The Ground Beneath a Promise

I have lost count of the drafts of this essay.

I have written about politics, power, and the state of the world. Apparently, writing about relationships between women and men requires more careful footwork.

Even the essay feels like a minefield.

I want to understand why people hesitate to trust each other without giving them more reasons to retreat. I believe in love. I also understand why someone might approach it with their armour on.

After my divorce, I became a wedding officiant.

For three or four years, I stood with couples before the people gathered to witness their marriage. The three of us formed a small triangle. I guided the ceremony, but the promise belonged to them.

I loved that work.

Two people were saying publicly: I choose you. I want to care for you and build a life with you.

I knew some marriages might end. Still, they were choosing a future they could not see.

That took courage.

I think about everything people learn before they feel ready to make that promise.

I raised three daughters to be strong, careful, and adventurous. I encouraged them to take risks and follow interests that suited their personalities, even when those interests differed from mine. I wanted them to explore independently and trust their judgment.

When they were young, we agreed on a code. If they felt uncomfortable at someone’s house, they could call and say, “Mom, I’m feeling sick.” I would know to come and get them.

They could leave without explaining their discomfort in front of anyone. Knowing they had a way out could help them venture in.

They also watched relationships around them: who made room for whom, who gave, and who kept giving without much coming back.

Some of the armour women carry comes from their own experiences. Some comes from watching their mothers and grandmothers, and hearing what happened to women they know.

They bring those lessons into dating.

In Canada, one in three women reported experiencing unwanted sexual behaviour in public, including unwanted sexual attention or physical contact.

A woman may arrange her own way home, tell a friend where she is, and keep track of her drink. While deciding whether she likes someone, she may also consider how she would leave if he ignored her refusal.

Then intimacy asks her to become vulnerable.

Put your armour on. Now take it off.

When one person expects sex before the other feels ready, asking for time can feel like risking the connection itself. Wanting someone and trusting them enough for intimacy may happen at different speeds.

Can we let that trust grow without pressure?

Men can approach dating with apprehension too. Rejection, deception, humiliation, and financial worries can make closeness difficult. Men also experience coercion and violence. Acknowledging both people’s vulnerability does not make their risks identical.

Courtship can offer friendship, conversation, time together, and perspectives from people we trust. We can value those things while leaving the choice with the couple.

Does someone’s warmth survive disappointment? Can they accept a boundary? Do they follow through when keeping a promise becomes inconvenient?

I have been single for fifteen years. I would welcome a loving relationship. I have also spent those years building friendships, community, meaningful work, and room to create.

Sometimes I overthink what joining my life with someone’s would change. Caution can protect me; it can also keep me from discovering someone.

I want a partner who gives generously, as I do.

Time, attention, affection, effort, and money all give us ways to contribute. In my close friendships, care comes back without my having to chase it.

Partnership needs that reciprocity.

In The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm treats love as a practice involving care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. He asks us to develop our capacity to love, alongside our wish to be loved.

That capacity becomes visible when lives intertwine.

A woman can want children and question what parenthood will cost her. Will her partner adjust his life too?

If she reduces her earnings to care for their children, they need to protect her financial future as well as pay today’s bills. He also remains responsible for parenting.

A child wakes with a fever. Both have work waiting. Do they decide whose day changes, or does one automatically rearrange everything?

Both parents need initiative and room to exercise judgment.

When earnings differ, both people need to agree on expenses each can realistically carry, with room to reconsider the arrangement.

We rely on friends, families, neighbours, and partners. Independence can coexist with belonging. We can retain ambitions while becoming dependable to each other.

There is a French word I return to: complicité.

Shared understanding. Humour. Trust. Enough confidence to disagree and still feel we are building on the same side.

I think of two people flying independently in the same direction. Shared goals, a shared vision, each making room for the other’s flight. They choose the journey together.

I am drawn to anam cara, the idea of a soul friend. I still believe in that depth of companionship. I also believe in taking time to discover whether two people can build it together.

Even in a loving relationship, we will disappoint each other. What happens then matters. Can we hear how our choices affected our partner, own our part, and change what we do?

That is accountability. It gives trust somewhere to grow again, though it cannot guarantee forgiveness or repair. If the relationship ends, honesty still matters. Where it is safe, both people deserve the truth they need to choose their next steps.

I think again of those couples standing before me.

Their promise mattered. What would make it believable was how they treated each other afterward.

We cannot remove every risk from love. We can give someone reasons to trust us, and keep giving them when sharing a life asks more of us than we expected.

Sources

• Women and Gender Equality Canada, “Sexual violence: It’s not just ‘how things are’”⁠, citing Statistics Canada’s 2018 Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces.

• Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving (1956), on care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge as elements of love.