Category: Dating and Relationships
I’d like to talk about independents, because, this item comes up lots in a blind couples relationship, as to why it isn’t working.
I feel we put too high a premium on independents, using it as a reason our relationships don’t work, and we shouldn’t.
I can understand why we do, but it isn’t exactly fair to use. Let me explain.
When we start an intimate relationship with a sighted person, independents is not discussed, because you assume a few things. You assume they can get from point A. to point B. We assume they can get food, and do for themselves. We assume other things as well. The reason we assume these things is they are easy, or should be easy for the simple fact you can see, so all you need to do in order to walk across a street is look that nothings coming, or you see the light is in your favor.
The sighted person can pick up items in a store, not because they can read the labels, but simply because they can see it, the pictures. A box of Cheerios looks like one, so you grab it.
We assume they can clean up after themselves, because they see the mess.
Here is the question though, how well are these tasked performed?
Have we thought about how many sighted persons have limitations on these supposedly simple task? I am referring to a person with good vision, no mental, or physical issues, just the normal sighted person. How many sighted persons can’t drive, and have problems getting from point A. to point B? How many get ran over every year by traffic, have auto accidents, get lost if you take them out of their area and other things?
You that shop have gotten home and discovered the item you wanted, and the shopping helper agreed you had wasn’t what you asked for at all. I have asked for a 16 OZ 6 pack of Pepsi and had the clerk stand in the aisle looking for it for 5 minutes. I’ve reach out, and feel on the shelf, and located it right in front of us. Has this happened?
How well do sighted persons really cook, or clean the house, or dress properly, and cleanly?
We excuse all the lack of doing these things well, if we do them well ourselves stating, well, she/he just isn’t so good at that.
A guy pours a glass of milk, and spills some, and doesn’t wipe it up well, or at all, we just say, he’s lazy, or excuse him for being male and not so tidy.
My girlfriend got lost today, she just doesn’t understand directions well.
We never say she/he is not independent enough, and should be, do we.
, I’m only talking about relationships where we’ve actually seen, and spent some time with the person, or talked about their limitations, not a long distance one where you meet, so have to learn personalities as you go.
Someone else has stated love is a lifestyle, not a given, and that is true. Even in a lust, or friends with benefits relationship, you have a choice before you get in to it to accept your lover as they are, or not.
When you decide to have a relationship with another blind person, you both must accept you are going to be limited because you are both blind, and something’s are going to require doing things differently, or having them done.
If we know our chosen lover can’t get from point A. to point B. we must provide the means to make it happen, or we must take them, or try to teach them to do it, but it can’t be expected.
Her/his personality is such that they don’t clean up, or aren’t tidy. This is not an independents issue, but a lazy or personality issue, so we do the cleaning, or higher someone to come in however many times a week to do it.
Sure, we are to encourage our lovers to become more independent, but we can’t expect something we knew wasn’t there at the start. It is like hooking up with a girl or guy that is overweight, then getting upset because she/he doesn’t come with you to the gym to lose weight.
If you have a need for an independent girl or guy, you should look for these traits at the start.
Blind or sighted, people will have some limitations.
Never take on a live in relationship with someone expecting them to change, this isn’t fair.
When we start to talk down to them, verbally, physically, or, mentally mistreat them, it is abuse.
We “independent” blind travelers understand it isn’t easy getting from point A. to point B. all the time, and personally, I don’t want my lover that doesn’t have the confidence out there trying to do this. It dangerous for them, and if I love, or care about them, I don’t want them getting even minor lost, or feeling scared trying to do something they can’t handle. I want them in a taxi, or something not only for there safety, but my peace of mind.
If my lover doesn’t feel she has the skill to cook, I’ll stand with her and allow her to mess it up a few times, so she can learn how. Can’t clean, lets get the stuff out and try it, same with washing.
If she just can’t learn these task, there is a reason for it provided she is trying and I can see she’s trying. It isn’t bad teachers, it is that something’s just aren’t possible for some people.
My nephew is married to a lady that doesn’t cook. He says she simply isn’t good at it, so he does all the major cooking in his house.
I am not talking from my point of view, but experience, and recently. I was dating a girl that wasn’t able to do some task, and also wasn’t willing. Part of it was lack of ability, and the other was lack of will, so I decided what I’d deal with, and what I couldn’t.
If she needed something from the store, I’d take her when she was with me anyway. Once I got her to the customer service counter, she could handle the rest.
We didn’t live together, so I didn’t have to deal with her lack of will. Smile.
If we had decided to make a live in relationship, I’d have had to accept her as she came, and if she improved on some things, all good, if not, still all good.
I'm not sure what more to say. You've summed it up pretty well.
However, when beginning a relationship, or continuing one for that matter, you learn pretty quickly the other person's shortcomings, and if you are at all honest with yourself, you know your own problem areas.
Then the question is, can you work together or will these problems become insurmountable.
The main thing is: never go into a relationship expecting the other person to change. They will change, but not necessarily the way you want them to.
When my ex wife and I met I was smitten and everything about her was great. However, she had just lost all her sight and had an aversion to learning braille. I knew she would need this skill to take notes etc. I told her I would marry her as soon as she learned the rudiments of braille.
Fortunately for me, she was smitten too, so she learned braille and uses it extensively today--though she'd never give me the credit for helping her out. (The divorce was a battle royal.)
Bob
Gold star posts, Wayne. How I love to see this!
Further the same sighted person may experience limitations that others will challenge. Some think that Anxiety disorder is just a result of being Type A or not doing things right mentally and so don't understand why I would be patient about this.
Human beings like to find fault in one another to make ourselves look better.
It's like the average guy working out only where the really fat guys are, because it makes him look better, comparing himself against them. Then we create a whole host of mythologies about the blind that when you walk the streets and see one with a dog, you find the mythology compellingly absent.
Wayne, I love your posts very much! You really hit the nail on the head, I don't know what else to say, really. But here's the thing, though, now that I give this some thought. Sighted or blind, many people get into relationships expecting their partner to change. I'm sorry, but no one is going to change for you or for me. That's gotta be capitalized, underlined and put in bold face, maybe in big, fancy red print too. I can't express it enough. We change because we feel we must, and because if we don't we'll end up hurt from the outcomes of a failed relationship. By change, I don't mean lacking faults, as that's impossible. I do agree that we have our limitations, but I think it's how much of them we make. Let me illustrate. My sighted husband takes me to work every day. One day he gets sick and he can't take me, so when someone else offers to take me, I don't know how to tell them where my job is, or what's close to it because my husband does it for me. I don't think one has to be completely independent, but that we can do fine on our own so that we don't become dependent on our partner. What I mean is that if I don't clean up the table after we both eat and he does it, I can do it too whenever he can;t. I don't want to make my man feel responsible for me. Sure we can do things for each other, I'm not saying no to that. But I think that if we do them out of necessity, with the exception of being sick, it can become frustrating. You're right about sighted people having trouble getting from pout A to point B. I don't think those minor things should define a relationship, unless I have to do all the effort to make sure my man goes to where he has to, and gets so used to it he's oblivious about it. But we all have our faults, we can't be free from them. Becauselike I said we can't change anyone, nor can anyone change us if we're unwilling to make changes for ourselves. I think there has to be a balance with the whole independence issue, sighter or blind.
On the change thing, Bob is right, people won't change the way you want them to. In fact, we change in ways we would have formerly not expected to.
This part is going to sound like splitting hairs, but posts on here have gotten me thinking about how I define my own long term relationship.
I think you can't be devoted to an ideology, or even a relationship, more than the person. If you are devoted to the person, you are free to experience their changes and yours as they come. If you're devoted to an ideology be it religion or independence, more than the person, you will find static, in my opinion.
People always talk about standing for something.
But great people in history, be they the 60s generation, the underground Railroad, or the Civil War, did not stand for something. They stood by someone.
People in the 60s did not get rocks thrown at them because they believed someone: They did so because they stood behind groups of oppressed people.
Sounds like a fine line, but a line it is, I believe. Since about age 25, I have sworn off putting ideologies over people, and strive to make sure I uphold this.
Beliefs about independence or heaven or hell or who is privileged and who isn't, will not keep you warm at night. But the partner to whom you are devoted will.
this is true, Leo. You're right, at the end of the day if you stand by someone you'll have them, but this is not always the case
I like all that's been posted here thus far. It provides a good foundation for discussion, and for the most part I agree.
when i'm deciding if a long term blind relationship will work out, I'll admit, I do base that judgement to an extent on what that person can do. Do we lead a similar life style. Can we both take care of the house, go do what needs to be done, etc. In the cases where the answer is no. then I decide then and there mentally if its a deal breaker. If the person wants to learn that's great. there are always new things to learn. Hell, i'm learning, and I hope i'll keep finding new things until the day I die. But, if its clear that the person has no wish to learn to cook, clean, do their own laundry, learn how to travel, and take care of themselves. I'm out. I can't just take care of someone. though i'm willing to help anyone learn.
I don't want a child, so why would I want an adult that can do about as much for themselves as a child?
that being the case, I don't expect people to cane for me. I think changing for a person is not only wrong, but impossible. I've learned by watching myself, and others... If you really want to change, you'll do it for you. Changing for someone else just isn't a strong enough motivating factor for damn near anyone.
Humans don't like change. Its difficult... It takes the kind of internal drive that is internally motivated. Because its easier to change your external environment in many cases, than it is to change your internal one.
Sure, in the short term, moving out if your relationship is difficult will be hard. Splitting up will be hard. But battling a habit, behavior or ideal/state of mind/belief you've held for years... that's much harder.
My first thought on reading the title of this thread was that this doesn't have any more actual bearing in a blind relationship than a sighted relationship. There are sighted couples where one partner does almost all of the work and the other does next to none, including driving, cleaning, cooking, working, etc.
One thing I noticed the more I was around blind and visually impaired people as a group was how incredibly judgmental the culture is as a whole. We are so supersensitive to how we are perceived by the rest of the world that we are unnecissarily harsh to each other and most likely to ourselves. I don't think that gets us very far.
If someone isn't independent enough for you, that is fine but don't throw the blind thing in there as though that makes it a mortal sin. Granted, being blind and having a lack of independence as a personality trait is likely to have deeper consequences than it would for a sighted person.
but independence is a factor of at least two different things, personality and knowledge/experience, maybe other things that haven't occured to me off the top of my head.
As for the post question, it depends.
How much does independence matter to you in a partner? Some people want their partner to need them.
How burdensome is it for you to pick up the slack? How much slack is there?
I couldn't stand to have to constantly clean up after someone whether I'm blind or sighted and whether or not they are blind or sighted. That would drive me nuts! Wipe up your own damn crumbs and keep your dirty laundry off the floor, dammit! LOL.
I hate going to the cafeteria at work. I can get there just fine, but once inside the door, the equipment is so loud from every angle I can't get my bearings. People don't say anything and to tell when the line is moving, I have to keep moving my cane, which means I have to bump it against people which I absolutely hate doing. The cook doesn't ever say "next" to so again, placing an order is a guessing game. Yada yada yada when it comes to paying. So I avoid going there. But their food is lousy so it isn't much of a hardship! Occasionally, I ask one of my coworkers to pick something up for me. I actually feel terribly guilty about it, but I really don't know why. Recently, the coworker forgot to bring nice shoes to change into and only had her ugly boots so she refused to go because she didn't want to be seen in the ugly boots. So I went myself and it just reinforced my feelings and I don't ever want to go again. Does this make me dependent? I don't mind going to the store at work and I always ask if someone else in the office needs anything.
Okay, that is all for my ramblings for now.
I am thinking along the same lines as you Vh. Good way of wording it. It comes down to what you want from the other person. I don't really know of any people like this, but I won't say there are no people out there who wouldn't mind dating someone who was sloppy, because they enjoy cleaning up after people. It sounds silly because that isn't how we are but who knows, there is most likely someone out there who will dig it. I know many who are the ones who are sloppy and they don't care though. I even know sighted people who are like so.
Another aspect to this could be financial.
Couple is living together or married, pools their finances.
Scenario 1
Partner A will only take taxi to work (or anywhere) and Partner B takes the bus and or walks.
Partner A is spending a considerable amount of transportation budget while Partner B is spending a negligible amount.
Scenario 2
Partner A goes to grocery store and buys groceries to prepare food and in preparation finds the best deals before shopping.
Partner B doesn't cook (maybe doesn't like to or maybe doesn't know how) and orders delivery when its B's turn.
But the thing is, this happens with sighted people, too. How is it different?
VH pegged it. I've pointed out both seriously and satirically how we are incredibly hypercritical of one another. This is absolutely unfair and I don't care if it's reality or how common the behavior is, it needs to stop. Since we blind folks are all individuals, we are not all good at everything, so one person may be good at something when another might not do well at all. My wife is good at cooking and cleaning and organizing. My cooking skills are OK and I clean decently and I've just always ahd to organize things to find them. However, she's not good at mobility at all and has some low confidence in some computer skills. Me, I'm not stellar at mobility but I can get where I need to go without killing myself and am a decent enough tech user. So yep, it's just us being individuals and whatever skills we lack we work around somehow because we want to stay in this marriage for the long haul.
Leo's words are worth repeating: it's a thought that I never thought of before.
He said: "Since about age 25, I have sworn off putting ideologies over people, and strive to make sure I uphold this.
Beliefs about independence or heaven or hell or who is privileged and who isn't, will not keep you warm at night. But the partner to whom you are devoted will."
Wish I'd known that a long time ago.
Bob
There are folks out there who do feel fulfilled taking care of others and there are some who are very resentful that they'd have to take care of another person at all. There are folks out there, also, who just need to be needed. Working video hardware or not doesn't matter, this is just how some folks are.
And there are also those who want to over do it, taking care of someone so much that the other person feels smothered and controlled. my mother used to work for a sighted couple, and she became very close friends with the wife. The wife's biggest complaint is that her husband wouldn't let her do anything for herself. If she tried, he'd just yell and curse her, and then he'd feel like she didn't think he was doing enough. he thought he was being good to her by doing everything. I was shocked. You mean this sort of stuff happens even in the sighted community?
Yes, it does, and that was my reason for posting this.
I got the idea from the relationship issues on another recent board, and it made me think.
We blind persons feel we have to have independents, and that everyone should be at the same level, and that is not humanly possible.
I’m not talking the basics, picking up after yourself, but travel, cooking, shopping, and any other item that might be useful.
If I get involved with a woman that can’t travel well, I know this. I can try to help her improve her skill, but at no time can I say “you are blind, you need to know this.” “All blind people should know how to get to the store and home.”
It simply isn’t fair.
Being blind, doesn’t give us the right to demand protection in our mates, and when we do this, we are wrong.
When I say we have limitations, I got the exact response “well, I wouldn’t say we’re limited.” How so?
I’m a man that is able to do many things. For example, I can build a small cabin if I decide I want to do so. I’ve got my cabin all sawed, set up, rain proof, and you can live in it right? Set a can of beans, and a can of corn on the shelves in my cabin, and I don’t have my iPhone or any other means, but must tell you the corn from the beans, and I’d have to be lucky to get it correct.
If I could see them, there would be no luck in it, even if I couldn’t read.
Sure, I understand we need to cohabitate with someone we enjoy doing so with, but we shouldn’t get on such a high house that we forget we too require assistants from time to time, and if we take a lover that has more limitations, we need to accept it from the start, or not go there.
I knew a sighted man that was with a blind girl, and his complaint was she couldn’t look in his eyes, so he needed a sighted woman to do this.
We blind do the exact same things to our blind mates, and I feel we especially should know better, but sadly, we seem not to.
Wow Wayne. This is definitely one of your most interesting topic for a very long time. *smiles*
I think the level of independent and dependency have nothing to do with either you are blind, sighted, death, having a disability or not. It have a lot to do with your own personality and your behaviour as a person, with the influence of your family, culture, custom, values, society and economical background.
That's one of the biggest reasons my first GF and I broke up. She wanted me to do all the changing, starting with converting to her extremely narrow and dogmatic viewof religion and life. She also accused me o not being independent enough for her (granted there are a few things I could do better), but then you look at her and she's about as lazy as they come.
Honestly, when I consider any partner, things like this would be likely to come up. considering I know a lot of sighted people that can't cook, clean, etc.
In my opinion, its fine if 2 people have sets of skills that compliment the other. But I just really don't want to be a care taker for someone, though i'm a fan of doing things to help people out.
Yes family, culture, and all have much to do with our make up. But even there, some just don't learn all the skills.
I understand the care giver aspect, so I'll ask, how much is to much? What is acceptible?
to me, what deems helping people out as acceptable, Wayne, is when I'm able to see that the person is putting in the effort to help themselves, first and foremost. if I can see that they aren't, I won't even bother, myself.
Okay. I'll add to the question a bit more.
I've seen people try, especial with travel, and they just don't have the nack.
Now, I'll make a odd statement, but picking up after yourself, generally doing things about the house, and keeping yourself clean are much like breathing, not hard to learn, and after a while automatic.
Travel, cooking, learning to clean well, budgeting, and task that require some more effort are harder for some, and travel without confidentness is flat out dangerous.
So adding this, how much is to much care?
It has to be a give and take, or else one person will start feeling resentful of the other. OK, I clean the house all the damn time and cook more often than not, so you get off your lazy butt and take out the trash, since I hate that job. In all routine household things, be it making the week's shopping list or fixing coffee in the morning, both parties have to do something.
Speaking around the house, I have the mindset that if I can do it, you should know how to do it or learn. If I can clean up the counters after dinner, then you can too once in a while. Taking care of 100 percent of the household chores would be too much like cleaning up after a lazy football watching man pig for me. There again is that stereotype, even as I write. Blind, sighted, deaf, if a man is lazy, we women, especially southern born women kind of just roll our eyes and get quietly more resentful about it. It's almost like this resigned expectation for men to be lazy around the house.
As someone with extreme travel anxiety who works a part-time job despite roiling sickness, travel is hard. My boyfriend went out of his way once to come with me to drop something off at my job so I wouldn't have to make the trip alone for the first time. It lessened my anxiety considerably. Now, my dog and I do it all the time. Playing nursemaid, or lending a supporting hand?
Bottom line: Life is about doing what has to be done. If you aren't trying to get to that point, I don't want to babysit you.
I agree with Cala and others who have posted. It has very little to do with blind/blind. Let me explain:
Both Mr. Crazy and I like to cook; I tend to cook during the week, he cooks on the weekends. There's exceptions to this, but it is fairly constant. he does dishes, I do laundry. I make the coffee, clean the bathroom, and vacuum. He sweeps, gardens, and mows the lawn.
it is a matter of give-and-take. Perhaps not 50-50, but we both contribute to the successful running of our household. In any relationship, blind or not, this is important.
Kate
Kate's message makes a ton of sense.
Ha! I didn't expect it to make that much sense. Thanks, Leo!
Kate
I thank you all for posting. I wanted to see what was thought.
Keep them coming.
Hi Wayners.
To answer your first question about how well sighted people perform these tasks: One I know can clean, cook and scrub up well, and is generally very choreful, smile.
How about that persons coffee? Smile.
Oh that's pretty good too!
Aww, edd... WAyne, I do agree with you. I think, though that there are sighted people that are pretty clumsy as well. You go into their houses and it's worse than mine, ahahahaha lol not! I don't think this has anything to do with sight. You'd think that because someone has sight and they can see how things look and fix it. But then you have the other side and think that someone is nit sighted would keep things meet so they can find things easier. Smith, Smith Smith. Tht's all. lol!
How do I turn off this stupid autocorrection. Sorry for all my typos I meant myth, myth, myth. lol! I'm so so sorry. lol!
Stop messing up and it will leave you alone. Lol