Objective Integrity

H

aving integrity

is acting in accordance with rational values. This is an enormously hard thing to achieve, both because most of the “values” we were given – or rather which were

inflicted

upon us – are so ridiculously self-contradictory, and also because living with integrity actively eliminates a goodly number of people from your life.

Women often say that they dislike nagging

, but don’t know any other way to get their needs met.

This is a prime example of

not

living with integrity.

If my wife has to nag me to meet her needs, then she is basically telling me that I do not care about her, and that I will never lift a finger to meet her needs unless she constantly complains that I am not meeting her needs.

In the movie “The Breakup,” Jennifer Aniston tells Vince Vaughn that she wants him to

want

to do the dishes with her.

What she means by this is that she wants him to want to help her, to make the job of entertaining easier, and to place her needs above his own, at least temporarily.

The reason that this kind of behaviour is so corrupt is that it is so fundamentally self-contradictory.

If Jennifer has to constantly nag Vince to meet her needs, then clearly she believes that he does not voluntarily want to meet her needs in the first place. He does not respect what she wants, or does not care that she wants it – either way, he is treating her entirely disrespectfully.

She feels frustrated because she does not feel

visible

to him – as women so often say: “If he only

knew

how important this was to me, he would not

hesitate

to provide it.” Thus Jennifer gets stuck in a “broken record” loop of attempting to become visible to Vince, so that he will give her what she wants.

Fundamentally, then, she is nagging

him because she feels invisible to him – because she feels that he is rejecting who she really is.

This is entirely hypocritical.

Obviously, what Vince wants is to

not be nagged

. Over and over, he complains that she keeps nagging him. He also does not seem to enjoy entertaining – and Jennifer’s obsessive perfectionism appears particularly odious to him.

It is thus ridiculous for Jennifer to chastise him for not meeting her needs, when by that very chastisement

she

is failing to meet his need, which is

to not be chastised

.

The tragic irony is that Jennifer feels rejected, and so rejects the man

that she chose

because he is rejecting her.

This is exactly like saying:

“I need a form of transportation,” then spending years testing various makes of cars and researching all the alternatives, and then finally purchasing a car – and then, when you get it home, standing in front of it and exclaiming: “Excellent, now I’m going to turn this thing into a

boat

!”

Men always resist being turned into

“boats” – while women experience men’s resistance at being transformed into something they are not as a rejection of

themselves

. They will openly say to a man they have chosen: “Change!” and then feel genuinely rejected when he does not change.

Of course, asking someone to change is rejecting him, at least as he is. To choose a man, and then reject a man, and then complain that

you

feel rejected, is quite mad.

If the innocent car in the woman’s garage could speak, surely it would say:

“

If you wanted a boat, why on earth did you buy a car?

”