A wife denied recognition provokes conflict to force her partner’s continuing attention
Evidence
I discovered that Frieda would not let things slide. I mean between them. Their relationship was never allowed to become slack. When … they were going along smoothly … not noticing each other much, when the thing between them tended to slip into unconsciousness and rest, Frieda would burst a bombshell at him. She never let him forget her. What in the first days must have been the splendor of fresh and complete experience had become, when I knew them, the attack and the defense between enemies … Frieda would sting him in a tender place … At the end of an evening when he had not particularly noticed her, she would begin insulting him. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1308
Categorization
- XREF: Recalls the recognition dialectic central to Beauvoir’s existentialism — the need to be seen by the Other, even negatively, when transcending one’s own being is not otherwise available. — connects to: A married woman’s coquetry seeks male confirmation rather than attachment.; The lover’s self-presentation demands the Other’s free recognition to succeed; A marriage trapped in recognition struggles escalates every quarrel into an existential duel — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1309
- CANDY: The vivid Frieda Lawrence anecdote — she would rupture smoothness to sting him in a tender place when unacknowledged.