I’m reading Sara Dunn’s first novel, “Big Love” this week. I came to that after reading her new—and second novel, “The Secrets of Happiness”. She’s a terrific writer, whom I suspect deeply mines the real and factual to create the fictional. But it works because she is funny.
In the new book—really the old book--she is writing about the man she lives with. One day he goes to the store and calls to tell her he’s not coming back because he loves someone else. This is the kind of real or fictional scenario that allows for endless rounds of “Better or Worse”. Better to be surprised? Worse to suspect before you find out? Better to get it on the phone? Worse to not even be able to hit or scream?
But later in that chapter Dunn writes this:
“The person who loves less has the power in the relationship. The person who is not afraid to leave has the power. Infidelity is power.”
That stopped me. I had to read it over and over. Another mindless gal chat game: Do you want to be the one who loves or who is loved? Do you want to be the lover or the beloved?
Is infidelity power? Or is it revenge for feeling no power at all?
1 comment:
We are curious. Why would you even entertain such thoughts?
At any point in time relationships are never 50 - 50. They move back and forth. But to think about who has power and who doesn't strikes us as inherently destructive.
You must be incredibly insecure to be so worried about such things.
Have you ever really thought about the word "committment"?
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