You Married the Paralegal!

Two Stories:

A man starts dating a woman who is a paralegal. She tells him that she plans to go to law school and one day practice law. The man commends her on this. Eventually, man and woman become husband and wife. Woman comes to man one day and tells him that, although she’d like to finish her degree, she’s not as keen on being a lawyer as she once was. Man says, “As long as you’re sure, it’s fine by me. I married the paralegal.”

A woman starts dating a man who is a paralegal. He tells her that he plans to go to law school and one day practice law. The woman commends him on this. Eventually, man and woman become husband and wife. Man comes to woman one day and tells him that, although he’d like to finish his degree, he’s not as keen on being a lawyer as he once was. Woman says, “Where’s this coming from? When we met you had ambition. You were working on your dream of being a lawyer. We’ve discussed this before and you admitted that you were just a little fatigued and needed a break, but that you would eventually get your degree and take the bar exam. Now you’re telling me that the place you were in when I met you is the same place you want to be in forever. I just thought we had the same goals, the same drive. I thought you wanted to do better in life. Maybe I was wrong.”

The Moral:

When a man meets a woman, he pretty much accepts that what he sees is what he gets. If a man isn’t satisfied with a woman’s “here-and-now” he simply keeps searching. If he marries the paralegal and she becomes a lawyer then that’s great, but if she doesn’t she’s still the woman he fell in love with and accepted. For men regression, not lack of progression, is the gravest sin: “When I met her she was 125 pounds; it’s a year later and she’s 140!”

When a woman meets a man, far too often she falls in love with the lawyer (the changes that will [should?] occur with him in the future) as opposed to the paralegal (the reality of the man standing before her). When he doesn’t become the lawyer or seems satisfied with being a paralegal, the woman is disappointed and resentful of his lack of desire to progress. She cannot love the man as he is… only as she expects him to have been.

Bottom Line:

Many women become dissatisfied in their relationships and marriages because they bought into the future instead of the present, because they bet on the potential rather than the actual. Remember, you married the paralegal!