Book Notes, Fiction # Ordinary People By Diana Evans (2018) ★★☆☆☆ First read in May 2022 --- A long term relationship is a complicated structure, in need of complicated maintenance.  When children are brought or born into it, parenthood only adds to the complexity, never subtracts. And the more complex a structure gets, the more vulnerable it becomes and the more costly its maintenance gets.  Collapse is always on the table, and disorder is what it naturally tends towards, if left unattended.  To maintain its structural integrity, repeated intentional action is needed.  When that is not taken, the long term relationship enters a phase of slow decay, alongside which there exists a point of no return, unmarked and unannounced, after which nothing will be quite the same again.  This phase of estrangement, this slow decay, will always feel like it’s happening all by itself. It will feel “natural”, because it is natural.  What’s unnatural is maintaining complicated orderly structures such as long term relationships against the natural tendency of systems towards increased entropy. So this completely natural and completely normal slow decay of relationships left unattended will sometimes end in formal separation - the collapse of the structure.  But most times, it won’t.  Most of us in long term relationships, for most of their duration, will navigate either the first part of this estrangement phase (before the inconspicuous point of no return) or, if we’re just a little bit more careless, distracted or unlucky, the second part - in which things will never be able to be quite the same, ever again. --- ## Quotes I liked ==“In a way it feels like it’s happening all by itself. Like we could break up any minute.” “There’s no time, though. I can’t be all the things my life is asking me to be. It’s too much.” “Damian often came across his children like this, like droplets of light, appearing suddenly. Their purity kept breaking his heart. The newness of their lives startled him, that he was responsible for carrying them, that whatever he did, whoever he was, would shape them.” “Then the conversations joined again and they discussed together the things they all had in common, their fixed-rate mortgage packages and primary schools and home improvements, frequently using “we” instead of “I” to refer to themselves as individuals. “I” was the lost pronoun in the language of the couple. They spoke queenly of themselves, including the other and undervaluing the self, so that they all became diluted.” “Did the slaves have access to therapy? Were they treated for post-traumatic stress disorder? No, (...) they got on with it and drew on their spirits (...) and they had a lot more to complain about than one measly little family bereavement. They were being bereaved every day, every hour, every minute, en masse, their throats cut, their sweethearts raped, their brothers whipped, their fathers lynched. ==Who are you to complain?” “The arrival of the sandwich trolley was Damian’s proof that school was preparation for this kind of future, that from a very young age our training for captivity is in motion - the uniform, the fifteen-minute breaks, the ridiculous premature lunch.” # Other notes There seems to be a pattern for female lead characters depicting women in long term monogamous relationships - the sarcasm, the distancing, etc, and also in the way men evolve in long distance relationships. We think we're original. And the products of our own very original life tracks. But we may be, in all the important things, products of our social norms and our generational faults. Men tend to feel rejected, unloved and unappreciated because they are taught over many developmental years to expect adoration. So now it's a built-in expectation that's unfulfilled, it's not even conscious. Women tend to feel overwhelmed and exhausted because they are taught to be the adorers and to fill-in strict supporting roles. The realisation hits women like a heavy blow to the head. So they become bitter. So serious. **