Loyalty and Logic
I want to say that of all the 43 pieces I’ve published, this one has been by far the hardest. Harder than the other very hard ones – and you know how hard those were. When I say harder, I mean more complex and interesting, not more emotional. I hope you find it as fascinating as I have.
It all started when I was watching the series Succession on HBO. If you haven’t seen the show, it’s about a family business where the father has to choose a successor from one of his four children. The father tests the kids’ loyalty to him and to his business. And let’s just say he’s a real asshole. They have a crude way of communicating with each other – I haven’t once heard them say goodbye. They all just say, “fuck off.”
Succession has me thinking about loyalty, and loyalty has me thinking about my divorce. Divorce is complex, which lends itself to the complexity of loyalty. My own divorce was incredibly complex – but I’ve realized that at the end of the day, it’s all about loyalty: who was loyal, who will be loyal and who will insist on loyalty. I’ve seen it all. And it’s all fucked up.
Here are the questions I keep coming back to: is it possible to be loyal to another person and to yourself at the same time? Is loyalty a good thing or a bad thing? And, is loyalty even necessary in human relationships? Before I go on, I should disclose that after my divorce, I did not receive loyalty for the sake of loyalty. So yes, loyalty is a sore subject for me. I still have some old friends, but they did not choose me simply out of loyalty. And you probably know that my former in-laws haven’t spoken to me in years. Knowing all of this, let’s see if I can approach the topic objectively, shall we?
Loyalty seems to always receive a positive connotation, and I too used to think of it as an honorable characteristic. But having experienced the other side of loyalty, it doesn’t feel very positive. I’m challenging the positive connotation by saying this: loyalty implies an expected behavior regardless of the circumstances; loyalty is the adherence and support for someone (or a country) above a person’s own intuition, desire, or need to save themselves from harm. I argue that if a decision is made of free will, it is not loyalty at all. It is just a choice.
Ask and You Shall Receive
After my divorce, my ex insisted on loyalty and received loyalty from almost everyone whom he requested it – which left me bewildered at the sheer obedience of it. Even among his family members, there has been little attempt to truly understand my motives for leaving the marriage. And no attempt at continuing to love the mother of their grandchildren.
If you understand the rejection I experienced after my divorce, you’ll understand my visceral reaction to the thought of loyalty. The rejection, and subsequent loyalty to my ex, was unexpected because I didn’t think the people in our lives would ever choose sides. I thought our relationships and their emotional capacity to love and support us both would prevail.
And it still hurts sometimes. So I’m still trying to understand and analyze my situation. I want to say that loyalty is not even required in relationships. I want to believe that rarely would it be necessary to choose a side. Perhaps in a court battle, accusation of abuse, or to protect someone, would you be required to decide loyalty between two people you love. I want to criticize the whole idea of supporting someone for the sake of loyalty alone, because I haven’t received loyalty. But then again, I didn’t ask for it.
In my analysis, I am even challenging the requirement for loyalty within a marriage. Hang on. Before you close this blog in disgust, let me explain. In a marriage, a person may say that loyalty is essential, but would you really want your spouse to stay married to you if they were unhappy? And isn’t that what is required for true loyalty? To put aside your own needs for someone else? If you say marriage is all about loyalty and that sometimes you should put your spouse above yourself, I would ask this: isn’t that just a choice? Aren’t you still just choosing your spouse? Because if you were truly unhappy, you wouldn’t choose them. You would choose yourself, right? And that takes us back to the beginning. Yes, I know this is getting deep.
Loyalty and Love
If you love someone, does that mean you must be loyal to them? What about loyalty within family? Are we required to choose family over other people we care for, simply because they are family? What if your parent is a real asshole? Would you still support them? What if your brother is legit toxic? Would you still take their side?
People often confuse loyalty and love, but I believe the two are mutually exclusive. Love is based on emotion. Loyalty is based on expectation. Can you love your brother, sister, son or daughter without having to be loyal to them? And if they insist on your loyalty, isn’t that just control? Keep reading for more on that.
Loyalty becomes increasingly complex when there is love on both sides. This is why within families it is incredibly difficult – because loyalty requires choosing a side. On the contrary, when there is only one love, like love of country, loyalty is easy.
While exploring the topic of loyalty, I have dug my heels into this belief: I don’t expect loyalty. And if I were to receive it, it would feel inauthentic. Instead of loyalty, I want authentic love and appreciation. I want dependability and reliability, honesty and trust. For the record, I practice what I preach. So does my family. Throughout my divorce, my family asked me the tough questions. They held me accountable. They still love me, but I don’t expect their loyalty. As a matter of fact, I encouraged them to continue a relationship with my ex – because well, it’s the right thing to do.
Insisting on Loyalty is Control
If the definition of loyalty is to adhere, doesn’t that sound like control? Instead, don’t we all just need authentic love? Loyalty feels like the opposite of authenticity. It feels like abandoning oneself to keep someone else happy. It feels like the sacrifice of one’s own happiness and peace.
Don’t get me wrong, I too want to be chosen. But I want to be chosen by a person’s free will, not by some unwritten rule of loyalty that doesn’t leave room for authenticity, accountability or objective criticism. And I certainly don’t want to be chosen by way of an ultimatum.
Love me if you want. Choose me if you want. But your loyalty? I don’t need it. I need your genuine adoration and respect. I need your honest love and support, not the rule-following expectation that you should choose me over your own feelings or your love for someone else. If I am not your choice, I don’t want to be chosen.
Logic Over Loyalty
A person might think it’s understandable that my former in-laws chose to side with my ex. But for me, it’s important that I believe they made this choice based on free will. If I tell myself they chose him in the name of loyalty, I lose respect for the people whom I once loved so dearly. Because well, logic is important to me. And as I stated, loyalty feels like obedience. Using logic to make choices seems so much more, well, logical.
So I give them the benefit of the doubt that they have thoughtfully and carefully made their choice – on what basis I’m not sure. (I digress.) Doing this makes it easier for me to accept my consequences, knowing that the reward of my new life was worth it. Otherwise I am left having to believe that the whole world is mindlessly obeying orders. That’s even harder to accept than my consequences. And the consequences are pretty fucking hard to accept.
Okay fine, I have been using logic to cushion the blow of my loss. The truth is that I chose my destiny and the consequence of my choice has been the loss of family and friends who abandoned me. It is the loss of their loyalty I am experiencing. But with all this evidence pointing toward the insignificance of loyalty, why do I still feel slighted, regretful, and perhaps a little jealous that my ex has received loyalty? That his loyalty was rewarded with loyalty? That my logic has not been rewarded with the logical choice to love us both?
It seems that I haven’t truly understood what it means to be loyal. It seems that I have not fully grasped the concept that when two people are devoted to one another, and for all intents and purposes loyal, the loyalty can bond them together beyond explanation – and beyond logic. My lack of understanding is probably the reason I am so heavily leaning on logic. Logic has been my excuse for being disloyal to a loyal person.
My ex was loyal – a familial trait shared by all members. I on the other hand have been labeled disloyal for leaving my marriage and even for writing about it. Therefore, I can discern that I did not receive loyalty because I was not loyal. Apparently, in order to receive loyalty, one must be willing to give it. And those who give it now, can expect to receive it later.
And so it is that I have answers to my questions. A person cannot be loyal to herself and to another person at the same time. But that’s the whole point and the very reason for loyalty – sacrificing your own needs for another person, knowing they will do the same for you. Loyalty is not good or bad. It is not capable of such subjectivity – it is not capable of logic. And no, loyalty is not necessary in all human relationships because it doesn’t leave room for commitment to oneself. But again, that’s the point.
I get it now. The true consequence of choosing myself was the loss of their loyalty. I did not receive loyalty because I did not deserve loyalty. I deserved to be free, goddamnit.
If you have to choose between loyalty to yourself and loyalty to someone else, choose you.
Set me free and I will do amazing things.
Tara Gaffney