Why are so many people discontented with their mates? Perhaps one reason is they play the comparison game. Picture a typical morning. A man gets up and starts his day. As he rolls down the freeway, he drives by two or three beautiful women who beckon seductively from billboards. One is dressed in slinky black velvet; the others aren't dressed in much at all.
Hubby walks into his office building and inhales a blend of "Obsession," "Passion" and "Giorgio Red" as he rides in an elevator full of pretty secretaries, accountants and lawyers. He greets his own attractive secretary, who is beautifully dressed, with perfect hairdo and flawless makeup.
That evening our hero arrives home and flips on the tube to relax. There it is-a rerun of his favorite James Bond movie. More beautiful women falling into bed with 007. Then up pops a commercial selling beer, cars or shampoo-with more perfectly shaped young things crowned with glistening hair, perfect white teeth and flawless skin.
Our twentieth-century warrior glances over at his harried wife. She is cooking dinner as two screaming kids with runny noses cling to her legs like small anchors. More than one hair is definitely out of place, the baby has spit food on her blouse and she smells more like broccoli than perfume. And hubby begins to think, What's happened here? How did I end up with this?
Of course it's easy to reverse this picture. The wife may make the same kind of comparisons.
The basic problem with comparisons is that they are based on fantasy games played from a distance. The beautiful people on TV don't look quite that good up close, particularly at 6:00 A.M. It's always easy to think the grass is greener on the other guy's lawn, until you look closely and see all the dandelions and crabgrass.
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