The Trouble with men
This book aims to be a short, intensive immersion into the perils, limits, and possibilities of human intimacy. How did I get this way? What is this way? Our marriage involving this way. Attempt to stop being this way. Implications of being this way.
Or: What is it like to be this way? How did I get this way? What is it like for you that I’m this way? Can I live with being this way? Can I stop being this way?
Or: Hamartia; childhood; marital strife; irreparable damage; ah, but we are all like this.
Or: The nature of; the sources of; our marriage involving; my attempts to rid myself of; a partial defense of.
Or: Human history of; psychic sources of; our marriage involving; attempt to eliminate and/or suppress and/or attempt to disentangle from (and/or affirm?); psychological/ philosophical implications of, etc.
Or: How 1) one is wounded; 2) one tries to overcome these wounds; 3) these wounds become the very theater of one’s self; 4) one despairs that one will ever overcome those wounds, and these wounds lead one to anger, violence; and 5) finally, we connect to other people by realizing we are all wounded (this is our scar tissue and our glue, etc.).
Or: The nature of masochism. The origins of masochism. Our marriage involving masochism. Attempt to surmount masochism. A philosophy (and/or a psychology?) of masochism.
Or: Acknowledgment of my masochistic tendencies. Biological, psychological, and philosophical sources. Manifestation in our marriage. The sense that all there is in the author’s life/heart is suffering. The sense that, for all human beings, existence is suffering.
Or: On Being One’s Own Bitch.
Perhaps the real subject is my willingness, or at least desire/ impulse, to write this book, to risk our marriage— Do I love you? Do you love me? What kind of marriage do we want? How real?
Let’s say I’m wrItIng a love Letter to you.
Or: Do you like me? Do you care about me?
Or: Are you in love with me? Do you like making love with me? Do you love making love with me?
(Don’t answer.)