of the evening he’s cold and sarcastic. He’d intended to spend a couple of hours at her place, but as soon as they walk through the door they begin yelling at each other. The evening comes to its inevitable end, Jimmy growling,“Leave me alone! We’re over!”as he shoves her out of the way and slams the door after him.
Kira cries herself to sleep, and spends the rest of the weekend moping about the apartment. On Sunday night, she finally convinces herself that her already-wounded dignity can take yet another bruise, so she picks up the phone and calls her boyfriend. An hour of weeping, of acrimonious silences elapses before they mutually apologize. In the wee hours of the morning Jimmy drops by, as expected; they make love, and Kira is thrust into the clear light of Monday swollen-eyed and shaky, but relieved at the prospect of several weeks of bliss, at least until it’s time for the next fight.
Over and under and back again
Relationships like Kira’s and Jimmy’s follow a rhythm that is as predictable as it is destructive: a period of honeymoon-like happiness, followed by tension occasioned by a build-up of strife. The tension breaks when there is some sort of provocation, resulting in a major argument that may or may not lead to a break-up. During the cooling-off period that comes afterwards both partners come to realize how much they depend on the other, and in the end both of them reconcile, each making an effort to be as sweet as possible to the other. This is the honeymoon phase once more; inevitably the tension builds and the whole roller coaster ride repeats itself.
“A lot of women find themselves addicted to this kind of cycle in a relationship,” says Dr. Letitia Penano-Ho, a clinical psychologist who is counsellor consultant for the Center for Women’s Crisis Counselling of the University of the Philippines. “Some women feel such gratification during the making-up and honeymoon-stages of the cycle that they willingly go through the pain of quarrelling with their partners just to experience it.”
But such patterns are dangerous: if they are institutionalized in a relationship, over time the verbal and emotional abuse could lead to physical violence.
Even without actual physical blows, frequent quarreling with one’s spouse or partner is already a form of domestic violence -- verbal and psychological.
Ho asserts that this cycle of intense conflict and forgiveness is commonplace: it can be found in relationships between people regardless of age, socio-economic background, race, religion or culture. So, for that matter, can the physical violence that is often part of the cycle. Data is lacking, however, since there have been no wide-scale studies of domestic violence or plain conflict within relationships. As a result, the public perceives conflict as happening mostly among lower-income couples, since it is they who tend to report their troubles to the authorities. The swollen and distraught faces of lower-income women are what are published by the enterprising tabloids -- with upper and upper middle class women working extra hard to keep their personal problems confidential and avoid a “scandal.”
Though women do try to put on a brave face on their affairs, and although the periods of bliss seem to compensate for the pain, the roller-coaster ride will eventually take its toll.
“I’ve seen women who can’t get away from a relationship,” says Ho. “Some manage a very empowered facade, but they actually feel very small inside. Eventually they do show it -- the way they look and talk, their inability to make very basic decisions. At work, they are very able, but when it comes to decisions about the home, themselves, they are lost. You see the sadness in the eyes, the loneliness, the inability to talk about it.”
The constant quarrels only distance a woman from her lover or husband, and the strain of living a double life distances her from herself, making her feel like an impostor. So, too can the humiliation of having to beg forgiveness from the “aggrieved” man: since women are conditioned since birth to be the emotional caretakers of a relationship, the burden of initiating reconciliation often falls on them. Many men know this, and are aware that their partners will move heaven and earth just to fix up the relationship. So as time goes by they cunningly raise the stakes, growing harder and harder to placate.
“Why not just dump him?”
Many women trapped on the love roller coaster wonder why they don’t have the guts to end the relationship. They feel like failures, and know that their friends are disappointed in them. What outsiders can’t empathize with is the devastation women experience when the relationship “ends” for the nth time. Their self-esteem plunges to an all-time low during this period; unable to love themselves, they feel they are incomplete without the beloved, and will never find love at any other time with anyone else.
The period after the “break up” or “conflict” phase of the cycle is the worst time to make concrete plans for the future. Ideally, both parties should wait until they’ve attained a measure of calm before major decisions are made. But in the heady moments of reconciliation, women tend to persuade themselves that this time they are at least free of the damaging cycle. Sitting down and talking about the relationship might very well destroy the feeling of heightened bliss, so they cross their fingers and limp on, perpetually silenced and unable to do a thing about it.
“If you decide to cut a relationship, bear in mind that it’s never easy,” says Ho. “But you just have to accept it and work on the hurt, and then try to heal the pain. There’s no way you can save yourself from the hurt. But you must tell yourself: I am a capable person, complete and apart from the person I had a relationship with.”
Talking it out
Ho asserts that not all roller-coaster relationships deserve to be terminated.
“The parties can work at it, as long as there’s openness between them. It may be difficult to communicate at the beginning, but at least if there’s that willingness to express both positive and negative emotions, they have a chance.”
Where the relationship has not descended to the level of physical battery, the chances of saving it are much better. Both parties generally retain a higher measure of self-esteem, feel less guilty or disgusted with themselves, have fewer grudges to bury and less of an emotional investment to recoup.
Physical battery complicates recovery efforts by putting the victim (90 percent of the time it’s the woman) at risk. Ho advises a battered woman to get away from the relationship, if temporarily, to give both partners a chance to cool down. In fact a cooling off period--under the guise, perhaps, of an extended vacation--can enable most couples to distance themselves from the situation and thus examine it levelly.
Studies have shown that people who can’t deal with stress are the ones who find themselves sucked into disagreements. Unless they learn -- or are taught -- to deal with the difficulties of living with their partners, they will continue employing ineffective mechanisms for dealing with stress. These include name-calling, focusing on a person’s defects rather than specific offensive behavior, or inflicting pain for it’s sake. Potential batterers, says Ho, also have very poor communication skills, cannot deal with their anger, have difficulty envisioning an alternative way of behaving.
Ho suggests that couples seek professional help if they can no longer handle their own problems. They may go to private clinics, to non-governmental organizations, to university counselling programs -- even to a priest. The important thing is to have access to a non-subjective point of view to make sure grievances are properly aired and processed.
The bottom line
At some point the roller-coaster ride must come to an end, by mutual agreement of the parties. The thrill of breaking up and making up is a cheap one, after all -- but it will cost more than a person can afford in the long run. For unless the cycle is checked, a woman may find herself constantly devalued, shelling out apologies for things that are not even her fault in exchange for those ever-diminishing moments of peace, and moving back the barriers of permissible behavior as the degree of abuse escalates. The words “I’m sorry” and “I love you” should never be used as emotional currency to buy tickets to that bittersweet honeymoon show. END
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