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Masters of Love: Lasting relationships come down to kindness, generosity (2014)

theatlantic.com

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Re: Masters of Love: Lasting relationships come down to kindness, generosity (2014)

#31

Post by lordnacho »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #21
mercer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any links to evidence for this being the case? Honestly curious.

Evidence? Sure, I know many couples. The bit about differences between couples who have only slept with each other is my own theory based on my observations. But it seems this has been studied more rigorously, for example: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1741-3737... But this talks about marital dissolution, not simply affairs. Affairs are happening way more than you think.

If were happy with anecdata my evidence is the exact opposite. The people who've had few partners get curious and are the ones who end up having affairs, the ones who had dozens and dozens keep on the straight and narrow.

But of course that's just people for whom I have the data, very small sample.

Re: Masters of Love: Lasting relationships come down to kindness, generosity (2014)

#32

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway713 wrote: post #11

I'll quote Richard White's answer on Quora to the question "What was the worst thing your parents ever did to you?" > Every day from as early as I can remember, they were clearly and obviously in love with each other. Even after 50 years of marriage they were still acting like two teenagers going steady. They always supported each other in everything they did or tried to do. They "had each other's backs" at all times…

[deleted]

Re: Masters of Love: Lasting relationships come down to kindness, generosity (2014)

#33

Post by cup-of-tea »

kstenerud wrote: post #25
cup-of-tea wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence? Sure, I know many couples. The bit about differences between couples who have only slept with each other is my own theory based on my observations. But it seems this has been studied more rigorously, for example: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1741-3737... But this talks about marital dissolution, not simply affairs. Affairs are happening way more than you think.

Except that the study cited didn't take into account confounding factors (cohabitation in earlier decades was associated more strongly with lower socioeconomic status, for example). The study has since been replicated with more recent data, and shows a weakening correlation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3000053/

Well, they are still both talking about marriage dissolution. While dissolution surely implies an unhappy marriage, the reverse implication is most certainly not true. Many marriages stay official for reasons other than "love and happiness". Most affairs probably don't even come to light, let alone actually lead to marriage dissolution.

Re: Masters of Love: Lasting relationships come down to kindness, generosity (2014)

#34

Post by cup-of-tea »

lordnacho wrote: post #31
cup-of-tea wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence? Sure, I know many couples. The bit about differences between couples who have only slept with each other is my own theory based on my observations. But it seems this has been studied more rigorously, for example: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1741-3737... But this talks about marital dissolution, not simply affairs. Affairs are happening way more than you think.

If were happy with anecdata my evidence is the exact opposite. The people who've had few partners get curious and are the ones who end up having affairs, the ones who had dozens and dozens keep on the straight and narrow. But of course that's just people for whom I have the data, very small sample.

There's a big difference between one and "few". There's also a very long tail of partner counts and if you're talking about people who have had dozens of partners those are outliers. The median is somewhere around 5-7 in a lifetime.

Re: Masters of Love: Lasting relationships come down to kindness, generosity (2014)

#35

Post by maciejgryka »

throwaway713 wrote: post #11

I'll quote Richard White's answer on Quora to the question "What was the worst thing your parents ever did to you?" > Every day from as early as I can remember, they were clearly and obviously in love with each other. Even after 50 years of marriage they were still acting like two teenagers going steady. They always supported each other in everything they did or tried to do. They "had each other's backs" at all times…

Check out the book “The Course of Love” by Allain de Botton. I don’t think the problem is that the parents were happy! It’s that they were apparently unable to teach the being-happy-in-a-relationship skill to their kids. And it is a skill: more natural for some than others, but possible for everyone to learn and improve on with time and effort.

Re: Masters of Love: Lasting relationships come down to kindness, generosity (2014)

#36

Post by k__ »

I had multiple relationships over the course of my 15 year dating career. Most of them only working for maximum of 2 years. I even moved in with one of them, but it didn't help much. Only when I found out what I wanted, things got better.

The problem had something to do with missing kindness and generosity, but those were just the symptoms.

The reasons were unmet expectations.

The problem with expectations is, you just have them and don't necessarily know how to articulate them. Often you don't even know that you have them.

So you are in a relationship, don't say what you really want, because you don't know it, or feel shame for it etc., and then you start to lose interest in your partner because they don't give you the right thing. Then you become unkind and your partner leaves you.

Re: Masters of Love: Lasting relationships come down to kindness, generosity (2014)

#37

Post by EGreg »

maciejgryka wrote: post #35
throwaway713 wrote: post #11

I'll quote Richard White's answer on Quora to the question "What was the worst thing your parents ever did to you?" > Every day from as early as I can remember, they were clearly and obviously in love with each other. Even after 50 years of marriage they were still acting like two teenagers going steady. They always supported each other in everything they did or tried to do. They "had each other's backs" at all times…

Check out the book “The Course of Love” by Allain de Botton. I don’t think the problem is that the parents were happy! It’s that they were apparently unable to teach the being-happy-in-a-relationship skill to their kids. And it is a skill: more natural for some than others, but possible for everyone to learn and improve on with time and effort.

I don’t believe it is only a skill. If it were, a master could pick a random person on the street and have an amazing marriage with them.

In my opinion, just like a job, there is only so much willpower and motivation you have. It’s a finite resource. A person that you are

1) Sexually attracted to

2) Emotionally connected with

3) Makes you happy by just being themselves

Will make you happy and motivated to work things out, and vice versa.

Saying it’s a skill is like saying working at a frustrating job for decades is a skill. Sure but why not find one you actually are happy to come to every day?

The actual problem in today’s society is how much we expect from what we see is possible, versus how POOR matchmaking is today when you are single!

Re: Masters of Love: Lasting relationships come down to kindness, generosity (2014)

#38

Post by EGreg »

mmsimanga wrote: post #24
Renaud wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kindness appears to me as the decisive element for a successful relationship. It’s not the only one of course since there are many other factors that must be handled successfully (managing sexual satisfaction, financial stability, common life goals, ability to raise kids, etc) but kindness to each other is a determinant; it’s the ‘sauce’ that binds everything together and make it hold. And it must be reciprocated. If…

I want to add that kindness should be paired with gratitude. I know that people shouldn't expect anything back from kind acts but sometimes being kind isn't so easy. When someone is grateful for your kindness it makes things it easier. In long relationships showing gratitude is even more important.

Agreed. But you can do it the other way. You can be grateful FIRST for your partner and that will bring out your kindness.

Re: Masters of Love: Lasting relationships come down to kindness, generosity (2014)

#39

Post by rayiner »

logicchains wrote: post #27
ScottBurson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No marriage is perfect. Every couple fights sometimes, if both people are being real with each other, and if they're not, that's a huge problem in itself. (I think everdev is probably right: they didn't let you see them fighting.) The goal is not to never fight; it's to always fight fair . Sounds like your parents didn't show you how to do that — which is too bad, if they themselves knew, because most people don't. I…

>No marriage is perfect. Every couple fights sometimes, if both people are being real with each other, and if they're not, that's a huge problem in itself. Buying into this argument that "every couple fight sometimes" is why so many people never eliminate fights from their relationships, because they think it's normal and so never put the effort into bettering themselves and addressing the root causes of problems so…

You make an interesting point. Most people would for example never shout at a coworker, but people consider shouting in an argument with one's spouse fairly routine.

Re: Masters of Love: Lasting relationships come down to kindness, generosity (2014)

#40

Post by rayiner »

EGreg wrote: post #37
maciejgryka wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the book “The Course of Love” by Allain de Botton. I don’t think the problem is that the parents were happy! It’s that they were apparently unable to teach the being-happy-in-a-relationship skill to their kids. And it is a skill: more natural for some than others, but possible for everyone to learn and improve on with time and effort.

I don’t believe it is only a skill. If it were, a master could pick a random person on the street and have an amazing marriage with them. In my opinion, just like a job, there is only so much willpower and motivation you have. It’s a finite resource. A person that you are 1) Sexually attracted to 2) Emotionally connected with 3) Makes you happy by just being themselves Will make you happy and motivated to work things…

Matchmaking is overrated, and people expect too much out of relationships. My family is from Bangladesh where the marriages, though typically not arranged per se, involve less of a "trying on clothes" aspect than in the U.S. It's not clear to me that marriages are any happier here. (People are of course more likely to get divorced here, but are likely to end up in a second or third marriage that is not particularly happy either.)
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