[HN Gopher] The Problem of Marital Loneliness
___________________________________________________________________
The Problem of Marital Loneliness
Author : lermontov
Score : 270 points
Date : 2021-09-26 01:59 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| p0d wrote:
| "he's considerate and unromantic, whereas I'm romantic and
| inconsiderate."
|
| I appreciated this observation. I have been married for 26 years.
| I am more expressive to my wife with my words, "I love you" etc.
| However, her actions speak louder than my words. I seem to be
| wired for me first where she is wired for me next. I'm trying to
| get better at being more helpful rather than grand gestures.
| trentnix wrote:
| There's a book that is often "assigned" to newlyweds or engaged
| couples called "The Five Love Languages" that provides some
| insight into this. I was asked to read it via a church-related
| program for engaged couples. It's no great scientific and
| psychological insight into relationships, but I know of a few
| marriages that it has saved.
|
| The general idea is that there are many (the book outlines 5)
| ways to express love. If you express love one way and your
| spouse in another way, you may simply miscommunicate. Your
| anecdote seems to map perfectly to the "love languages" that
| the author outlines: you'd be a "words of affirmation" type and
| she's an "acts of service" type. You need to focus on being
| helpful because "acts of service" moves the needle for her. She
| needs to be more verbal because "words of affirmation" move the
| needle for you. And neither you of you should mistake the
| behavior of the other as being loveless - it's just not
| expressed in an effective manner.
|
| Marrying my wife is the smartest thing I've ever done. We have
| three very young children (all three 5 and under), never get to
| go out, never get a break, and are taking an absolute ass-
| kicking between kids getting sick, potty-training, and all the
| other normal stuff you deal with. And I've never been more
| content and happier in my life.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| _" If Jonathan and Mira's relationship seems better than Johan
| and Marianne's, it must also be acknowledged that Levi sets his
| couple an easier problem. Bergman suggested that marriage was
| meant to address a metaphysical need: our connection to reality.
| Levi, by contrast, sees marriage as a way of navigating one's
| place in the economic and social order.[..]. The shift is
| telling. If marriage is composed of a set of tasks or projects--a
| career, parenting, keeping a home--its failures can be displayed
| as extrinsic to the question of how spouses connect. Levi's
| diagnosis is something like: these people have different
| priorities. This means that their lives can succeed to a greater
| extent than their marriage does. What was, in Bergman's hands, a
| horrifying picture of the limits of human contact becomes, in
| Levi's, a set of increasingly independent journeys of personal
| growth._"
|
| This is I think a fantastic observation about a lot of fiction
| that deals with personal relationships today. What bugs me about
| so many of them is how narcissistic they are in the sense that
| the question all of them seem to pose is how relationships can be
| managed like a project, almost like a self-help career guide.
|
| As the article points out Bergman's original piece asked
| fundamental questions about the nature (and limits) of human
| connections. From the first two episodes of the new version I've
| seen it has exactly the kind of atmosphere the article describes,
| how marriage is 'managed' and organized in relationship to work,
| careers and so forth.
| defterGoose wrote:
| I haven't watched either (though was intrigued by the new
| release), and I have the same sort of feeling about modern
| romance-focused media. It all seems to revolve around
| management and coordination rather than the deep existential
| well that I feel is the basis for all such relationships.
| Though I do think that the individuals' capacity for
| introspection leads to two fundamentally different kinds of
| relationship ills: ones that stem from an externalization of
| the "problems" to the other person or the relationship itself,
| and ones that come out of the internal, existential "lightness
| of being".
| 01100011 wrote:
| Marriage is many things to many people. The concept of marriage
| is both cultural and legal. Whatever you feel about marriage,
| don't forget that it is also a legal concept with its own
| definition which may or may not coincide with your specific
| cultural expectations.
| erikerikson wrote:
| In the problems of this article's perspective is a fixed mindset.
| That we have our defaults and starting places but cannot expand
| beyond them. Even (as one has in an [IMO] ideal life partner)
| given a customized guide into foreign passions and interests. Yet
| this is step one because the next and following stages are
| exploring and creating inside that connection and sharing,
| supporting both the contributed growth of the individuals but
| also of the shared endeavor and continuous creating.
|
| I've been in a relationship not far from the early stages of what
| is described. Shifting towards what I describe above was
| contained by physical and emotional violence. So far as I can
| tell those were echoes of her past traumas, not to excuse. I can
| empathize though... The task of next levels growth is a challenge
| that rocks us at levels we are not normally thinking of and in
| facing we find nearly no guidance to assist us in our journeys.
|
| What a pregnant and rich context into which a shift could unlock
| untold riches of two deeply sophisticated minds with much to
| offer and deeper challenging commitments to forge. There are
| other options, clearly, but are there, really?
|
| [To be slightly less obtuse: the final sentence shifts from
| possiblity to desirability which is semantic slipperiness for
| which I apologize... but not enough to rephrase, apparently]
| emmelaich wrote:
| Sorta related, I was reading today a translation of Charles
| Aznavour's "Je Bois" (I Drink) I drink to
| forget my unfortunate years
| And this life together
| With you, but so lonely.
| I drink to give me the illusion I do exist,
| Because I'm too selfish
| To smash my own face.
|
| It continues ...https://lyricstranslate.com/en/je-bois-i-
| drink.html-3
| gxt wrote:
| "Yesterday, when I was young There were so many songs That
| waited to be sung So many wild pleasures That lay in store for
| me And so much pain My dazzled eyes refused to see I ran so
| fast that time And youth at last ran out And I never stopped to
| think What life was all about And every conversation That I can
| recall Concerned itself with me And nothing else at all"
|
| -- https://youtu.be/7GtzB8cfkh0
|
| Sometimes I feel every life has been lived more than once, and
| maybe if we were different we wouldn't have to, but sometimes I
| wonder if it's what's tough that makes us who we are. Guess
| we'll have to wait until we can transplant memories so we can
| all learn from our mistakes, without suffering them ourselves.
| jbjbjbjb wrote:
| Kids, families, shelter, food(!), retirement, health, social
| issues/relationships all feel like the things people can connect
| on. They're more real, they're innate. And you need the right
| level of challenge in all of them, too easy and it's unfulfilling
| and too hard is soul crushing.
|
| I don't expect to "connect" with anyone with my own interests and
| hobbies - that seems incredibly naive to me. They're far too
| abstract to be interesting to others.
| didibus wrote:
| My take is that you've got to have some things you enjoy doing
| together or talking about, but it doesn't have to be everything,
| and being in a marriage is no excuse for stopping to have other
| relationships with other people that can fill those gaps.
|
| For example, if you're a nerd for philosophy, find some friends
| who are too, talk to them about it, join online communities, etc.
| Same thing if you're a nerd for geometry.
|
| More importantly I'd say is your partners ability to support you
| in having those other outlets and relationships or opportunities
| for doing those things as well. That's what I'd consider love.
|
| Do the things you both enjoy together, encourage each other to
| also find people and ways to do the things you don't both enjoy
| seperately, and be okay with that.
|
| Now, if there's nothing you both enjoy doing or talking about,
| well, I'm sorry to say, but why are you together? Such
| relationships cannot survive beyond the initial lust.
|
| If one or both of you have grown to enjoy different things and
| because of that no longer enjoy much in common, well that's how
| people grow appart, and it's why some relationship do eventually
| end naturally, and it could be time to move on, and that's okay
| too.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| yes this is a very important point, in a marriage, a partner
| does not need to fill every need you have to have a good
| marriage.
| defterGoose wrote:
| I think a lot of people do _expect_ this though, and it 's
| why so many people believe that there is "one person" for
| you. A lot of times, it foments resentment, and this is an
| indicator that the resentful person probably has some
| internal growth to do. There are also just plain jealous
| people.
| graycat wrote:
| There is an explanation using some old stereotypes, to connect
| with others:
|
| Men share their knowledge and ideas.
|
| Women share their emotions and feelings.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Men tend to get dumped, mocked, or injured if they share their
| feelings, while women tend to get dumped or mocked if they
| share their knowledge and ideas. Isn't it handy that
| stereotypes align with the mechanisms that enforce them? It's
| nothing innate. None of these stereotypes have any guidance for
| nonbinary people, so we tend to just get shoved into whatever
| box is most convenient for the person on the other side.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| >>>None of these stereotypes have any guidance for nonbinary
| people
|
| Isn't that tautological though? Why would a simplified
| characterization applicable to the mass of normies contain
| guidance equally suitable for the small percentage of
| divergent edge cases?
| mkr-hn wrote:
| You responded to a sentence. There's a whole post there
| where I state how the advice is bad for people inside and
| outside the binary. /u/graycat's advice is bad for
| _everyone_.
| trentnix wrote:
| _None of these stereotypes have any guidance for nonbinary
| people_
|
| Looks like quite the stereotype you've identified "nonbinary
| people". You'd do well to start comparing yourself to actual
| _people_ instead of the stereotypes you have of them.
| true_religion wrote:
| The logic that OP was arguing against is that stereotypes
| are edifying in terms of gender.
|
| They are right that if you do not match either of the
| stereotyped genders then you can't learn from gender
| stereotypes.
|
| Sure, it's better to learn from people in a holistic non
| stereotyped sense but that is _not_ what was being
| suggested.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| I can't make sense of your comment. The only read I can
| come up with is that you're saying I'm not a person, and I
| doubt that's what you mean. What are you trying to say?
| watwut wrote:
| If you follow this, you won't be able to relate to neither men
| nor woman. Womens knowledge and ideas will be ignored and so
| will be males feelings.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > Of course, we compromise: by taking turns, and by putting up
| with the fact that one of us is, to some degree, dragging the
| other along for the ride. But we can also tell that we are
| compromising, and that makes each of us feel sad, and somewhat
| alone.
|
| This is actually the problem. Compromise is when two people in an
| adversarial relationship both try to look out for themselves and
| inevitably walk away disappointed.
|
| When two people view marriage as a self-giving endeavor, rather
| than a self-serving one, happiness follows. You're happy to give
| and happy to be loved in return.
|
| The trouble is for so many people, a mutually self-giving
| relationship is unthinkable.
|
| I've been married for 15 years and my wife and I couldn't be more
| different. I'm an engineer working on my second Masters degree
| and she has a high school diploma. Our interests differ wildly
| but we're very happy because we both share a desire to serve and
| make the other one happy. _Me first_ is the problem.
| civilized wrote:
| Yes. Reading this article is like watching Elaine from Seinfeld
| attempt to navigate a marriage. The expectations for how it
| works are so deeply, fundamentally off-base that it's kind of
| funny in a sad way.
|
| The main difference is that Elaine lacks self-awareness, so
| it's easy to just laugh and not feel bad for her.
|
| There's no need to write a bad review of marriage if it clearly
| wasn't made for people like you in the first place.
|
| (I do want to stress that Agnes Callard is a good, perceptive
| thinker on many other topics, even if this piece IMO really
| misses the point)
| suifbwish wrote:
| I just wish people would stop with the "until death do us
| part" horse shit unless they are actually willing to do that.
| Just say "until I grow bored or decide it's not in my favor
| anymore" do us part. Let's be real.
| didibus wrote:
| What you say sounds nice, but either I don't understand it, or
| I feel it just isn't true.
|
| For example, you want to watch a movie together, but neither of
| you have the same tastes in movies. What do you do?
|
| Because both of you are self-giving, you both say that the
| other can pick, you're thus in a deadlock.
|
| At some point, there's going to need a compromise, because you
| can only pick one movie and neither of you happen to like the
| same movie.
|
| So best you can do is compromise by alternating, this time you
| watch your preferred movie, next time there's.
|
| Or you compromise by not watching movies together, but
| seperately.
| agumonkey wrote:
| In a way in a good relationship the other person knows you
| won't like it, so either he will find something else to share
| for both pleasure, or he will make it enjoyable (don't just
| watch the movie with someone on the side, talk about the
| movie, make her part of the moment). The idea is that sharing
| together is more important than self pleasure. (as long as
| its reciprocal indeed)
| krageon wrote:
| > What do you do?
|
| You recognise that it's not about the movie, it's about the
| activity you do together.
|
| Really, the lengths the threads here are going through to
| facilitate poor interpersonal interaction are sort of
| mystifying. Perhaps being a good person (or even just a good
| friend) is not obvious to everyone, but the information on
| how to be one definitely is easy to find. How come nobody is
| finding it?
| bambax wrote:
| Tastes are not a fixed thing, and it's not certain they are
| even real.
|
| In many (most?) cases what we call "tastes" -- and especially
| distastes -- are a way for us to broadcast our identities to
| the world.
|
| In an intimate, functioning relationship those broadcasts
| shouldn't be necessary because we know they are, if not fake,
| at least a proxy for what we want others to think who we
| really are. Intimacy is about shedding masks.
|
| In a couple one should be able to appreciate, if not outright
| enjoy, what the other likes.
|
| (Not to say there aren't limits; but it would be a symptom of
| an abusive relationship if one would insist they always watch
| what the other truly hates.)
| watwut wrote:
| This is just not true. Some people, many of them in fact,
| do have emotional reactions to movies and art in general.
| And that emotional reaction is either pleasant or not.
|
| People get bored watching movies and it is not a mask nor
| identity - it is feeling. Some people genuinely feel bad
| watching horrrors and it is not identity, it is genuinely
| feeling bad. I hate cringe in comic super heroes movie and
| thus dislike them. It is not a mask I wear it is genuinely
| unpleasant and if alone I would never ever watch that.
|
| The movies creators put a lot of work unto making you
| experience feelings while watching their movies in fact.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Yes - quite. I don't like gore and I think superhero
| movies are dumb. So if someone lived for both, there
| would be a problem.
|
| But it's not just about "taste", it's about values. I
| strongly suspect I won't have many shared values with
| someone who loves gore. And conflicting values are more
| likely to break a relationship than incompatible movie
| tastes.
| i_cannot_hack wrote:
| Of course "taste" does not exist if you define "superhero
| movies are dumb" as a value judgement that has nothing to
| do about taste. Simple calling it something else does not
| make it disappear, though.
|
| One person likes superhero movies, the other does not. Is
| seems that by your worldview it will be an insurmountable
| barrier to forming a healthy relationship unless someone
| changes their mind, which seems to be a rather bleak
| attitude to me. Are you sure we couldn't find countless
| couples with different movie tastes (or movie values)
| who, despite this obstacle, are in happy and loving
| relationships?
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| I'm pretty sure my cultural tastes are not just real, but
| almost innate. When I was in that discovery phase in late
| childhood through teens I really connected with some things
| and really didn't like others. I wasn't told to do this by
| anyone - certainly not by parents or teachers or peers.
|
| Some years later I'm more appreciative of why other people
| might like different things now, and I've also picked up on
| nuances and contexts I used to miss.
|
| But the things I like have barely changed. I don't spend
| much time "broadcasting them to the world" because why
| would the world even care what music I listen to?
|
| There's enough overlap with my partner that we can have
| conversations about certain things we have in common, but
| there are things and activities that work for her that I'm
| utterly disinterested in, and vice versa.
|
| We don't expect to share those, and that works for us.
| redisman wrote:
| I just don't see that as a problem. I'm not looking to
| date a clone of myself. That would be boring and
| unhealthy as I'd re-re-inforce my worst habits without
| any counterbalance
| bambax wrote:
| > _I don 't like gore and I think superhero movies are
| dumb_ (in your other comment in that same thread)
|
| > _I don 't spend much time "broadcasting them to the
| world"_
|
| Yes, you do. We all do. We build a personality and then
| we want the world to pay attention to it.
| oblio wrote:
| My guess? Have a relaxed, open attitude. Even if the movies
| you'll see are not what you'd watch, they are made for an
| audience and generally have some redeeming qualities. You try
| to find those and maybe even learn from them (about the
| actual movies or what they reveal about their target
| audience).
| didibus wrote:
| That's the best case scenario, that you end up enjoying the
| movie. But I'm saying in a scenario where you don't. You
| simply have very different movie tastes.
|
| So if you want to watch a movie together, I just don't see
| how you could both enjoy it without any compromise.
| redisman wrote:
| I mean if your SO will only watch "Minions" straight to
| video movies then maybe you just need to find one of the
| other million activities out there to do together.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > That's the best case scenario, that you end up enjoying
| the movie. But I'm saying in a scenario where you don't.
| You simply have very different movie tastes.
|
| > So if you want to watch a movie together, I just don't
| see how you could both enjoy it without any compromise.
|
| It kinda seems like you're setting up the scenario to
| force a particular result. If both your tastes are so
| fixed and incompatible that you can't like a movie
| without your partner disliking it, then maybe decide to
| do something else besides watch a movie?
| thih9 wrote:
| > them maybe decide to do something else besides watch a
| movie?
|
| This solution is part of the original comment; i.e.: "Or
| you compromise by not watching movies together, but
| seperately."[1].
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28659212
| krageon wrote:
| The author of that comment is missing the idea that the
| entire question is beside the point.
| watwut wrote:
| I don't understand why this is so hard to accept.
|
| I used to love watching horrors. I watched them a lot and
| that made me less sensitive to them - I needed more scarier
| and badly looking to feel scared. And it is 100% legitimate
| for someone else to dislike horrors. To be sensitive to
| pain on the screen, to not be used to the tensions and
| anticipation of bad these movies create.
|
| It has nothing to do with whether that horror has redeeming
| qualities. It does not matter whether it has deep
| philosophical meaning. The experience of watching it is
| deeply uncomfortable for some people and that is fine. It
| does not says anything bad about them.
| pfortuny wrote:
| That is the mistake: thinking of watching a movie as a
| personal act. In a good relationship the fact that the other
| one is enjoying a movie is most of the satisfaction.
|
| Otherwise a marriage is a union of two individuals, not a
| project for a single joint life.
|
| Of course the above is just a silly example but enlightening.
| didibus wrote:
| So in your case, you suggest that you'd simply always let
| your partner choose the movie, even though you never enjoy
| the movies they pick?
|
| That means your partner is not self-giving.
|
| Assuming both of you are self-giving, I just don't see a
| resolution that doesn't involve a compromise.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Perhaps they could simply take turns?
| didibus wrote:
| Exactly! That's my point, you've got to compromise like
| the author said:
|
| > Of course, we compromise: by taking turns
| zpeti wrote:
| What happens next time? In a decent relationship your
| spouse will want you to pick the movie next time.
|
| And so everyone is happy half the time, and you are
| mutually trying to make each other happy.
|
| That's fair, supportive, and a good marriage basically.
| didibus wrote:
| The author says:
|
| > Of course, we compromise: by taking turns
|
| And the OP I replied to said that's not a self-giving
| attitude.
|
| So in my case, taking turn counts as a compromise.
|
| And so this is my point, I don't think compromising means
| that you're not in a self-giving relationship, in fact, I
| think it shows that you are, since both of you are
| considerate of the other and finding ways to please the
| other in turn.
| bandushrew wrote:
| I think maybe its the attitude, not the act that is
| different between a "self giving" turn taking, and a
| "compromise" turn taking.
|
| Under a "self giving" regime, I want to spend time with
| my partner, enjoying her enjoying the movie she wants to
| watch. My partner wants to spend time with me enjoying
| the movie I want to watch. We can't both do that, so we
| each take turns letting the other one enjoy being with us
| while we watch the movie we want to watch.
|
| Under the "compromise" option, we each get to watch the
| movie we want to watch, taking turn and turn about. That
| is what is important about the event: that we get to
| watch the movie we want to watch.
|
| I think maybe the movie choice is a pretty trivial aspect
| of the relationship anyway, the GPs post around the
| willingness to serve your partner was a lovely insight to
| what makes a partnership work over the long term, far
| beyond how you both decide what movie to watch.
| blackhaz wrote:
| Until she accidentally bumps into someone she actually
| enjoys watching movies with! Whoops. Sorry!
| usrusr wrote:
| That could of course happen. Or you might actually start
| to actually like what your partner liked, fail to realize
| your partner's taste in movies moving on and eventually
| end up with a weird foster taste if/when the relationship
| ends (for that reason or another)
|
| (sfbsab)
| jcims wrote:
| I think the nit thats getting picked at is that the word
| 'compromise' might suggest sacrifice or debt in that
| you're not getting something you want.
|
| In a parent/child relationship most wouldn't call it a
| compromise to watch cartoons with their kid because a)
| some cartoons are great and b) even when they aren't,
| just being with your kids when they are enjoying
| something is a wonderful experience.
|
| Yes it's possible for that to become pathological in a
| romantic relationship if there is no balance, but if
| neither partner has any personal fulfillment in letting
| their significant other enjoy something it's going to get
| lonely quickly.
| didibus wrote:
| I think you nailed the nuance.
|
| That said, I'm curious about the realism of all this.
| Just being with your partner when they are enjoying
| something is a wonderful experience. Is that true? Can
| this continue to be the case over many many years of a
| marriage?
|
| The article mentioned a much more extreme scenario than
| movie watching, having someone walk you through the
| details of a geometry proof that they came up with. How
| many times can you enjoy having them walk you through a
| proof and still think it's a wonderful experience
| listening to them about this thing that you find so
| boring and soul crushing and might not even understand
| any piece of it, yet because of the passion in their
| voice, you enjoy the time and pretend to be excited and
| interested?
|
| In my opinion, there's a bucket of how much you can do
| this for. Once the bucket is depleted, to refill the
| bucket, you need to either spend some time apart, have
| them spend time with you doing something of your
| enjoyment or spend time doing things you both enjoy
| together.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> For example, you want to watch a movie together, but
| neither of you have the same tastes in movies. What do you
| do?
|
| >> Because both of you are self-giving, you both say that
| the other can pick, you're thus in a deadlock.
|
| > That is the mistake: thinking of watching a movie as a
| personal act.
|
| Another mistake might be conceiving of one's "taste in
| movies" as fixed and unchanging when it isn't. You might be
| able to find something to like in your partner's
| preferences, when you didn't before; or find some new type
| of movie you both like. Making that effort may be what
| being "self-giving" is in this case.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Or you do something else together that you both enjoy. Trying
| to be everything to your partner is simply impossible. Do
| neither of you have other friends that you do things with?
| nvarsj wrote:
| I'll play devil's advocate. Your marriage doesn't sound like
| one of equals. You're doing a Masters while working full time I
| imagine. So who picks up the slack for household management?
| I'm guessing your wife. If you have kids, then it is even more
| unbalanced I imagine.
|
| I know people in similar marriages - it works great, as long as
| the spouse is happy being the dutiful house wife. But I also
| know people in this situation who are now separated - usually
| the man/provider is completely blind sided when their ever
| loving, house wife says one day "no" and just walks out. They
| had no idea there was an inequality in the first place, and
| assumed their spouse is happy like this.
|
| I personally believe that when marrying someone, "marry your
| equal" is incredibly important advice. Marry someone of similar
| earning power, with similar career and life accomplishments.
| This helps ensures a equal relationship that has the greatest
| chance of success.
| xyzelement wrote:
| > "marry your equal" is incredibly important advice. Marry
| someone of similar earning power, with similar career and
| life accomplishments. This helps ensures a equal relationship
| that has the greatest chance of success.
|
| Eh. You should marry someone you love and respect, but you
| are defining "equal" like "clone."
|
| Personally, I am driven by knowledge, growth, ambition, etc.
| I used to think these are my values and looked for the same
| in women I dated. So I ended up dating a bunch of CEOs, a
| famous professor, etc. But while it was very interesting, it
| wasn't additive.
|
| The woman I actually married is no slouch in earning and
| intelligence but the things she values are very different
| from mine. She values creating a home, family connections etc
| in a way that I didn't know to, but benefit from. It does
| mean we have a different natural division of labor at home
| etc but the bigger deal is that we both bring a lot that the
| other person needs to the table. Life is not without it's
| conflicts but it's working out much better than if I was
| stuck with another me
| nkrisc wrote:
| Why is equality determined by educational attainment? Seems
| to be the measure of "equality" for purposes of a romantic
| marriage should be personality and compatibility and not
| wealth or degrees earned.
|
| An equal relationship is going to vary depending on who you
| ask, and as long as both partners agree, then you're set.
| watwut wrote:
| I think that the comment was talking about raw amount of
| hours full time job + school takes. Which means there is
| very little remaining time for household chores (including
| kids and pets) meaning partner has to do almost all of
| them.
|
| It was not about educational attainment, but about assumed
| silent expectation that partner does all the housework.
| MentatOnMelange wrote:
| I think in that scenario, the real issue is if one of the
| partners views educational attainment as more important,
| or worthy of respect, than maintaining the household.
| There are people who find taking on those
| responsibilities more fulfilling than work or education.
| If both people are putting in the same amount of work on
| different things, its a division of labor. Having equal
| respect for one another's contributions is the crucial
| facor.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Let's imagine there are 6 hours of housework to do daily.
| Only one partner is working on an income-generating job.
| Do they then come home and do "their fair share" of 3
| hours of housework as well?
|
| The benefits of the income are shared with the entire
| household and represent their contribution. It seems
| reasonable for the other partner to shoulder most of the
| housework (the benefits of which are _also_ shared with
| the entire household). The _opposite_ is what would seem
| unreasonable to me.
|
| For clarity, I'm not saying the employed partner never
| has to wash a dish or put their dirty socks in the
| basket.
| watwut wrote:
| And this is why I would not marry someone with
| significantly higher income. Because that would mean, I
| do all housework and my job don't matter.
|
| Unless explicitly arranged and agreed upon by both in
| advance, it is unfair to assume the partner should be
| doing it all and that you should be doing only stuff you
| enjoy.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > should be doing only stuff you enjoy
|
| The vast majority of people don't genuinely enjoy their
| 40 hours plus 6 hours of commuting to their income-
| generating job.
|
| We do it because we like food with our meals.
| watwut wrote:
| Sure. And wast majority of people don't enjoy vacuum
| cleaning and other routine household chores. Most people,
| when they actually end up being at home whole day, doing
| those same routines every day end up depressed and
| demotivated.
|
| People who loose their jobs, even if partner earns enough
| for them to not be in major stress, are unhappy after a
| week or too. They don't tend to be happy in the long
| term.
|
| Many jobs and bosses sux. And people in them generally
| want better job rather then no job. They feel bad when
| being unemplyed long term.
|
| Most employed people don't enjoy coming home to household
| work. No one, actually. That is why those are such
| frequent strain of relationship - cause people rarely
| like then.
| sokoloff wrote:
| That's exactly the reason why I think that two adults
| facing around a total of 14 hours per day of mostly
| suckage have a more fair arrangement when that's split
| around 8.5 hours for person 1 and 5.5 hours for person 2
| rather than 11 hours for person 1 and 3 hours for person
| 2.
| watwut wrote:
| I really don't know what hypothetical are you building
| there. The original posts in thread did not assumend
| unemployed stay at home partner.
|
| But I think that you really need new job. Cause mine is
| not 8.5 hours of suckage. People on this forums are not
| struggling miners in bad economy having no choice but to
| put up with abusive boss. (And I know miner who claimed
| he loved his job, but that is one guy).
|
| Anyway, if it is about insisting one has to stay at home,
| I don't want to be the one stay at home. Because I would
| not like it. And I would also feel economically in trap -
| dependent and helpless in case of issues.
| bzbarsky wrote:
| > and that you should be doing only stuff you enjoy
|
| This seems like quite the assumption.
|
| My baseline assumption for a functional relationship
| would be that the partner that has the least time to help
| with housework would try to pick up the parts of it that
| the other partner least enjoys.
| SubuSS wrote:
| How high?
|
| There is a point where you hire help and this becomes
| moot.
|
| Below that point, it comes to how you want to solve the
| finance problem as a couple IMO: if both your salaries
| are required, then obviously it means a full split.
|
| Anecdotally - my wife chose to remain home and help raise
| our child / take care of the home and this turned out to
| be a force multiplier for me. I don't think I would've
| made it to where I am, made whatever I made, built all my
| time sink hobbies without that decision.
|
| It comes down to communication and being truthful to
| yourself Re: why do you want that job? If it is a
| passion, you should go for it irrespective of the
| earnings. If it is just an income, you're just working
| for a random person instead of your own family. That's a
| tough line to cross, but it worked for us with enough
| comms.
| watwut wrote:
| No matter how high, honestly. Because even with maids,
| the underlying sentiment there is that I count for less.
| In case of conflict of interest, partner earning more
| means I automatically loose. "I earn more therefore I
| contribute more therefore I get what I want" is situation
| I would find pleasant. However, "I earn less, therefore I
| contribute less, therefore I have to suck it up and
| accept being second" is situation I would resent and
| dislike.
|
| Your wife and you situation sounds like falling into
| "mutually agreed upon in advance".
| nkrisc wrote:
| Why would it mean you do all the housework and your job
| doesn't matter? That's only the case if your partner
| thinks your job doesn't matter. It's not a function of
| income difference, it's a function of how much your
| spouse supports you in your endeavors.
|
| You can still be equal partners even with vastly
| disparate incomes simply by treating each other as
| equals. It's entirely in your control, as a couple.
|
| If my wife wanted to work a job that earns a fraction of
| what mine does, I'd still split all the housework
| equitably because she is my equal no matter what job she
| works.
| balfirevic wrote:
| If only one partner is working full time, how is it not
| equal (and expected) that the other does the housework?
| watwut wrote:
| You are changing premise. Just like the person I am
| responding to changed premise from "partner does all
| boring stuff" into "education level".
|
| The original comment and rwsponse were neither about stay
| at home wife nor about educational differences.
| ironmagma wrote:
| There are no real equals in life; everyone has their own
| strengths and weaknesses. Even trying to estimate whether
| your partner is equal to you is a kind of competitive spirit
| which isn't really healthy IMO.
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| >Your marriage doesn't sound like one of equals. You're doing
| a Masters while working full time I imagine. So who picks up
| the slack for household management? I'm guessing your wife.
| If you have kids, then it is even more unbalanced I imagine.
|
| You confuse 'equality' for 'symmetry', and this is extremely
| flawed.
|
| Even in non-romantic teams, the entire purpose of cooperation
| is to perform different roles in parallel. This is
| fundamental to human existence.
|
| >I know people in similar marriages - it works great, as long
| as the spouse is happy being the dutiful house wife. But I
| also know people in this situation who are now separated -
| usually the man/provider is completely blind sided when their
| ever loving, house wife says one day "no" and just walks out.
| They had no idea there was an inequality in the first place,
| and assumed their spouse is happy like this.
|
| ....and as long as the husband is happy being a dutiful
| provider.
|
| Getting blind sided by a partner suddenly walking out? They
| _assumed their partner was happy_? This is almost a parody of
| a bad marriage.
|
| >I personally believe that when marrying someone, "marry your
| equal" is incredibly important advice. Marry someone of
| similar earning power, with similar career and life
| accomplishments. This helps ensures a equal relationship that
| has the greatest chance of success.
|
| IMO, this doesn't address the nightmare scenario you
| described in your second paragraph, and sounds more likely to
| make you vulnerable to it.
|
| If you got blind sided by your partner because the two of you
| were 'assuming the other was happy', you started deeply
| fucking up years ago and making sure your partner was a close
| rival in earning career progression had almost nothing to do
| with it.
| eric_cc wrote:
| > "marry your equal"
|
| Sorry but this is incredibly stupid advice. There are no
| magical formulas or flow charts for who to marry.
| xyzelement wrote:
| > You're doing a Masters while working full time I imagine.
| So who picks up the slack for household management? I'm
| guessing your wife. If you have kids, then it is even more
| unbalanced
|
| One could just as well find inequality the other way - that
| the poster is going above and beyond to improve the family's
| financial situation.
|
| The point being - who cares? If the division of labor works
| for them, amazing. My wife probably spends more time with the
| kid than I do, I definitely spend more time fixing shit
| around the house. I, my wife, the kid, and the house are all
| better off with this situation than any other combination,
| nobody is walking out. Maybe the house.
| watwut wrote:
| I know women in marriages you have in mind who, after they
| felt closed to me opened up and turned out they were super
| unhappy. They stay because of kids and because the have some
| feelings for husband still. But they don't like that and have
| a lot of resentment.
|
| But, it does not necessary describes his situation. It sounds
| like two people with different initial interests.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| I've known some husbands in marriages who resent that
| they're expected to do half the housework and child rearing
| with a full time job when the spouse has no formal
| employment. Kids take a huge amount of time, and the
| pandemic has limited school and daycare choices for many.
|
| Still, kids become gradually more independent. And some
| housework can be outsourced (landscaping, no yard, surface
| cleaning). A career in the marketplace is often 40+ years
| before reaching retirement or financial independence.
| watwut wrote:
| I don't know any couple where husband would do half child
| caring while woman has no job. Like, not a single one. I
| do know couples with various splits including husband
| doing more. But this particular scenario, not really.
|
| > Kids take a huge amount of time, and the pandemic has
| limited school and daycare choices for many.
|
| I know couples that split it and the ones where it falls
| on woman. I know couples where women are resentful that
| work sacrifice is disproportionately on them. Women who
| would prefer job. And woman being intentionally at home
| and wanting it so.
|
| But like, only husband being employed and he doing half
| homeschooling is something I did not seen.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| We all have different circles. My point was less about
| the gender and more that some partners (at least those
| IME) have unrealistic expectations. They may also not
| consider the quantity of work the other side is putting
| in over the years.
| michaelt wrote:
| Seems kinda unromantic to say that, just because I'm a
| millionaire with a PhD, I can't fall in love with 99% of the
| population.
| defterGoose wrote:
| This. Part of the thing that makes for a good marriage
| mindset is just being willing/able to find/recognize the
| humanity in another.
| oconnor663 wrote:
| > a self-giving endeavor
|
| This seems like a step 2 to me. I think when people try to be
| giving as a step 1, before their own needs are met, they can
| end up miserable and resentful. But when your needs are met,
| giving is natural and joyful.
|
| The NVC assumption is that when two people can identify each
| other's needs and connect with them, they find that their needs
| aren't actually in conflict. Compromise isn't necessary. That's
| the idea in theory at least.
| grasshopperpurp wrote:
| I think that's more of a symptom in this case. The problem is
| that the writer and, likely, her husband are driven by ego.
| Everything about the first few paragraphs screams, I'm putting
| on all sorts of fronts (bc I think I'm being smart/cool).
|
| If you feed your ego ahead of your _soul_ , you won't know what
| you really want/need, and if you don't know what you want/need,
| how is anyone else supposed to satisfy you in any sustainable
| fashion?
|
| The good news is that relationships _can_ help you develop as a
| person. You should be growing together and on your own. If you
| care for someone and feel you 're failing them in some way, it
| should drive you towards self-examination, which should spur
| new perspectives and development.
|
| I would guess that you and your wife are less driven by ego
| than most. You probably don't reach a place where you're self-
| giving without at least corraling your ego. You may be at a
| point where you take it as a given.
|
| To be clear, everything in your post is good. I just think it's
| Step 2, rather than Step 1.
| [deleted]
| true_religion wrote:
| I think the problem is... I like many people know what it is
| to have an ego, but I can't recognize a soul.
|
| Heck in many contexts soul is just a synonym for an ineffable
| immaterial thing that makes things better (e.g. the soul of a
| song).
|
| So how can you feed your own soul? How do you know the nature
| of your soul?
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| The word "soul" has been mixed up with a lot of confusing
| voodoo, but when I was trying to look up the historic
| definitions, it was basically equivalent to 'the part of
| you that thinks and makes choices'
|
| With that definition I feel like a lot of the soul talk
| makes sense. Like here you 'feed' your soul the
| information, experiences, and media you seek out, and that
| influences the 'nature of your soul' by creating the
| environment it reacts to.
|
| For example, now you've exposed yourself to the idea of a
| mutually self-giving relationship, and if you keep trying
| to figure out more about what that means, then your
| thoughts and choices can start falling in line with that
| concept.
| PeterisP wrote:
| That definition would mean that it's essentially the same
| as ego, and would make the grandparent's post warning
| against "feed[ing] your ego ahead of your soul"
| meaningless. What would be the difference between ego and
| "soul" in your understanding, allowing to prioritize one
| over the other?
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| I think that may be correct for a technical definition of
| 'ego' - and you could cultivate a selfless ego or
| something.
|
| In common use 'ego' tends to mean someone with selfish or
| slightly narcissistic personality trait, though, right?
| cnees wrote:
| Sometimes "ego" is used to refer to the self, but I think
| the distinction we're going for here is between "self"
| (soul) and "sense of self importance" (ego.) So you can
| feed your ego with praise and self-centered narratives, but
| it takes wholesome thoughts, good deeds, and self-giving
| love (both received and given) to nourish a soul.
|
| "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,
| whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable
| --if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about
| such things." -- Phillipians 4:8
| denton-scratch wrote:
| "Ego" is a very loose term (nowadays).
|
| Freud intended the term "ego" to refer to conscious
| awareness, basically. Jung used it to mean the _focal
| point_ of conscious awareness - he treated awareness as
| being a lot more "smeary" than Freud did.
|
| Western Buddhists use the term to refer to attachment -
| to the body, emotions, feelings, and the sense of
| selfhood. I think the closest term might be "atman" - the
| selfhood that is derived from Vishnu in hindu thinking (I
| really don't know). Atman sounds like "atmen" - german
| for breathing. I assume they have the same root. Anyway,
| the Buddhist notion is a notion of something of which
| they deny the existence - the term "anatman" refers to
| the fundamental Buddhist notion that there is no enduring
| self (or "soul").
|
| I was raised a Christian, and spent a number of decades
| as a Buddhist; I've never known what the term "soul" was
| supposed to refer to.
| grasshopperpurp wrote:
| I italicized "soul" in an attempt to indicate that I meant
| it as a symbol. I thought the context made it clear, so I
| was comfortable using it as a shortcut, but perhaps I
| miscalculated.
| betenoire wrote:
| The question remains in earnest, how did you
| differentiate between the ego and soul without begging
| the question?
| true_religion wrote:
| Oh not a problem. It's just that since the soul is
| ineffable, it makes one wonder: a what is it's usage a
| shortcut for?
|
| Whoever I see the word soul, in an argument I can
| otherwise understand... it works and glosses over a lot
| of complicated common ground.
|
| But if I don't know what's going on, it's as useful as
| reading "quod erat demonstrandum" at the end of a proof.
| grasshopperpurp wrote:
| I meant the soul as part of you that is balanced, at
| peace, has perspective of where you fit within things, is
| aligned with a greater good - as opposed to a self-
| injuring sense of self-importance.
|
| It's not an easy thing to summarize or pin down, and it's
| kind of different for everyone.
| true_religion wrote:
| Ah I see, that clarifies things thank you.
| Qi_ wrote:
| I've heard good marriages described as a 100 / 100 partnership,
| not just a 50 / 50 one. You described that idea excellently,
| thank you.
| dforrestwilson wrote:
| 15 years is a long time.
|
| Congrats and may you have many more together!
| a2tech wrote:
| Agreed. My wife and I are more likely to get frustrated with
| each other because we both are trying to take care of the
| others needs. We want the other person to be more selfish
| because we so much want to take care of each other. On the
| spectrum of problems to have it's a pretty minor one.
| MillenialMan wrote:
| I think this is true, but it really comes down to: how much do
| you and your spouse like each other?
|
| If you both like each other, you'll want to give, and the
| relationship is probably going to feel mutually fulfilling. If
| it's not mutual, you won't want to give, even if you force
| yourself, and you'll resent doing things for them.
|
| Honestly I think all these reframings are a way of avoiding the
| basic fact that the main source of satisfaction in a
| relationship is just: how much you're romantically into the
| other person, and how much they return that. Throw trust in
| too, since that's sort of separate, but that's the meat and
| potatoes of the dish. Romance is romance, vast majority of
| relationship dissatisfaction I see comes from a lack of desire
| from one person.
| bobthechef wrote:
| Romance is not the basis of marriage or any relationship.
| Romance is affective. It can coax us into a relationship, but
| it isn't the basis. That is a sign of immaturity. You also
| end up in the absurd situation where you seek divorce because
| you're no longer in "love".
| MillenialMan wrote:
| I'm not talking about the thrill of a new relationship. I
| would define a feeling of old, secure warmth towards your
| partner of 50 years as romance, and your satisfaction in a
| 50-year-old relationship _is_ primarily a function of
| whether you have that. That 's the kind of thing that makes
| someone happy to take care of their wife for 5 or 10 years
| as she suffers through alzheimers.
|
| But in any case, romance is absolutely the basis of a
| relationship, otherwise you could marry your best friend.
| If you don't have it, you're likely to be dissatisfied. Of
| course it can wane - but that's also why you work to get it
| back, because if it goes away for good, your relationship
| is going to suck.
| a2tech wrote:
| I think if I'm interpreting your comment correctly you are
| correct. Physical attraction is what you mean instead of
| romance. Romance by itself is simply a series of steps you
| use to express your continuing interest in a partner or
| possible partner. Small gifts, kind words, charming
| activities. Those are romance, and I think are critical to
| Maintaining a solid relationship (all couples may find
| different things romantic---some people may want sunset
| sails on the harbor, some people might want kebabs from
| round the corner).
| ratww wrote:
| Yeah, I also think GP is right, but used the wrong word.
| He probably means: infatuation, limerence, obsession,
| thrill, animal magnetism, etc.
|
| Lots of people never who never really "knew" successful
| long-term relationships only associate love with those,
| and that's indeed somewhat immature.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| the absurd situation where you seek divorce because you're
| no longer in "love".
|
| Why is it absurd?
| brigandish wrote:
| Probably because what most people call "love" is really
| just the first stage of it, and if it has not been
| replaced by something deeper (i.e. respect) by the time
| the initial love fades, then it wasn't love but
| infatuation - or, more precisely _passion_ was not
| nurtured carefully enough to become respect, and so it
| was just an infatuation.
|
| In short, it would be absurd to mix up infatuation with
| love.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Presumably this could be sussed out long before marriage.
| And if that deeper love and respect should disintegrate,
| there would be some sort of catalyst.
|
| My expectation is that it's unlikely in the long-run to
| fall out of love if both parties still nurture the
| relationship and invest themselves. But maybe I'm wrong
| and it happens anyway.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| If it was - as you say - just infatuation, then wouldn't
| it be _better_ to seek a divorce? Why does that become
| absurd?
| brigandish wrote:
| This:
|
| > [a] situation where you seek divorce because you're no
| longer in "love"
|
| is not:
|
| [a] situation where you seek divorce because you're no
| longer infatuated
|
| One might well call the second situation absurd too, as,
| if you knew it was absurd then you shouldn't have wed,
| but it's still a different absurdity.
| silisili wrote:
| Sometimes. The entire problem is that the infatuation
| stage just doesn't last that long, which of course makes
| one ask...why did you get married too soon?
|
| The bigger problem as I've seen over the years with
| people is that they confuse the two with -other- people.
| A person married for 5 years becomes infatuated with
| someone else, which of course means they love them and
| not their spouse anymore. In their eyes, at least. And
| the problem with that thinking should be immediately
| apparent.
|
| It's a complicated subject and I'm not an expert by any
| means, just sharing my observations.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Because that's reacting in surprise to an expected
| inevitable thing (infatuation fading), and presumably
| afterwards trying again with a different partner with an
| unrealistic expectation that in _those_ relationships
| they might permanently stay "in love" i.e. the
| infatuated feeling of falling in love, which is quite
| distinct from long term relationships that we call "love"
| but IMHO don't apply the label of "fallen in love"
| anymore.
|
| In this case, if reality doesn't meet expectations, then
| divorcing just to try the same thing again to get the
| same result is absurd insanity, instead the expectations
| should be adjusted.
| orasis wrote:
| I always practice giving, even with people I don't like, and
| the results are fantastic.
| MillenialMan wrote:
| Ok, but are you married to someone that you don't like?
| Halnk wrote:
| Depends really on the Personality traits and Needs of the 2
| people involved. Some differences complement each other. Some
| dont.
|
| And that too depends on the type of problem the couple faces
| which is not static and changes from year to year. The same
| couple that complement each other in one situation can be
| completely hopeless together in another.
|
| So its all about Awareness and Communication of what your
| traits, needs, strenths and weaknesses are.
|
| Obviously thats non trivial cause the chimp brain is not really
| designed for such things. The brain looks outward not inward.
| It takes much more work to look inward.
|
| So all chimps fail a test to produce a list of their
| personality traits and needs, strengths and weakness wrt to
| different situations that matches what their partner will
| produce of them and vice versa.
|
| Couples that minimize that gap, and its lifelong hard work, are
| usually the most long lasting.
| baryphonic wrote:
| This is exactly right. Marriage is a commitment to deny
| yourself so you put the good of the other first.
|
| When I hear people talk about marriage (or any commitment)
| these days, I sometimes wonder if they're from a distant
| planet. When any long-term commitment is some form of
| oppression from which we must be liberated, bonds like marriage
| cannot work. This is justified in the pursuit of happiness.
| Ironically, those who seem happiest are those willing to make
| (and keep) binding commitments.
| redisman wrote:
| Exactly - I don't go to my wife to gush over the latest
| database optimization details I discovered expecting to have a
| deep technical discussion. Maybe the executive summary. I talk
| to my coworkers or friends or online people who are excited
| about the same details. If someone can only feel close to you
| when they speak of crossword puzzles I wonder if they're on the
| spectrum or need to join a crossword club or something.
|
| We do have a baseline of shared philosophies and views but even
| there we often find that we slightly disagree on details.
| ip26 wrote:
| Why does it have to be all self-giving or all self-serving? Why
| not simply a team, with the team first?
| asplake wrote:
| Interesting point, and you need both. Team for things
| involving challenge and purpose, mutual care to sustain it
| all.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Amen. "We" is a word that is different than "you and I." It
| is a word that requires both a plurality and a sense of
| unity. It's an entity that needs both "you and I", but also
| transcends "you and I." It does need to compete with or
| replace you or I.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Dang autocorrect. Last sentence was meant to read:
|
| "It does _not_ need to compete with or replace you or I."
| slothtrop wrote:
| Exactly, it's an unrealistic depiction. And it's not a zero
| sum game. You can care about your spouse's happiness as well
| as your own, and can't rely on someone else entirely to make
| you happy.
| nsomaru wrote:
| Ultimately you can only control your actions and attitudes.
| What happens if the SO is not playing for the team?
|
| So again, team play comes down to self-giving, because you
| are not in control of the other person.
| lupire wrote:
| Same thing that happens in any team. the team fails.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| To me this sounds a lot like a distinction without a
| difference.
|
| My wife and I have different preferences for different things.
| We each routinely compromise by going along with the others
| preferences. We aim to do that in such as way as to achieve a
| healthy balance, where each of us feel satisfied and have our
| needs met. We do this by using communication.
|
| To my knowledge, neither of us feel any animosity towards those
| compromises, because we're both very interested in taking care
| of each other, and meeting each other's needs.
|
| Is this self-giving or self-serving? It just seems like using
| different vocabulary for the same thing.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Your own happiness and your significant others' aren't mutually
| exclusive, or zero-sum. It's a distortion to characterize one
| as more or less important than the other. It's important to
| look out for both. You can't just rely on your SO to make you
| happy.
| 88913527 wrote:
| You can give your heart, but if your significant other doesn't
| speak your love language, no matter how much you give, it may
| not be right for you. If you're focused exclusively on giving,
| are you considering your own needs as a person? Granted, if
| both people are focused on giving, hopefully they can figure it
| out among one another.
| agumonkey wrote:
| That is true, personal experience showed me that what I took
| as love wasn't seen as such by the other one. Absolute crash
| ensued. Wisdom makes you pick the people that you feel
| compatible, or at least make you able to communicate in finer
| ways to make sure both are aiming at the same ballpark.
| wetpaws wrote:
| >if your significant other doesn't speak your love language,
| no matter how much you give, it may not be right for you
|
| Thats why people communicate.
| manmal wrote:
| Languages can and have to be learned. This is also true for
| love language.
| golemotron wrote:
| Love languages were invented to sell a book in 1992.
| feanaro wrote:
| Is this an American thing? I had no idea the OP was
| talking about an actual thing until now and understood
| the phrase "love language" as figurative.
| sammalloy wrote:
| "Love language" is a hugely popular, but pseudoscientific
| concept in the relationship community in the US. It's BS,
| just like astrology, the law of attraction, and all that
| jazz. But people swear by it, and they won't back down
| from it if it works for them.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I mean, if you consider psychology psuedoscience, I
| suppose that could be true. It has numerous articles
| written about it in psychology publications.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Would you be so kind as to point out some well executed
| research on the love languages? I had been under the
| impression that they are pop-psychology.
|
| https://www.mic.com/p/do-love-languages-actually-matter-
| psyc...
|
| _"I don't consider it to be an evidence-based practice,
| but I do find it to be a very useful tool and use it in
| all of my work with couples," says Stefani Goerlich, a
| Detroit-based psychotherapist._
|
| _research conducted in 2017 suggests that the five love
| languages only work when "both spouses exhibit
| appropriate self-regulatory behaviors."_
| giantg2 wrote:
| From that same article, it says that it's a communication
| technique/framework that is used in therapy. That it's a
| useful tool. I don't consider useful tools to be "BS".
|
| Also, just because something only works within specific
| parameters (spouses with self-regulating behaviors),
| doesn't mean it doesn't work. It just isn't a cure-all.
| It would be like saying antibiotics are BS just because
| they only work on a subset of bacterial infections.
|
| https://www.jhseonline.com/article/view/788
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Hard to tell if a tool is useful if there is not high
| quality research backing up the claim. That a tool is
| _used_ , especially in psychology, does not mean that it
| is _useful_ or a good model of actual human psychology.
| Freud 's stuff is a great example of this. None of it has
| any basis in reality or formal research, but it was still
| widely used for many years.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Hard to tell if a tool is useful if there is not high
| quality research backing up the claim.
|
| That's obviously not true. Show me the high quality
| research studies backing up the idea that a hammer is
| useful for hammering nails or that a flat-head
| screwdriver is useful as a improvised chisel. The way to
| tell if a tool is useful is if you use it and it works
| for your application.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Hence my qualifier of if you think psychology is
| psuedoscience. There is some research on ths subject, but
| most psychology research uses self reporting or self
| evaluation. If this is psuedoscience, then we should also
| be talking about how psychology in general is
| psuedoscience. Let's not forget, psychologist are used in
| court and even for things like psychological evaluations
| for employment. If they really are using psuedoscience,
| this presents a threat to the rights and freedoms of many
| individuals.
|
| Another study: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2
| 33241159_Speaking_...
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I think self-reporting can provide some evidence, but of
| course it's much weaker than many other study methods.
| But even within survey studies, there are degrees of
| quality. And studies that sample undergrads in psychology
| classes (like the one you linked) are of particularly
| poor quality and generalizability. To me, that only
| barely counts as research at all.
|
| That doesn't mean psychology in general is pseudoscience.
| But it does mean this is a bad study that tells us almost
| nothing, and if this is representative of the quality of
| studies on the love languages overall, then we basically
| have no evidence one way or another about them.
| giantg2 wrote:
| What evidence do you have that the two studies are bad?
| Just claiming that a study using undergrads is bad sounds
| like terrible evidence.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Small, non-representative subsets of the population are
| inherently bad as study targets from the perspective of
| epistemological power. Results derived from such sample
| sets often do not generalize. If you combine this
| weakness with a weak investigative methods like survey,
| the problem compounds. My definition of a good study is
| one that gives us strong evidence about the world, and a
| bad study is one that doesn't. What else can you call a
| study like this one but bad?
|
| > What evidence do you have that the two studies are bad?
|
| The study indicts itself (i.e. it describes its methods,
| and the methods are not ones that lead to strong
| evidence).
| giantg2 wrote:
| I asked for evidence and you are essentially saying
| "cause I say so". Explain why the methods are wrong. Show
| some _evidence_.
|
| The study population is only non-representative if
| applying it to populations that don't match. For example,
| this study supports the results for university students
| 18-22. Again, we come back to the point that just because
| it only applies for a subset does not make it "BS".
|
| So what's wrong with the other study? Or will it be more
| of the same generalized claims about poor methods without
| any specific details from the study being given, nor any
| supporting facts to back up your determination?
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| > Explain why the methods are wrong. Show some evidence.
|
| When you sample a non-representative subset, you often
| get different results from the population at large. For
| example, you might get a different answer if you ask the
| Porsche enthusiasts club what the best car is, compared
| to if you ask random people in the population.
|
| Undergrads are the same way. Asking a group of people,
| almost half of whom are virgins, questions about romantic
| relationships . . . well let's just say it might not
| generalize to the adult population.
|
| This is covered in detail in any intro stats course or
| textbook. You may also be able to Google something like
| "unrepresentative subset psychology" to get an explainer.
| I can't do the issue complete justice in a comment here.
|
| > So what's wrong with the other study?
|
| I'm sorry, I did not sign up for reviewing every study
| you link me to. I reviewed the one, and explained my
| perception that it is a good example of the overall
| quality of the research on this topic. If you want an
| assessment of the other study, you'll need to look
| elsewhere.
| giantg2 wrote:
| The point of this site is to have discussion. If you dont
| want to discuss things, then maybe you shouldn't be
| commenting.
|
| It sounds a bit like trolling when you call something BS,
| then the source you give shows evidence that it does work
| in some populations. Then there are two other supportive
| studies. Yet you want to give non-sensical and non-
| applicable examples of asking Porche owners questions.
| lupire wrote:
| If its BS and it works, it's not BS.
| tablespoon wrote:
| >> Languages can and have to be learned. This is also
| true for love language.
|
| > Love languages were invented to sell a book in 1992.
|
| Can you clarify? Are you saying that someone first
| decided they were going to sell a book in 1992, and
| "invented" love languages to "fill in the blank" in order
| to do so? Or are you just talking about the normal
| situation of someone introducing a new idea of theirs (or
| in this case, schema) in the form of a book?
|
| I get the impression that you're objecting to the concept
| as not really a thing because it doesn't have a deep
| history. However, not all real things have names, or
| always had names.
| MillenialMan wrote:
| "The Five Love Languages" is literally trademarked. It's
| a framework that's designed to sound plausible, like a
| horoscope. It's not designed to be accurate, it's
| designed to make you go, "oooooh" and repeat the
| trademark. "Having relationship issues? Oh, have you
| heard of the Love Languages(r)? I read about it the other
| day..."
|
| If your partner doesn't want to touch you, what's the
| most likely explanation? That they "don't speak your love
| language", or that they aren't attracted to you?
|
| Ok, and if you _are_ that partner, but you don 't want to
| lose the relationship, what's an easy response? "I don't
| want to touch you because I don't find you attractive,"
| or "I'm sorry babe, I do love you, but we just don't
| speak the same love language"?
|
| The whole thing is very Cosmo. It's designed to sell in
| the same way as Cosmo.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > "The Five Love Languages" is literally trademarked.
|
| So?
|
| > It's a framework that's designed to sound plausible,
| like a horoscope. It's not designed to be accurate, it's
| designed to make you go, "oooooh" and repeat the
| trademark. "Having relationship issues? Oh, have you
| heard of the Love Languages(r)? I read about it the other
| day..."
|
| That sounds like you think it was constructed in bad
| faith. Do you have any evidence for that?
|
| A model that's simplified can still have value even if it
| doesn't perfectly fit every situation.
|
| > If your partner doesn't want to touch you, what's the
| most likely explanation? That they "don't speak your love
| language", or that they aren't attracted to you?
|
| I'm only passingly familiar with the love languages
| thing, but I think it does have a point, and I've
| experienced some of the differences in relationships that
| is schematizes. Reducing it to sexual attraction is kinda
| missing the point.
| MillenialMan wrote:
| Plenty of it has a point - so does Cosmo. The problem is
| that it's a psychological model written primarily to be
| sold. You're welcome to put your trust in that, but I
| think that's a mistake, and the way that type of stuff
| usually hurts people is that the model being peddled cuts
| off deeper understanding of human relationships.
| hallway_monitor wrote:
| You're probably right but does that mean it can't also
| contain some useful truths? Personally, these types of
| frameworks do help me break out of my own self centered
| paradigm and appreciate differences in friends, coworkers
| and partners. For work teams I highly recommend the DISC
| survey.
|
| I do agree with the part about not touching though. It
| seems like a lot of problems are invented in marriages
| because people are unwilling or unable to say or even
| think the ugly truth that they simply don't want to have
| sex with their partner anymore.
| MillenialMan wrote:
| In my opinion the issue with pop-psych marketing
| constructs is that there are kernels of truth embedded
| within a misleading superstructure. They tend to leave
| you worse off because the structure (which is wrong,
| incomplete, misleading) is bundled with the kernels of
| truth. They also usually purport to be rosetta stones.
| There are exactly five love languages, and humans happen
| to each speak a different variety of them? Hmmmmm.
|
| Another example: what if someone feels "loved" when
| they're bought gifts, but that's because they're
| materialistic, a gold digger? Likewise if someone wants
| to be touched because they're more interested in sex than
| a relationship, and they derive validation from your
| sexual interest. "It's just their Love Language" is
| technically correct, but it's the wrong lens to apply to
| those situations.
| PeterisP wrote:
| One thing is that those aspects map to quite real needs,
| and the book does provide a set of reasonable metaphors
| to talk about those needs between partners in a way that
| gets the point across where previous attempts didn't
| succeed. It's genuinely hard for many people to define
| and communicate their own feelings and expectations, and
| even more so for someone else's feelings and
| expectations, complicated by the natural tendency to
| presume that other's preferences work similarly to yours,
| so a framework that helps this communication is really
| useful in those cases where relationship problems involve
| a misunderstanding about those expectations; which is not
| all relationship problems but certainly a meaningful part
| of them.
|
| In the examples you provide, I would say that it's
| exactly _the right_ lens to apply to those situations -
| it 's imperative for both parties to understand that
| those are the factors that matter instead of trying to
| work out a relationship around them, ignoring those core
| issues; and this lens allows to
| understand/specify/communicate it better.
|
| Like, if someone _does_ derive validation from your
| sexual interest, then that 's a quite important thing to
| understand for the partner (even if for them personally
| the concept of needing such validation is a bit alien,
| because their self-worth is filled differently), because
| that's not going to change easily and is going to be a
| big factor in making the relationship work. And if
| someone is materialistic, pretending otherwise won't be
| helpful and neither will trying to change someone's
| values, that generally takes huge time and effort and/or
| crisis events. Of course, obtaining a proper
| understanding may also mean understanding that the
| relationship should not continue, but for such
| relationships that's also a beneficial result.
|
| There may be more effective ways of facilitating this
| communication and common understanding of the partner's
| inner needs, e.g. perhaps couple's therapy can do it
| faster, but that's a quite expensive process and a
| simplified set of metaphors can be a cheap and useful
| approach ("A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ
| points") if there's sufficient material to ensure that
| both partners, likely coming from very different
| perspectives given that they have this communications
| problem, get a common understanding of how they
| understand them.
| MillenialMan wrote:
| I don't mean this disrespectfully, but your comment is a
| perfect example of someone falling into the trap I was
| describing. If someone's using you, they don't love you.
| They won't love you. It doesn't _matter_ what their
| "love language" is - giving them the thing they're
| looking to extract isn't going to help, it's just going
| to get you exploited.
| hallway_monitor wrote:
| That case doesn't apply because it's not love and that
| partner is not committed to the relationship. In fact I
| would go so far to say it's pathological.
|
| I think GP would agree that this type of self help book
| is not a Rosetta Stone and its core truth may be somewhat
| banal ie think about what makes your partner feel special
| not only what makes you feel special. Maybe part of the
| success formula for these pop psyc books is that we need
| these truths to be wrapped in a story and labeled so we
| can remember them more easily.
| bluedino wrote:
| Some people need to read a book to realize or justify
| their incompatibility
| fastball wrote:
| I'd go one step further and assert that "love languages"
| are mostly bunk, in the same way that "learning styles" are
| not really a thing.
|
| Meyers-briggs, zodiac, learning styles, love languages,
| etc. are all self-fulfilling prophecies that are sold as
| empowering but are mostly just traps which limit your
| potential.
| xyzelement wrote:
| > mostly bunk
|
| Does this style of post ever work? You are dismissive of
| all these things but you lack a single reason/argument.
| Is there a chain of logic that leads you to this
| conclusion?
|
| It's a bit fascinating to me. I imagine the purpose of a
| post is to share ideas, to give people a chance to think
| more like you and that takes a persuasive argument.
| fastball wrote:
| Not sure why the burden of proof is on me to demonstrate
| that they _are bunk_. Seems like the burden of proof is
| on anyone who asserts they exist in the first place,
| since "love languages" are not an objective thing.
| xyzelement wrote:
| > Not sure why the burden of proof is on me
|
| There's no burden of proof here, the question is: what is
| the point of the post? I assume the goal is to help
| someone change their mind - to think more like you. And
| my observation is that you are not providing anything in
| your comment that would enable someone to follow a
| logical thread to reach the same conclusion as you.
|
| So the net effect is, whoever already agreed with you
| continues to agree with you, and anyone who doesn't
| already agree with you isn't given a reason to change
| their mind.
|
| In my mind that's a lost opportunity to persuade people,
| in which case what's the point of the comment?
| moogly wrote:
| I think the poster anchored their argument better than
| what the post they replied to did, by comparison to other
| things. The post they replied to stated something to be
| an absolute truth without any support whatsoever.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| I would argue that they're all different forms of "maps"
| and have their uses, but they are not the territory.
|
| If you start to confuse the map for the territory then
| yes they can be limiting in some ways, because you no
| longer see any features that are not included on the map.
| And the features that have been included seem more
| prominent.
|
| All we can create as humans are maps for things.
| Different types of abstractions. And refine them over
| time as we gain better understanding. But when using
| these maps it's important to keep in mind that they're
| just one of many ways of describing the thing you're
| trying to understand.
|
| Myers-Briggs for me was very enlightening, and started me
| on a journey of understanding how people can be different
| (led to greater empathy and awareness on my part). I
| don't walk around classifying people's MBTI type though.
|
| Zodiac... not so much. That map is a bit old now!
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Don't forget enneagrams. These things are all based on
| very shaky research at best. I would argue that love
| languages of all of these are probably the best
| supported, or at least the most plausible a priori. After
| all they mostly boil down to, "I especially like {touch,
| gifts, service, ...}." But even then I think that for
| most people you need a mix of all of these things in a
| romantic relationship. Getting great gifts from a spouse
| is not going to save the relationship if they won't touch
| you, nine times out of ten.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| I disagree. Love language improved my relationship for
| the better. It gives us language and priority to things
| that felt important but were difficult to describe and
| help the other understand.
|
| To your point tho we use all the languages, and many
| other things beyond the languages. I think it's important
| to not get too fixated on them. It's just one piece of
| the puzzle. There's many other things required besides
| speaking someone's love language, but it helps!
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| Individual people can be radically different in what
| makes them feel loved, satisfied and connected. If the OP
| never has to understand this, he/she is fortunate. More
| likely, there is someone in that person's life who would
| appreciate some directed curiosity.
| nsomaru wrote:
| The way my guru would respond to question like "how do I
| avoid giving too much" type questions was to retort with a
| question...
|
| "If you're a giver, what are you looking for?"
|
| ...
|
| "Takers!"
|
| That is, if you're giving with an expectation of something in
| return, you're not looking to give, you're looking for a
| transaction. True giving, then, does not carry with it the
| weight of any expectation or fruit. The joy is in the act of
| giving itself, the sacrifice, as a candle sacrifices itself
| to give light.
|
| He elaborated further to say that if one person is giving
| oriented in a relationship, it would be stable. If both, it
| would be heaven. To come back to the point of the OP, it's
| the focus on "me, me, me" that's the issue.
|
| Abraham Lincoln said (paraphrase) "there is one way to bring
| up your children, and that is to walk that way yourself." I
| feel in relationships it's similar. Less sermons, more
| leading by example without expectations.
| treis wrote:
| >you're looking for a transaction
|
| And what is wrong with that? I help you with your shit and
| you help me with mine.
|
| It's not at the level of transactional quid pro quos. But
| at a basic level you can't have one giver and one taker.
| Eventually that breaks down into resentment.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I don't disagree, because there is a lot of wisdom in what
| you say. But...
|
| 1. If kids see the example of a marital power dynamic of
| taking and giving, it's not that they will necessarily
| learn to be selfless givers!
|
| 2. I like the F Scott Peck definition of love, which is to
| extend ones self to support the spiritual growth of
| another. And, often the growth that a taker needs is to
| learn to be giving. Often, takers take because they view
| themselves as a victim.
|
| For a giver, it can be really difficult to go outside of
| one's normal giving mode without being sucked into a mode
| of anger or resentment.
|
| 3."Being married" is not an ultimate value--it can hurt all
| the people involved. Complicated! Sometimes I feel I could
| be a much better, more giving person in a healthier
| relationship because I could be helping many more people.
| If i take your example of the candle--it may be great to
| sacrifice yourself to create light, but is it worth the
| sacrifice if you aren't producing light?
| nsomaru wrote:
| The way I interpret what he said is, "if the sacrifice is
| genuine, light is the necessary result"
|
| I like it because it puts the ball back in my court and
| forces me to take responsibility without judging the
| other.
| kweinber wrote:
| You might be a giver looking for another giver to build
| something bigger together. It isn't correct that givers
| only want takers. Think of it like cofounders.
| jazzabeanie wrote:
| Who is your guru?
| nsomaru wrote:
| A Parthasarathy -- www.vedantaworld.org
| watwut wrote:
| There is such a thing as one sided relationship where one
| person gives and other don't. And the giver is not happy in
| the long term.
|
| There is value in being able to ask for what you need and
| being able to realize when giving is not reciprocated.
| akomtu wrote:
| That's because the giver secretly expected something in
| return.
| watwut wrote:
| No. Prior expectations are not the only way how one gets
| resentful. Being tired is another. Realizing you have not
| done something you like for long time is yet another.
|
| And all of it is healthy. Being submissive doormat and
| not having boundaries is not healthy.
| PeterisP wrote:
| And that's okay and expected - it would be unrealistic to
| expect people to be 100% ideal givers.
|
| In the parent post's quote "If you're a giver, what are
| you looking for?" the "If" is doing a lot of heavy
| lifting.
| hintymad wrote:
| In my limited experience, couples create marital loneliness over
| years via bitter complaints when they should've worked on
| addressing the issue. Instead of saying "honey I'd really like
| you to enjoy 24, and could you please let me show you how
| wonderful that show is", a wife would instead say "You _never_
| like any show that I enjoy ". And immediately the tension mounts.
| Instead of saying "honey I know you don't enjoy playing tennis,
| but how about we find something we both like and we can even get
| a coach", a husband would simply say nothing and find a bunch of
| strangers to watch tennis in a bar.
|
| I don't quite understand such behavior, to be honest. We know
| that we shouldn't bitterly criticize friends, nor should we use
| absolute words like "never" or "always" on them. We also know
| that we should find common interests among friends, and it's okay
| if we occasionally get it wrong, like this one time you took your
| pacifist friends to a paintball tournament. Then, why can't we
| treat our spouse, someone we took an oath to spend the rest of
| our life with, like our friends? We learn how to conduct crucial
| conversation and nonviolent communication in our job, then why
| can't we do the same in our home? I puzzles me to no end.
| golemotron wrote:
| It's a nice article, but the realistic view is that pair-bonding
| in animals (and, yes, humans are animals) evolved to provide
| resources and stability to children. Couples are prone to a
| "seven year itch" which corresponds to the time at which children
| are able to move away from their mothers and the family unit
| psychologically. Pair-bonding is reinforced by a common purpose:
| the child or (as a proxy) some other shared goal. When these
| disappear, the bond weakens. It's a very natural occurrence.
| Romantically, we want these things to last for life, but the
| evolved machinery that we are born with does not provide as much
| reinforcement as we need to make that happen consistently without
| some of the problems listed by the article.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I suspect that marriage as we know it was built for an
| agricultural society. We are (mostly) not that any more, and the
| "until death we part" doesn't make as much sense as it did.
| Marriage will change into something else, we just don't know what
| that will be yet.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I have a personal theory that we simply live too long for the
| traditional concept of marriage to make sense. "Until death do us
| part" means something very different if the average lifespan is
| 50 years versus 80 years. People change, and grow tired of one
| another, and that's okay and good and healthy. But a marriage
| which ends in divorce is considered a "failed marriage", as if
| all of the prior years count for nothing.
|
| I say all of this as a single 27-year-old who has never been in a
| committed relationship, and has no plans to enter one in the
| future. Perhaps that means I lack the authority to weigh in on
| this topic, and perhaps it means I practice what I preach.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| >>>People change, and grow tired of one another, and that's
| okay and good and healthy.
|
| 1. Unless there are kids involved, in which case the fallout
| extends beyond the relationship and has wider second-and-third-
| order effects on society. Aren't something like 40% of children
| in single-parent households in the US? And aren't there
| significant statistics showing that especially fatherless sons
| are over-represented in juvenile crime, etc...? Those
| situations might arise less if the population didn't have such
| a blase attitude to starting and ending romantic entanglements.
|
| 2. Studies have shown that increasing numbers of sex partners
| has a permanent deleterious effect on a person's ability to
| pair-bond, with more serious psychological impacts on women
| than men. (sorry, don't have a citation handy) So it is not a
| purely "good and healthy" situation for people to be regularly
| growing tired of their partners.
|
| I'm 38, essentially polygynous, with my primary female one I
| selected almost 10 years ago for character traits that I
| assessed as optimal for raising children and managing a
| household. So far, so good on both fronts. We have some SLIGHT
| overlap in our movie tastes such that we can usually find
| something mutually satisfying (mostly lighthearted action
| movies with a touch of romance). If I want to watch something
| extra graphic (13 Assassins, original Robocop, etc...) I'll
| either watch it alone or call one of the side-chicks that is
| comfortable with that stuff.
| chakkepolja wrote:
| > primary female one I selected almost 10 years ago for
| character traits that I assessed as optimal for raising
| children and managing a household.
|
| I don't know why I am laughing at this phrasing.
|
| Btw, since we are on hacker news, what's the probability of a
| randomly choosen guy from a normal urban population sample
| being able to have side chicks and one fulfilling primary
| relationship?
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| >>>Btw, since we are on hacker news, what's the probability
| of a randomly choosen guy from a normal urban population
| sample being able to have side chicks and one fulfilling
| primary relationship?
|
| Probably less than 10%. I recognize that my peer group is
| not a representative slice of a normal distribution.
| dls2016 wrote:
| > I don't know why I am laughing at this phrasing.
|
| Because it sounds like a robot giving relationship advice?
| true_religion wrote:
| For anyone who is trying to recreate the OPs experience in a
| more normative setting (e.g. monogamy and no side chicks)...
| try using your in laws.
|
| Your brother and sister in law are in many ways better than
| true friends (they're always available and are technically
| part of your family so there's no jealousy). Of course if you
| have siblings of your own this works too.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Some people just don't like committed relationships. You might
| be someone like that. On the other hand, many young people
| think they don't ever want commitment when they are young, and
| then end up changing their minds later. This pattern is
| extremely common. No way except time to tell which category
| you're in.
|
| With regards to the notion that we live too longer for lifelong
| monogamy: that's probably true for some people and not for
| others. I do think that if the human lifespan were stretched to
| 1000 years, but society were otherwise the same, few people
| would remain in a single monogamous relationship for the entire
| duration.
| slothtrop wrote:
| I don't think it's that simple anymore. A person isn't
| necessarily inherently of the type to be committal or non-
| committal. Broadly speaking the choices can offer different
| rewards, but usually it's case-by-case, depending on the
| circumstances surrounding each prospective relationship.
|
| An easy example in your early-mid 20s is the prospect of
| moving for work and education, and forgoing long-distance,
| but we can set this one aside because it's a heavy extraneous
| circumstance.
|
| The early relationships I had carried a more laissez-faire
| "let's wait and see" attitude, at least on my part. Most
| people will not end up marrying their high-school sweetheart,
| but it's good to date around to discover ourselves and
| others. What I didn't count on was that a) emotional bonds
| will happen almost every time, and break ups will hit hard,
| and b) wait-and-see doesn't work very well for the long-run.
| People don't change that much. If you're committing in the
| hopes that you will feel more strongly about someone later,
| don't. And be honest about the way you feel as soon as you
| know it. Respect your time and others'.
|
| I carried that non-committal approach into my 20s because I
| was an emotional fuck-up with lots of anxiety and plagued
| with insomnia. I couldn't be alone. It wasn't until later
| that I pulled the plug on a relationship and decided I
| wouldn't jump on another until I felt more certain about
| them. Now I'm married. I think we take for granted how
| difficult being alone can be for some people owing to x y
| struggles, which is unfair to their partners.
|
| Relationships take work, both parties need to invest in each
| other. There will be times when things feel more stagnant and
| familiar, and times of great intimacy, etc. A common
| apprehension about commitment you hear is "won't I still be
| attracted to other people?". Yes, you will. It won't matter.
| "How do I know I'm not settling?". What? It's either a happy
| relationship or it isn't. Trying to min/max superficial
| attributes is a fool's errand. Tend to your garden. Rewards
| are way greater in a loving relationship.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Necessarily, any two paragraph comment on relationships is
| going to be a simplification. :) But I still contend that
| the simplification is basically true: some people, during
| their youth, believe that they never want commitment. For
| many of those people, their preferences shift, but for
| some, they don't. Not all the people who prefer non-
| commitment are "emotional fuckups," but I'll allow that
| some are.
| chmod600 wrote:
| There's a lot of life to experience, but at some point you want
| to share your life with someone more than just on social media
| or whatever. Or at least that's how it was for me.
|
| After you've met people around the world and had fine food and
| hiked tall mountains, it's like, what's next?
|
| Not necessarily marriage and/or kids. But probably some kind of
| sharing, and marriage and kids are a great way to do that.
| 0x000000001 wrote:
| I'm in my mid 30s and been with my wife since I was 15
|
| The issue is that people aren't married to their best friends.
| You have to like the person more than you love them.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Please keep in mind that people can change, sometimes in
| significant ways.
| slothtrop wrote:
| This is more likely at a young age, i.e. teens into 20s. If
| you meet your partner in your late 20s and up, they're
| unlikely to change in significant fashion. Important to
| consider in pairing with the advice that you can't change a
| person. Expect a douche to remain a douche.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| There is also no guarantee that the person who you
| emotionally click with will also be someone you consider
| physically attractive. Expecting your spouse to be #1 in
| everything is setting the relationship up to fail.
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| I don't mean to sound so rude, but how does this mean you
| practice what you preach?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I wanted to give a caveat that I don't really have the
| experience to justify what I'm talking about.
|
| But, then it also occurred to me that someone who agreed with
| my assertion would, basically by definition, not have that
| experience, so it's a catch 22.
|
| I'm legitimately not sure which side of that is more
| important.
| refurb wrote:
| When the average life span was 50 it was because you averaged
| in a bunch of kids dying at 0 or 1.
|
| If you made it to your 20's there was a good chance you'd make
| it to 60 or 70.
| davedx wrote:
| Do you have a citation for that?
| kleinsch wrote:
| Big difference between life expectancy (which is an average
| including child mortality) and life span once people reach
| adulthood.
|
| > Those records show that child mortality remained high.
| But if a man got to the age of 21 and didn't die by
| accident, violence or poison, he could be expected to live
| almost as long as men today: from 1200 to 1745, 21-year-
| olds would reach an average age of anywhere between 62 and
| 70 years - except for the 14th Century, when the bubonic
| plague cut life expectancy to a paltry 45.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181002-how-long-did-
| anc...
| keewee7 wrote:
| >Those records show that child mortality remained high.
| But if a man got to the age of 21 and didn't die by
| accident, violence or poison, he could be expected to
| live almost as long as men today: from 1200 to 1745,
| 21-year-olds would reach an average age of anywhere
| between 62 and 70 years
|
| If you dig further you can see that these numbers are
| about male aristocracy in England between 1200 and 1745:
|
| https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jIMHCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA8&l
| pg=...
|
| The vast majority of people didn't witness their 70th
| birthday before modern times.
| lou1306 wrote:
| The Bible says "We are given 70 years, or 80 if we are
| strong" (psalm 90). Sounds like pretty strong evidence that
| old age (>50 years) was not that exceptional.
| quanto wrote:
| I don't presume to analyze someone's marriage, let alone whole
| life, based on a few paragraphs.
|
| Nevertheless, I can't help but notice that the writer of the
| article describes herself as lonely, having had "trouble forming
| friendships", "inconsiderate", and having "love for confusion".
|
| The fact that she feels lonely in her marriage speaks to me more
| of her innate nature than her marriage. I wonder whether most
| non-optimal marriages are like this -- people bring their own
| problems to the marital table, in hopes that the problems will be
| solved, and become invariably disappointed that it doesn't solve
| them.
|
| Regardless of what the underlying cause is, my sympathies to the
| author. Loneliness is a terrible thing to experience.
| lsiq wrote:
| I was surprised to see the author's name, because I actually
| took History of Philosophy: Ancient Philosophy with her at
| uChicago a decade ago.
|
| Her personality really shows through the article - it's highly
| amusing. She's an energetic philosophy wonk.
|
| To me, this is just a classic case of a husband who doesn't
| realize that he can never let boredom creep in and isn't
| keeping things fresh and having enough sex.
| defterGoose wrote:
| | To me, this is just a classic case of a husband who doesn't
| realize that he can never let boredom creep in and isn't
| keeping things fresh and having enough sex.
|
| I mean, personal knowledge of the person aside, it this truly
| the typical case? I think more often than not if there's
| something missing, both parties are culpable. Sure, there are
| situations where one person's sex drive is lower and this
| causes friction, but the truth is that it's harder still to
| have two problematic personalities capitulate at the same
| time to resolve the issue. In other words, in my experience
| there is a lack of communication from both sides.
| mlyle wrote:
| Yes. Many people have an overwhelming expectation that a
| partner will fix everything.
|
| I mean, often my wife is the only person I see for a several
| hour stretch. And it's somewhat sad and lonely when I
| experience something and it's not really something I can share
| fully with her -- because it's deep and specialized and nuanced
| in somewhere that I've obsessed.
|
| But-- how can anyone expect that of _anyone_? How boring would
| life be if I 'd found such a close twin of myself that all the
| weird, esoteric stuff that amuses me made sense to her? She
| brings her own perspective and abilities, and the cost of this
| is that I don't get to see myself and my little obsessions
| mirrored every second in her.
|
| A partner can bring an awful lot, but they can't bring
| _everything all of the time_.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| And it's somewhat sad and lonely when I experience
| something and it's not really something I can share
| fully with her
|
| In a good relationship, people get excited for each other!
|
| When Person B is happy and/or geeking out over something...
|
| Person A doesn't have to love or even care about every detail
| of _the thing itself._ But Person A should be genuinely
| excited that Person B is happy about something and should
| take some interest in the thing, if only to understand why it
| makes Person B happy.
|
| I have had a lot of bad relationships.
| mlyle wrote:
| Oh, sure. My wife will notice I'm excited and be happy. And
| listen patiently and try and understand.
|
| But it's not the same as bragging or complaining about it
| to my nerd buddies, you know?
|
| At one point, this used to really bum me out, but it was
| really an unrealistic expectation.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I like it when my partner can at least ask intelligent
| questions about the thing I am enthusiastic about though.
|
| They don't really have to understand it, just get the
| general idea.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| There's a spectrum of possible behaviors here, both on
| the part of the sender and the receiver. As someone who
| is interested in things that someone else isn't
| interested in, it's important to regulate how much time
| you spend talking about those topics. For example, it's
| fine to bring up a videogame with non-gamers once in a
| while, but if your every conversation is about that, it's
| going to annoy the people listening to you, even if they
| are the most generous conversation partners in the world.
| Only get a seven year old talking about their favorite
| Nintendo game to see how wearing that can be.
| urthor wrote:
| The greatest thing a partner can give you is encouragement
| and motivation in your daily tasks and challenges.
|
| We form partnerships and relationships not to have our
| counter-parties do the work for us, but so that we can
| discuss, share,console, and motivate each other in our
| respective journeys.
|
| I don't think the fundamental test of a relationship often is
| what we do for each other, although of course in sickness and
| in health comes into that.
|
| I think the fundamental test is what we _discuss_ with each
| other.
|
| Whether the most important questions in life are something
| two people think about together, that's what matters.
| rawoke083600 wrote:
| As an extra data point. Not having her get excited about xyz
| is one thing. My gf from long long ago(just after varisty)
| would belittle/disapprove flat out freak out if i showed
| shared something with her that she didnt like or approve.
|
| Show her some video on YouTube about a random topic, sure she
| doesnt, have to like it. But just hearing the video presenter
| from another room will be enough for her to freak out 'urghh
| are you listening to thatttt guy again !!! I cant stand him
| he is so boring such a **.'
|
| Going on a roadtrip ? You better tune the radio to 'something
| good' the first time, Else it will be a 1min lashing of how
| boring,stupid and irrating the person's voice or topic is !
|
| Just ask/say you want to listen to something else, I dont
| need to hear all the rest.
|
| I never was/is much of a spiritual person, but that ex showed
| me how the 'room energy' can change in a instant !
|
| Marriage - sure it can be great, but be careful of ending up
| in a 'military state' at home. Your mental health wont
| survive it !
| mlyle wrote:
| This is really mostly my issue. She'll even get excited.
|
| But by the time I've explained the 15 pieces of background
| knowledge needed to understand what I mean... _I 'm_ not
| even excited anymore. :D
|
| We've got a whole lot of common ground-- she's a mechanical
| engineer, and now we're both involved quite a bit in
| education and coaching. That stuff we can talk about. But
| late last night I came up with a clever trick to collapse
| some tedious keypad-scanning-code down into something
| surprisingly tidy, and in that moment all I could really
| say was "I got the keypad on those boards for the robotics
| kids working in a really nice way".
| Torwald wrote:
| What you describe is a person I wouldn't call an adult.
| redisman wrote:
| I mean the problem here sounds to be that you were dating a
| mental 15 year old.
| uptownfunk wrote:
| First, what a refreshing discussion for HN.
|
| Separately, is it me, or do I just see less and less people
| choosing to get married these days, and even less of them having
| kids? Wondering if anyone has seen stats to the same and if this
| is just an n=1 problem or more of a generational trend.
| neonate wrote:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20210926020656/https://www.newyor...
|
| https://archive.is/AfaBY
| amriksohata wrote:
| I wonder if this is a modern marriage thing with the ride of
| individualism. Not saying this is right but back in the day the
| roles were very defined.
| rsyring wrote:
| I think there is beauty and wisdom in making a commitment
| (through good and bad, till death do us part) and then actually
| keeping that commitment regardless of how my personal desires are
| or are not met over the years.
|
| Once the commitment to honor my wife and word is most important,
| it becomes an anchor in my life to the waves of wants and desires
| which are ever changing. Feeling lonely in my marriage, well, I'm
| in this thing for life, how can I productively address this with
| my wife? Or, maybe my expectations of her are unrealistic, can I
| find friends or interests elsewhere while still honoring and
| remaining committed to her? If our romance becomes dry, then I
| work to address that with her. If I notice she's not happy or
| unsatisfied, then I need to care for her and help if I can. If I
| can't, then I'm just going to be there with her, walking through
| dark times, because that's my commitment, and it's loving and
| honorable.
|
| My desires are often fleeting and dishonorable...selfish and
| wanton. It's good to deny them and pursue more honorable things
| with my life. The best things in life, the best stories, are
| those that come after trial and sacrifice. So much of our modern
| culture is empty and destructive because we've put self, our
| wants...our desires, in the place of utmost importance. Not
| having the wisdom to see that philosophy is like dedicating
| oneself to getting water from a broken cistern.
|
| Furthermore, one of the best things a father can do for his
| children is to love their mother this way.
| uptownfunk wrote:
| Agree 100% with parent here. I find some of the responses
| interesting and I think symptomatic of the trend I've seen
| among the under 35 crowd.. (stay single for as long as you can,
| marry late, have dogs/cats in place of children..) Ultimately,
| you're either honorable as a person or you're not. Honor for
| honor's sake is reason enough.
|
| These sorts of rationalizations against honorable behavior such
| as commitment are what is driving the degradation of society as
| we know it. These institutions have formed over hundreds (if
| not thousands) of years, and are ultimately present to sustain
| and propagate life itself.
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| With respect, this sounds miserable.
|
| The only redeeming fact is the commitment to your children,
| which is honorable and admirable.
| rsyring wrote:
| Anecdotally, I'm pretty happy in my marriage. There are hard
| times, as there are with anything, but overall I'm glad I
| married my wife and she's glad she married me. We enjoy each
| other's company and have a relationship that is built on
| trust, compassion, and commitment. We are far from miserable.
|
| I think it's interesting that commitment to children is
| honorable but commitment to spouse is not. My oldest son, due
| to selfish life choices, has caused me far more misery than
| my wife ever has. I still love him, and want good things for
| him, but my life is now very separate from his. And, perhaps,
| that's how it should be for children. It's expected that they
| grow up and leave the next. But my wife is the one I made a
| life long commitment to. That seems like the higher priority
| to me.
|
| FWIW, I'm not advocating staying in a miserable marriage. I'm
| advocating for, having already committed to staying in the
| marriage (when you took your vows) do everything possible to
| have a robust and joy-filled marriage.
| derefr wrote:
| In the end, what do you get from that commitment? Why did you
| make it in the first place, if not for a selfish reason? What
| is the place of "honor", if it is not a code that it _makes you
| happy_ to live by?
|
| People's terminal preferences are the root of who they are.
| There is no goal that exists _beyond_ one's terminal
| preferences. You can _prefer_ to obey some moral distinction,
| but you _prefer_ it because that increases your happiness /life
| satisfaction (or at least, you have absorbed enough second-hand
| examples that you _believe it will_ increase your happiness
| /life satisfaction.) If it didn't, why would your brain ever
| bother to spit out a "you should do it" answer?
|
| > My desires are often fleeting and dishonorable...selfish and
| wanton.
|
| I think you're confusing societal mores that you've chosen to
| adhere to (e.g. monogamy) with some sort of objective moral
| function that all humans will somehow be judged by regardless
| of whether anyone is doing the judging. If you're sleeping
| around (the thing I'm assuming you're talking about here) but
| you're in a polyamorous relationship, with a partner who
| experiences compersion rather than jealousy when people outside
| of your relationship do things to make you happy -- is that act
| still "dishonorable" or "wanton" of you? What would those words
| mean, for that to be true? If everyone important to you wants
| you to enjoy yourself, and you _do_ enjoy yourself, then who is
| saying no?
|
| And, given that, if your marriage partner _does_ say no to
| something that would make you happy, how is that anything other
| than an incompatibility between you; something that could have
| been avoided by _ensuring compatibility before commitment_?
|
| IMHO, you are rationalizing staying in a relationship with a
| partner whose preferences do overlap with yours enough for life
| with them to be generally pleasant; but where in some ways
| their preferences are extremely incompatible with your own.
| But, because you are embedded in a society mostly consisting of
| potential partners who _also_ have those same extremely-
| incompatible preferences to your own, it doesn't feel like
| you'd actually have any luck finding a partner whose
| preferences cohere more closely to your own. You satisficed,
| and now are attempting to construct a philosophy that makes
| satisficing seem optimal, so that you can have one fewer
| regret.
|
| People should really spend more time looking outside their own
| culture for partners. It can turn out that what is
| "dishonorable" or "wanton" to you, is just regular respectable
| behavior in another culture in another part of the world. The
| objectivity of social mores is an illusion created by cultural
| isolation.
|
| (FYI: this is just the standard University "introduction to
| meta-ethics" stuff, just applied to romantic social mores in
| particular.)
| zepto wrote:
| > People's terminal preferences are the root of who they are.
| There is no goal that exists beyond one's terminal
| preferences. You can prefer to obey some moral distinction,
| but you prefer it because that increases your happiness/life
| satisfaction. If it didn't, why would your brain ever bother
| to spit out a "you should do it" answer?
|
| This is circular reasoning. You have baked in the assumption
| that people operate by maximizing their individual self-
| interest.
|
| A simple answer to why one might do it, even if it didn't
| maximize their own happiness/satisfaction, is that they are
| genuinely focused on a less individualistic aim.
|
| Self-sacrifice in service of higher value doesn't necessarily
| make one happy, but it can be part of one's nature to
| recognize that one's own sacrifice benefits others in some
| way.
| derefr wrote:
| You misunderstand what I mean by "happiness", I think.
| (Probably because I should have said "predicted utility of
| all agents similar to oneself", but I didn't, because
| that's pretty dang jargon-y, _and_ assumes you've walked
| through the relevant thought experiments about self-
| sacrifice to help other copies of yourself, etc.)
|
| If someone martyrs themselves, then in the moment they do
| that, they're thinking that _that is a good thing to do_ --
| i.e. the reward calculation in their brain comes out in
| favour of doing that thing instead of anything else they
| could be doing instead. They expect that good things will
| happen due to this--things that cohere with their
| preferences. This is still true even if they don't live to
| _see_ those good things happen, because brains are
| adaptation executors, not fitness maximizers: we prefer the
| kinds of things that made _our lineage_ successful, not the
| things that make _us_ successful.
|
| But those are still _preferences_! "Being of use to others"
| _is a preference_. You do it because _that's the thing your
| brain releases reward chemicals when you do_. This is what
| you are terming something being "part of one's nature";
| "your nature" is equivalent to "your preference function."
|
| And, if you can assume that to be true for a second, then I
| can restate my point in terms of it: many of the things
| people have terms for in their preference functions are
| based on adhering to an abstract role or identity,
| something like "an honorable person", their understanding
| of which was inculcated by _local, culturally-contextual_
| societal mores.
|
| For most people, doing something "because it's honorable"
| isn't a post-hoc rationalization of some spiritual
| connection to the concept of honor that informs their life.
| Instead, it's an _instrumental preference_ -- a thing you
| do _in order to_ work toward some higher-level preference
| you have -- where the higher-level preference is "cohere
| more closely with _my own understanding of_ what it means
| to be honorable."
|
| In these cases, people don't like X and dislike Y because
| their brain is _directly_ telling them that X is good and Y
| isn't (where they then notice a class of such preferential
| distinctions they're making, and then call that class of
| distinctions "honor" because it seems to be the same as a
| class of distinctions that other people call "honor.")
| Instead, people like X and dislike Y because they learned a
| concept like "honor" from their societal context, and they
| learned that _their society_ considers X to be honorable
| and Y to be dishonorable; and so they then prefer to do X
| and not do Y because they want to live in the _image_ of
| what _they believe_ honor to be, as learned from their
| society.
|
| For these people, if they experience other cultures'
| conceptions of these abstract concepts, and through that
| learn more about what these abstract concepts can mean to
| different people, this is usually enough to shift how they
| understand the abstract concept itself; and due to that,
| they will usually end up with _different_ instrumental
| preferences--because now what they have learned "is
| honorable", is a different set of things.
|
| (Compare and contrast: etiquette. "What is etiquette" can
| _feel_ objective if you never leave the culture you were
| born into. But you'll have a very different idea of things
| being or not being "polite" if you experience a variety of
| different cultures that all have developed different
| customs around etiquette.)
| zepto wrote:
| > the reward calculation in their brain comes out in
| favour of doing that thing instead of anything else they
| could be doing instead
|
| Nope. That's you baking in the assumption that they are
| making a calculation about reward.
|
| That's an axiom of your way of analyzing the situation.
| Nothing more.
| kace91 wrote:
| I'm trying to empathise to your perspective, but I can't see
| why you would want to remain less happy (or more miserable)
| that you'd otherwise potentially be while your partner does the
| same thing, just because it seemed like a good idea at some
| point in the past.
|
| You add abstract good adjectives to that idea (honorable, wise,
| beautiful) and bad adjectives to the opposite (wanton, selfish,
| etc), but you don't really justify that assignation.
|
| I understand that thinking short term by default can lead to
| harm or missing something in the long term. But there's a whole
| jump from that to thinking that something has value just for
| being long lasting. Following your analogy, I wouldn't want to
| keep reaching from water in a well that went dry long ago.
|
| >The best things in life, the best stories, are those that come
| after trial and sacrifice.
|
| I'd say that even if that is often true, it is often difficult
| to tell trials and sacrifices apart from refusal to move on.
|
| And to be clear, since this can be both a philosophical
| conversation and one that touches personal matters,I don't by
| any means imply a personal judgement of your personal choices -
| I'm just speaking about abstract ideas.
| rsyring wrote:
| Happy to try to explain. But, we are really getting into
| deeper waters of worldview and foundational values. Where we
| land on such things is rarely solely objective or analytical,
| so I'll just try to explain where I'm at, recognizing that it
| won't be satisfying or sufficient for others. I appreciate
| the sensitive/personal nature of these things, as you note,
| and your comments.
|
| My worldview has been shaped by the Bible and, specifically,
| a reformed evangelical theology. Inherent to that worldview
| is the belief that my life is not my own, I was designed for
| a purpose, and my life will have the most meaning (not
| necessarily the most happiness) when I operate to fulfill
| that purpose.
|
| > I can't see why you would want to remain less happy (or
| more miserable) that you'd otherwise potentially be
|
| I don't believe one's personal happiness is a sufficient
| measurement to optimize one's life around. My worldview is
| shaped by different questions than, "Does this make me
| happy?" Even though this belief is, for me, rooted in
| religion, I actually think there is plenty of evidence for
| the truly objective to recognize the danger inherent in
| maximizing that metric.
|
| I have biblical "justifications" for those ideas and for the
| adjectives I use (honorable, wise, beautiful), but a full
| defense is beyond what can reasonably be discussed here. "The
| Meaning of Marriage" by Tim Keller or "Sacred Marriage" by
| Gary Thomas would further elaborate on these ideas
| specifically in the context of marriage. TBH, I wasn't really
| trying to justify my beliefs in the parent comment b/c It's
| too hard in this context. I just figured I'd share what I
| thought and let the upvotes and downvotes work it out. :)
|
| I'm not advocating commitment to marriage simply for the sake
| that it ends up being long lasting. I think there are
| benefits to the spouses, the children, and to society to not
| only stick it out, but to work on improving it. One of the
| things that I guess didn't come out clearly in my original
| comment was that, if you are in the marriage for life, and
| you are going to honor that commitment, it's a great reason
| to invest in that marriage and make it as good as it can be.
|
| > I'd say that even if that is often true, it is often
| difficult to tell trials and sacrifices apart from refusal to
| move on.
|
| When moving on is simply not an option, there's no debate, no
| wrestling. It's not refusal, really. It's more like war. I'm
| not surprised by the war, by the trial...by the hardship and
| sacrifice necessary. But I am committed to not leaving my
| partner behind..we'll go through it together, till death do
| us part. I think there's glory in that...I think most people
| feel it and want to be a part of a story like that. I think
| our attraction to such things is built in, wired into how God
| has made us. But when we celebrate self and personal
| happiness, that attraction gets re-wired, and as a society
| and as individuals we start loving attitudes and actions that
| really aren't lovable. Things that, in war, we would usually
| call cowardice.
|
| Not every deserter in wartime is a coward and not every
| person who gets divorced is selfish. My wife was married and
| divorced before we met and were married. Complexity exists,
| wisdom needs to be used, my intention is not to judge. My
| goal is simply to share the perspective that commitment and
| steadfast love are better than selfishness. That optimizing
| for personal happiness is a bad metric. I hope that some will
| be able to hear and embrace that message...will be able to
| sense the honor and glory inherent in that perspective, even
| if I can't well articulate an objective analytical
| justification for it.
|
| Thanks for the dialogue.
| kace91 wrote:
| Ah, if your beliefs are rooted in religion then there's not
| much we can discuss to find a common agreement, since we're
| starting from very different axioms.
|
| > I don't believe one's personal happiness is a sufficient
| measurement to optimize one's life around. (...)I actually
| think there is plenty of evidence for the truly objective
| to recognize the danger inherent in maximizing that metric.
|
| I do agree that there are more things to take into account
| than personal happiness, to guide one's life - I could see
| for example how someone would sacrifice their life for a
| better cause for example. I just don't see any moral reason
| that would apply here, since the act of breaking the vows
| doesn't harm anyone if both partners are in a position of
| unhappiness. I do see however how you can see those moral
| reasons there, since marriage for you it's more than a
| symbol that you want to commit to the relationship, and it
| has religious implications.
|
| > I think there are benefits to the spouses, the children,
| and to society to not only stick it out, but to work on
| improving it. One of the things that I guess didn't come
| out clearly in my original comment was that, if you are in
| the marriage for life, and you are going to honor that
| commitment, it's a great reason to invest in that marriage
| and make it as good as it can be.
|
| I partially agree, and to be clear I wouldn't defend the
| position of not fighting to get the marriage to work. I
| just think that some of the reasons why marriages no longer
| work are simply not fixable by putting in effort, and that
| the belief that there must necessarily be a fix if only you
| work harder can be dangerous to - people can end up in a
| position where not only they remain unhappy, but also
| exhausted from their sacrifices and accumulate feelings of
| guilt since if the marriage doesn't work is because they
| haven't done enough.
| rsyring wrote:
| > Ah, if your beliefs are rooted in religion then there's
| not much we can discuss to find a common agreement, since
| we're starting from very different axioms.
|
| IMO, much of the world's arguments are a result of
| starting from very different axioms. I feel like too
| often people don't realize those "axioms" or as I would
| put it, those worldviews, are the real source of the
| disagreement. The actual disagreements themselves are
| just a result of approaching life or the particular issue
| with very different set of foundational beliefs and
| values.
|
| But finding common agreement is, perhaps, not required or
| even the most valuable outcome. I believe there is value
| in simply being able to have those discussions,
| reasonably...respectfully, even if agreement itself is
| elusive.
| qolop wrote:
| I have a feeling that your response, just like OP's is an
| emotional one, based on experiences you've had in life. In my
| 50 years on earth, I've witnessed all 4 kinds of marriages.
|
| 1. Unhappy couple that stayed together and worked out their
| problems
|
| 2. Unhappy couple that stayed together and remained miserable
|
| 3. Unhappy couple that split and are happy with their
| decision
|
| 4. Unhappy couple that split and now regret having done that
|
| You cannot deny that there's beauty in 1, and I think when
| you made your comment number 2 is probably what was going
| through your mind.
|
| In any case I did connect with OPs comment, and do think that
| things have value because they last long. People don't
| optimize for happiness in life, they optimize for other
| abstract concepts like fulfillment and purpose etc. Marriage
| and family can give a great sense of purpose and more
| fulfillment than any fleeting romance (or selfish decision-
| making). Life is long and full of ups and downs, marriage
| (just like religion and children) can serve as a great anchor
| point.
| kace91 wrote:
| My post wasn't really shaped by any particular experience,
| but I did have 2 in mind, as well as 3; not a specific case
| in mind, but more a point that they do exist, and that they
| aren't any less likely or worth considering.
|
| I think that all four options are definitely possible, but
| that people have a bias for maintaining their circle of
| comfort, and justify that fear of the unknown.
|
| As for
|
| >You cannot deny that there's beauty in 1
|
| I do deny it; or to be clear, I think it is a story that
| we've been conditioned to prefer over the others, with
| sometimes disastrous results for everyone involved. I see
| the same beauty in any other option that ends up with a
| person living a great life they don't regret.
|
| I think we'd have a better world if people focused on
| finding their best possible life without a notion that this
| choice is the default, more likely option for a live well
| lived.
| cousin_it wrote:
| Marriage is a mutual help commitment. I hold this truth
| to be self evident, that a world with strong mutual help
| commitments is better than a world where people abandon
| each other at the first difficulty. So I try to make that
| world a reality through my actions. It's partly prosocial
| (a world with strong mutual help commitments is better
| for everyone), partly for my wife's sake, and partly for
| my own.
|
| How does that square with your idea of each person
| seeking the best life for themselves? Well, it doesn't.
| Your idea is wrong. It's not possible in this world to be
| independent; one look at a newborn child should convince
| you of that. We owe everything good to systems of
| dependence. Ceasing to pay into such systems will lead to
| them breaking down, leading to a worse life for everyone.
|
| Let's take a concrete example. A quarter of US kids today
| are growing up with one parent, the highest rate of any
| country on Earth and the highest rate in history.
| According to every study of divorce, it has a huge
| negative impact on the child's happiness and life
| outcomes. Basically the current generation is seeking the
| best life for themselves and making the next generation
| pay for it.
|
| I do believe in a life well lived. But I don't see myself
| as some kind of independent mind making sense of the
| universe by the firelight. I was born as part of a
| system, receiving a million boons since before I was
| born, and carrying obligations accordingly. In the
| simplest terms - respect my parents, be faithful to my
| spouse, care for my children. Maybe I could break with
| it, deny the boons to everyone who comes after me... no,
| fuck that. I'll continue.
| jeremie wrote:
| > I do deny it; or to be clear, I think it is a story
| that we've been conditioned to prefer over the others
|
| Speaking personally, and perhaps it is indeed my
| conditioning, but at 25+ years of marriage I am living
| that beauty in 1 every day and I know without a doubt it
| has led me to my best possible life.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Also speaking personally, I know more divorced couples
| than married couples, and have seen a married partner
| (who has a child) cheat on their spouse for going on a
| decade "because it's the path of least resistance." Also
| saw someone during a divorce light $100k on fire (from
| combined assets) in lawyer fees just to spite the other
| person (who had exhausted all options in attempting to
| repair the relationship before asking for the divorce).
|
| Everyone is winging it, and the only beauty is in finding
| happiness while causing the least harm to others (imho).
| Do the best you can with the information you have, maybe
| it works out, maybe it doesn't.
| baumandm wrote:
| IMHO the issue is that society tells couples that 1 is the
| ideal outcome, creating plenty of 2s who believe they will
| eventually become 1s if they just keep trying. Some of
| those couples might be happier as 3s.
|
| I believe both 1 and 3 are preferable to 2 or 4, so I don't
| find this trope particularly helpful. It doesn't really
| matter if 1 is best or not, since it's not going to be
| possible for everyone.
| missedthecue wrote:
| My paternal grandparents were married 68 years.
|
| My maternal grandparents had been divorced and remarried
| three times.
|
| Guess which set were happier with their station in life when
| I knew them? In my experience, pursuing your immediate
| happiness at the expense of long term fulfillment is a losing
| wager every time.
| darkerside wrote:
| One way to look at it is, are you optimizing for a local
| maximum of personal happiness, when you'd actually have a
| more happy and fulfilling lifetime by optimizing it for the
| both of you (a la Nash equilibrium)?
|
| Another way to look at it, constraints breed creativity. You
| sometimes come up with better solutions when you don't have
| total freedom.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Does constraint really breed freedom? It seems obviously
| true but has there been any studies on this subject?
| darkerside wrote:
| It's honestly so trite to say that it's not worth
| studying. More accurately, constraints _can_ breed
| creativity. They can certainly also squash it. The only
| reason it's worth saying the former is that sometimes
| people forget because it is nonintuitive.
| xrd wrote:
| Ingmar Bergman was quite an interesting character. From his
| wikipedia page:
|
| "His father was a conservative parish minister with strict ideas
| of parenting. Ingmar was locked up in dark closets for
| infractions such as wetting himself."
|
| I came to find out how his own marriage went. At first, I thought
| the only reference to his wife was that his name were inscribed
| under his wife's tomb several years before his death. But, that
| was because I assumed his film listing would come after his
| personal life. Scrolling down shows that he was married five
| times.
| [deleted]
| rsync wrote:
| Was this generated with GPT-3 ?
| mkl wrote:
| That's a real Wikipedia quote, so that doesn't seem possible.
| wyldfire wrote:
| It seems topical and coherent, why do you think it is
| artificial?
| mlyle wrote:
| I'm not the parent poster, but-- It's all topical and
| coherent, but the text flits between loosely connected
| points rather abruptly. I had to read it twice before it
| made any sense. I could see why it would trigger one to
| think it might be artificial.
| bdcravens wrote:
| It made sense to me the first time I read it. Perhaps I'm
| an AI lol
| d3nj4l wrote:
| Something about the structure of the paragraph after the
| quote makes it hard to follow. I think it's this bit:
| I thought the only reference to his wife was (x). But, that
| was because (y).
|
| The paragraph is structured as if y explains x, but in fact
| y explains the entirety of the first sentence instead. It's
| easy to get tripped up, wonder what the link is, and then
| associate it with the characteristic schizophrenia of AI
| generated text.
| wyldfire wrote:
| > the characteristic schizophrenia of AI generated text.
|
| Maybe it's a well-modeled AI and they occasionally
| reflect the style of human-generated comments like these.
| dwohnitmok wrote:
| I think xrd is alluding to Bergman's TV series being a
| reflection of Bergman's own marital woes (or vice versa), so
| no I don't think that reply was generated by GPT-3.
|
| Nonetheless I find it amusing that failing the reverse Turing
| test is becoming commonplace.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| I'm not the most academic in the world, but in his own terms,
| his biography is a bit of an oddball. The subject matter, the
| plot, the writing are rather convoluted, and the plot never
| has any basis in actuality or character, but with this he
| seemed to be an unlikely candidate for the role "Aged 12-18".
|
| [generated by GPT-2]
| xrd wrote:
| To be honest, I cannot be sure I'm not AI inside a virtual
| world. It all feels really "real" to me, but that could be
| because the model was trained really, really well.
|
| Having gotten that out of the way, I originally made a
| grandiloquent statement about his wikipedia page not having
| any information about his marital life, because I thought
| when I saw the film listings that that was the end of the
| entry. I feel like it is typical that wikipedia pages give
| the full course of the person's life before summarizing their
| creative output, but I don't really know if that assumption
| is true. When I re-read the page and scrolled down, I
| realized there was a whole section of information about his
| married life, so I edited the comment. I should have
| indicated I edited it.
|
| This is one of my favorite personal threads on HN, I have to
| say. The digital world we live is such that we cannot tell if
| a few sentences belong to a GPT-3, a schizophrenic, or just a
| bad writer with run-on sentences. My mantra lately is what
| would a crazy person do in this world, because I'm definitely
| feeling like that's the only sure fire safe route to take.
| yodon wrote:
| As with the HN rule to not accuse the writer of not having
| read the article, I fear we're moving towards a point where
| we will need a similar rule that discourages people from
| accusing others of being GPT3 (seriously, going beyond the
| obviously insulting aspect of the accusation, why would
| anyone bother to do that - the economic value of a
| fictitiously constructed HN account is negligible at best)
| jcelerier wrote:
| > why would anyone bother to do that - the economic value
| of a fictitiously constructed HN account is negligible at
| best
|
| Here's the real GPT-3 bot, trained squarely on The
| Economist articles from 1995 on, with a universe model
| entirely based on economic values and transactions.
|
| A month or so ago, a french presidential candidate said
| something like "we have too many male engineers building
| nuclear reactors and not enough female witches casting
| spells" and I thought that was bullshit, but people like
| you honestly make me reconsider it.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| The quality and thoughtfulness of some of the comments in this
| thread is outstanding.
| jlos wrote:
| Within healthy communities the need for meaningful human
| interaction is spread out among the community and not placed
| solely on your spouse. Therefore, I suggest a large driver of
| marital loneliness arises because marriage is not capable, on its
| own, of solving loneliness. Loneliness roughly means a lack of
| meaningful relationships. Communities offer the opportunities for
| various levels of connection from close friends to casual
| acquaintances while connecting all the individuals to each other
| (i.e. you have your close friends but everyone also knows each
| other). Furthermore, healthy communities create a dynamic
| environment where new relationships form spontaneously as the
| individuals grow and change (e.g. the former acquaintance marries
| your sister and now you become close friends, you have a kid and
| get to know the other parents in the community better, etc).
|
| In this way, communities and marriage form a symbiotic
| relationship. Stable marriages become the bedrock of a community,
| as family provide the most stable structure for the community.
| However, strong communities also provide a dynamism and support
| that reduce the burden on marriage to provide a fulfilling life
| to those within it.
|
| However, meaningful communities have been almost entirely eroded
| by the acids of modern life: increased mobility (communities,
| like all relationships, require time), car reliant
| infrastructure, declining religious participation, and economies
| built on individual consumption all make it harder to build,
| find, and belong to communities. And with the decline of
| communities, the sense of belonging and meaning that once was
| spread out over a largely stable group now falls to a single
| individual - your spouse.
|
| In fact, one could argue that the increase in marital breakdown
| observed during the 20th century is itself a second-order effect
| of the breakdown of communities in that same time frame. Even the
| liberalization of the divorce laws could, arguably, be framed as
| a response to a trend already in motion rather than kickstarting
| it from out of nowhere.
| accountofme wrote:
| I am saddened by this article turning into an advertisement for a
| HBO show.
| NewEntryHN wrote:
| It literally explains why this show is not as good as the
| original.
| accountofme wrote:
| It has no place being there.
| defterGoose wrote:
| Granted, if an Aquafresh commercial was like, "Yeah, we're
| not such hot shit, Colgate is pretty great too", I'd probably
| be much more inclined to try Aquafresh.
| vermooten wrote:
| When I saw that HBO were doing a remake I wondered: who do they
| think they are that they can do better than Bergman?
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| "Marriage" is a pretty stupid concept to be honest. It's not a
| good signal of a committed healthy relationship at any point
| really. Some people get married so they can fuck without shame
| and guilt. Some people get married because they need tax
| benefits. My partner and I don't care at all about marriage
| despite a decade of being together and mutually understood plans
| of being together for the rest of our lives. We probably will get
| married. But is that an inflection point on things? Definitely
| not.
| maire wrote:
| If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, marry your
| best friend. Don't read these self-help articles.
|
| When I was young the pundits kept saying that love only lasts 2
| years. I think this is because they had a shallow definition of
| love.
|
| If you marry your best friend you will always be your true self
| and they will always be their true self.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I was also preached the two years thing. I wonder where that
| stupid meme came from?
| greeklish wrote:
| Some people can only learn from first hand experience and this is
| why incompatible people marry and and raise children.
|
| I dodged the bullet 2 times from partners, that I had feelings at
| the time (I was lonely and out of a relationship for very long
| periods before), who didn't want children with me (they would
| consider abortion in case I left them pregnant, instead of having
| a family with me, when I discussed the possibility).
|
| Love is real and instinctual. No matter how many possible couples
| you have observed (I appreciate gossip sometimes) to know the
| possibilities of what to expect, you still have to fight your own
| urges and dreams.
| Ziggy_Zaggy wrote:
| https://outline.com/DmWXyr
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-09-26 23:02 UTC)