On Valuing Your Lifetime Partner
Just a few days ago, my twin brother got engaged. I am still a little bit surprised because prior to engagement, I have never seen the woman (even though my family has). So, I beg my supervisor to have a couple of days-off of my work to attend the engagement in another city. That reminds me of something about my late father, he got 2 bad news. First, he is not lucky enough to saw the first among of his children got engaged. And the second, I just noticed there is one child out of five who did not visit him since he was cremated and put in columbarium, and I think you can guess who that ungrateful person is. I personally think my job has to do with it since I must move 1,500 km from my family, and it also requires me to going to remote areas unexpectedly.
In case you ask, yes, I got a lot of “so when is yours?” question. But fortunately, I am not a person like millennial and Gen-Z nowadays that easily offended by this question, honestly, I don’t think this question offend me at all, it just a question and I just need to answer. However, let’s not talk about that boring stuff. Let’s take a step back before the engagement.
You see, my parents, especially my late father is a very strict person regarding our lifetime partner’s criteria. He/she must be like this, like that, and so on, and as you may expect, all of us chose to ignore it anyway. But let’s make this interesting, do you ever see woman named Erica Morin on TEDxTexasTechUniversity talk? If you don’t, just google it or type it on YouTube search (the original video is private, but there are many responds to that video). And as I am from Indonesia, probably my fellow Indonesian remembers about “30-million-wage husband” by Selphie Usagi. Hold on your temper, it’s not about what is right or wrong, but I want to share what I was thinking lately about a way to value our lifetime partner rather than just throw away the criteria. Yes, it is not from some books or philosopher’s thought, it is just what inside my head so please just bear with me.
Let me introduce you to the 2-factors rule: the boundary factor and the cumulative factor. Boundary factor is something that is considered “a-must” factor. It must be like that because it is your boundary and should not be crossed. The cumulative factor is “a-preferable” factor. It is your preference about someone and therefore is not absolute. Pretty easy, right? Well, based on my experience, I think many people still can’t differentiate between those two. One easy way to distinguish between these two is to just keep asking a “what-if” question to yourself, let me give you an example.
“Would you marry someone who is not a virgin anymore?”
Because this thing is still considered taboo in Indonesia, this is a good example. Don’t be angry you feminist, this is just a question, now you answer it. To check whether it belongs to boundary or cumulative factor, ask yourself a “what-if” question like this:
“What if that person was raped before?”
More and more, continue on asking to yourself:
“What if that person is humble and kind?”
“What if that person is very rich?”
“What if that person is a good cook?”
As you can see, different person may have different answer, and that’s okay because they see it just as different factor. But the important thing is if you have different answers between the first question and the remaining “what-if” question, then that it is definitely not your boundary factor. Let’s say you say no the first time but say yes after considering she is very rich. That means that you just prefer that woman for your lifetime partner is virgin, but if she is not, it is still okay if she has anything else that you prefer, which is wealthiness. You don’t say virginity does not matter, it matters, it just is not an absolute criterion for your partner, and it also says you have to see the other things about her.
This is the main concept of cumulative factor; you just keep on collecting the positive side and negative side and sort of sum it all to define that person. I think this is the most important part of valuing a person, just like Albert Einstein says you can’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, you can’t just see one or two positive or negative side of people and judge them based only from that side. The more cumulative factor you have about your partner means the more accurate you can value that person as long as you can define it correctly that it belongs to cumulative factor. I personally think the beauty of cumulative factor is it gives room for imperfection, and therefore defines us human.
What about boundary factor? It is hard to give a good example of this one because it really depends on that person, but as I am from Indonesia, let me start with this example:
“Would you marry someone who has different religion?”
Now, some people may say no the first time and whatever the rest of the “what-if” questions, their answer will not change. They don’t care if you are rich like Elon Musk or handsome like Zayn Malik, their answer is still no unless they change their beliefs. If that’s the case, then you can consider religion is your boundary factor, because it defines something that should not be crossed. And like I said before, different person may put religion in cumulative factor because they see it “forgivable” and they need to see other things in that person. I know some people also do not want their partner to be a smoker, whatever the “what-if” questions that follow the rest, they will still say no. This is just another example of boundary factor.
As you can see, the idea is very simple (otherwise my brain can’t process it), but the application really depends on whether you can define if that factor belongs to boundary or cumulative. To do that, keep on asking the “what-if” questions until you can be sure which one it belongs to. If your partner-to-be does meet your boundary factor, shows pretty good cumulative factor, and you can tolerate her negative side in cumulative factor also, well probably you can consider them as your lifetime partner, I’ll leave the rest of the decision to you. As for Selphie Usagi’s case, you can also clearly see if 30-million-per-month requirement is definitely not her boundary factor.
However, this is not really a theory that guarantee success either. In the end, it is just some things that exist in the head of person who don’t have a great relationship history. So, I guess better if you think first and see the flaws. For the rest? Well, do it with your own risk and good luck!
