Over the years, your support has made Women’s Web the leading resource for women in India. Now, it is our turn to ask, how can we make this even more useful for you? Please take our short 5 minute questionnaire – your feedback is important to us!
Do we love the people we love for who they are? Or who who would like them to be?
There is an interesting Greek story about a great sculptor named Pygmalion who found all the women of Cyprus imperfect and decided to create a sculpture based on his idea of the perfect woman. It took him several months to complete the statue, but his creation looked so perfect that he fell in love with it – he called her Galatea. However, Pygmalion increasingly became desperate and unhappy as he had fallen in love with a statue that was lifeless and wouldn’t respond to his love.
What has ‘Pygmalion’ to do with relationships? Sometimes, what attracts us to someone is the differences (“opposites attract”) in their traits. However, as we move into a closer and long term relationship with the person, the same differences (that we once liked) becomes ‘flaws’ or ‘imperfections’.
We then gradually (knowingly or unknowingly) start a ‘Pygmalion Project’ – where we try to change our loved one into this perfect ‘Galatea’ – based on our values, our background and our outlook on life. We try sculpting them through various means. But like Pygmalion, we end up unhappy and frustrated because even if they change under pressure, it isn’t their natural self and people are at their best when they are in their natural self. So this whole project, even if it looks like a success (which means you were able to change your loved one), is actually a failure.
This pertains to a parent-child relationship as well where the parent often starts a Pygmalion Project on the child. Just because the child is born from you, does not mean he/she has to be ‘you’. Nothing could explain this better than Kahlil Gibran’s poem on children.
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
The Greek myth of Pygmalion does end on a sweet note with the Goddess Venus bringing Galatea to life and Pygmalion marrying her to live happily ever after.
In real life however, to be happy in a relationship, one needs to give up on the Pygmalion projects, and love people for what they are.
couple holding hands image via Shutterstock
Sophia is the founder of Soul Cafe, a mom, a travel and life enthusiast. She has keen interest in studying human relationships and behavioral patterns. After a decade of playing various roles in the corporate read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
Be it a working or a homemaker mother, every parent needs a support system to be able to manage their children, housework, and mental health.
Let me at the outset clarify that when I mention ‘work’ here, it includes ANY work. So, it could be the work at home done by a homemaker parent or it could be work in a professional/entrepreneurial environment.
Either way, every parent struggles to find that fine balance between ‘work’ and ‘parenting’, especially with younger kids who still need high emotional and physical support from their caretakers. And not just any balance, but more importantly, balance that lets them keep their own sanity intact!
Paromita advises all women to become financially independent, keep levelling up and have realistic expectations from life and relationships.
Heartfelt, emotional, and imaginative, Paromita Bardoloi’s use of language is fluid and so dreamlike sometimes that some of her posts border on the narration of a fable.
Her words have the power to touch the reader while also delivering some hard hitting truths. Paromita has no pretences in her writing and uses simple words which convey a wealth of meaning in the tradition of oral storytellers – no wonder, Paro is a much loved author on Women’s Web.
This June we celebrate twelve years of Women’s Web, a community built by you – our readers and contributors.