Chap 26

I found parts of chapter 26, which discussed the concept of unselfishness within relationships, to be really light-hearted and humorous. The first sentence of the letter I found to be quite disturbingly true, as Screwtape says that "courtship is the time for sowing those seeds which will grow up ten years later into domestic hatred". I feel that a lot of the time, when you first are starting to get to know somebody that you're romantically interested in, you really focus on the positive qualities you see in the person. However, things that may slightly perturb you really get ignored, so much that you may not even know they exist. Yet, if these issues aren't properly brought up and discussed, then the person won't know how to change these little annoyances, and they can increasingly build up into huge issues later on down the road. This idea kind of reminded me of the book Sex God that we read, as it kind of brought out the issue that you need to discuss even the littlest issues in a relationship, before they build up into even bigger ones. The more light-hearted issue brought out in the chapter was where Screwtape points out that in discussing any issue, "it becomes obligatory that A should argue in favour of B's supposed wishes and against his own, while B does the opposite". I think this was humorously true, as many times in relationships, you really do make decisions on what you think the other person would want, while your partner does the exact same for you. And usually, you end up doing something that neither of you want, but something that you both think the other wants to do. Overall, the letter contained some pretty interesting insight into relationships, both profound and comical.