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

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

#91

Post by dpark »

ivm wrote: post #53
watwut wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause of fight is that partners disagree over something that is important to both (likely related to some core value). The contributing factor is oftentimes stress, people are not able to be perfect under stress and sleep deprivation. Self-control and compassion don't make disagreement or bad feelings over important things disappear. They are still present. The "never fight" relationships (not just marriage,…

> The "never fight" relationships (not just marriage, but also friendships) are either "we do things as separately as possible" or one of the two ceased to talk about his or her issues. You missed one more option: "we can discuss a problem without involving emotions or clinging to our opinions too much".

> You missed one more option: "we can discuss a problem without involving emotions...”

How exactly do you have no emotions in a marriage disagreement? Most arguments are about emotions. No one argues about things they aren’t emotional about (unless it’s a proxy argument for something they are emotional about).

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

#92

Post by EGreg »

hackerman12345 wrote: post #87
EGreg wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree but I am not saying dating is the best way. The main thing for monogamous marriage is the matchmaking. When an entire village is involved, and they give you access to a huge pool of men and women ready to marry each other at the same time, that may be BETTER than the average dating strategy. Traditional societies have this all over the planet!

Tinder gives you the huge binder full of women too though.

Yeah, if it was file search it would be basically swiping left and right on random files until you saw all the files on your hard drive. A brilliant step in matchmaking, to be sure.

Who wants to switch to such a file system? :)

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

#93

Post by ivm »

dpark wrote: post #91
ivm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "never fight" relationships (not just marriage, but also friendships) are either "we do things as separately as possible" or one of the two ceased to talk about his or her issues. You missed one more option: "we can discuss a problem without involving emotions or clinging to our opinions too much".

> You missed one more option: "we can discuss a problem without involving emotions...” How exactly do you have no emotions in a marriage disagreement? Most arguments are about emotions. No one argues about things they aren’t emotional about (unless it’s a proxy argument for something they are emotional about).

Emotions have causes that produce them, so you can ignore emotions and discuss causes. If the cause is something unavoidable like a bad weather, then a partner who's suffering from it needs compassion and support. There's nothing to fight about.

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

#94

Post by ScottBurson »

logicchains wrote: post #47
watwut wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause of fight is that partners disagree over something that is important to both (likely related to some core value). The contributing factor is oftentimes stress, people are not able to be perfect under stress and sleep deprivation. Self-control and compassion don't make disagreement or bad feelings over important things disappear. They are still present. The "never fight" relationships (not just marriage,…

>The root cause of fight is that partners disagree over something that is important to both (likely related to some core value). If both partners disagree about a core value (and no mutually agreeable compromise is possible), the rational thing to do is either separate or for one party to accept the disagreement and move on. Repeatedly arguing about something serves absolutely no purpose, as there's extremely little…

> I agree disagreement is practically unavoidable, but a disagreement need not become a fight.

To some extent I think we're just using the words differently. What I would say is that a fight doesn't have to get ugly. It's still a fight, though, if one person wants one thing to happen in the relationship, and the other wants something different to happen; it's more than just a factual disagreement — it requires resolution. This may be a matter of one person recognizing that they're being self-centered and backing down, or it may require both people pressing their arguments until a compromise or, better, a creative resolution is found. A fight doesn't require shouting, but it may require saying "I'm angry about this".

Compassion and empathy are critical for fighting well, but they don't eliminate the need to fight, on occasion. Nor do fights have to be about the same things over and over — they do tend to be repetitive, though, when people fight dirty, as nothing is ever really resolved.

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

#95

Post by dpark »

ivm wrote: post #93
dpark wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You missed one more option: "we can discuss a problem without involving emotions...” How exactly do you have no emotions in a marriage disagreement? Most arguments are about emotions. No one argues about things they aren’t emotional about (unless it’s a proxy argument for something they are emotional about).

Emotions have causes that produce them, so you can ignore emotions and discuss causes. If the cause is something unavoidable like a bad weather, then a partner who's suffering from it needs compassion and support. There's nothing to fight about.

This makes no sense. No one fights about the weather

And you cannot divorce emotions completely from the things that cause them. This is absurd, and akin to saying that someone with a phobia should just rationally analyze it and the problem will go away.

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

#96

Post by radoslawc »

ScottBurson wrote: post #16
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…

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…

If one is older than thirteen there's no reason to 'fight'. One might disagree with SO but throwing temper tantrums is not an efficient way of communicating and if this is the way of solving every day problems then maybe one's got bigger problem than that. Especially fighting in front of kids is suppose to teach them how to fight in adult life? For kids it's confusing and scary. And who's the winner? One with better argument or the one not crying?

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

#97

Post by scarface74 »

laythea wrote: post #89
scarface74 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I divide my adult life up into my relationships, my observations.... Phase 1 - 20s. Graduated from college, moved from my small city to a larger metro area, went through some physical issues while at the same time trying to establish my career. It was a lonely time. I had one or two female friends who I would hang out with occasionally but they were both in the “friend zone” (one by mutual choice and one no shared…

"I don’t care what anyone says. Having money solves a lot of issues. There are a lot more “ands” than “ors” - we don’t have to argue about doing this or that - we can do both." Yes but the essence of a relationship is how problems get solved. You are avoiding the problems! That's cheating, but if you got the cash, all power to you!, just hope you guys don't disagree at some point, because cash doesn't solve EVERYTHIN…

There is more to the story....

I was both trying to dig my way out of the disaster of what was my real estate side business and trying to get my career back on track. I had a five year plan to do it. My wife and I discussed this before we got married. But talking through it in practice and living through it, is entirely different. I never gave her any reason not to trust me, but I didn’t “have a resume.” She trusted me intellectually but not emotionally while we were going through.

5 years, 4 jobs, $45K more in salary and a nice house in the burbs later. I’ve built a resume. This time around with 5 years under our belt, she has a lot more confidence in my leadership (for lack of a better word).

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

#98

Post by laythea »

scarface74 wrote: post #97
laythea wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don’t care what anyone says. Having money solves a lot of issues. There are a lot more “ands” than “ors” - we don’t have to argue about doing this or that - we can do both." Yes but the essence of a relationship is how problems get solved. You are avoiding the problems! That's cheating, but if you got the cash, all power to you!, just hope you guys don't disagree at some point, because cash doesn't solve EVERYTHIN…

There is more to the story.... I was both trying to dig my way out of the disaster of what was my real estate side business and trying to get my career back on track. I had a five year plan to do it. My wife and I discussed this before we got married. But talking through it in practice and living through it, is entirely different. I never gave her any reason not to trust me, but I didn’t “have a resume.” She trusted…

yeah but you sound like she is an investor not a life love. I'm not in a my marble palace b the way, I have my own complications! :)

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

#99

Post by ivm »

dpark wrote: post #95
ivm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emotions have causes that produce them, so you can ignore emotions and discuss causes. If the cause is something unavoidable like a bad weather, then a partner who's suffering from it needs compassion and support. There's nothing to fight about.

This makes no sense. No one fights about the weather And you cannot divorce emotions completely from the things that cause them. This is absurd, and akin to saying that someone with a phobia should just rationally analyze it and the problem will go away.

It's the basics of mindfulness: being aware of your emotions and not feeding them by redirecting your attention to something else. If both partners focus on being kind and understanding towards each other, their negative emotions can't get too strong.

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

#100

Post by TomMarius »

beenBoutIT wrote: post #84
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…

In fact, these 'perfect relationships' where there are zero disagreements often end with one partner developing cancer. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3939772/

Zero disagreements is not emotion suppression. It's just lack of disagreement.
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