Masters of Love: Lasting relationships come down to kindness, generosity (2014) • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by scarface74 » Sun, Jun 24, 2018, 11:38 PM UTC

laythea wrote: post #98

scarface74 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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! :)

She’s very much a life love. But a marriage is an investment. You invest your heart, your financial well being and if it goes bust, the other gets half. Marriage is a risky investment. We are both much better off in every way - including financially than we would be separately. Married couples statistically build wealth faster than single people. As an example, my wife working a stable government job with good benefits has allowed me to aggressively change jobs and chase after risky opportunities.

When you are in your mid 30s and you are your second marriage (we both are) no matter how positive you are, you can’t help but to be a little more jaded starting out and you both have a lot to prove. It took a lot more of a leap of faith on her part to believe all of the things I was telling her and a lot more faith on my side that she would be thier through thick and thin.

When you are in your thirties getting married, there is a lot more practicality and lot less looking through rose colored glasses.it took us both almost a decade to recover from our previous divorce. Neither one of us were willing to risk that happening again. We prioritize our marriage before anything else.

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

#102

Post by poisonarena » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 12:13 AM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #72

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…

My cousin has this with her husband. They're likely the best couple I have ever seen. Not a single fight, ever, afaik (from what her sister told me). They're best friends. Two great kids, wealthy and successful, and overall they just have a ton of fun together living and enjoying life.

do you think wealthy and successful plays a role?

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

#103

Post by DoreenMichele » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 12:19 AM UTC

poisonarena wrote: post #102

charlesdm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My cousin has this with her husband. They're likely the best couple I have ever seen. Not a single fight, ever, afaik (from what her sister told me). They're best friends. Two great kids, wealthy and successful, and overall they just have a ton of fun together living and enjoying life.

do you think wealthy and successful plays a role?

I have seen some things that suggest causation runs the other way: Good marriages lead to success and wealth. Bad ones lead to other outcomes, including divorce, which can be financially ruinous.

There's always plenty of gossip in the news about rich people with bad marriages, infidelity, repeated divorce and remarriage etc.

Though I imagine serious poverty doesn't generally improve a relationship.

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

#104

Post by 5thbootloader » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 12:53 AM UTC

laythea wrote: post #88

5thbootloader wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you imply that the only way of having a meaningful life when your job is mediocre is by creating a family? What about other recreational activities or hobbies? Somewhat anecdotally, I recall a grade school teacher that was single in her 50s but remained active within a large volunteer community supporting youth. She often discussed how her participation in this circle gave her life purpose. Maybe the systemic issu…

Why is it so unpopular to say that life exists to prolong life? Ie have kids. I'm sorry, but me and you don't matter. And any believe that we do is to satisfy our egos only. Its our kids that matter. And with this mentality humanity will prevail. If we loose sight of this humanity will eventually not. In my opinion. And yes, our kids should have the same mentality. And that is called the folly of life.

I do believe it is our purpose to reproduce and extend the lives of future generations, but it is foolish to believe that humanity can prosper by systemically encouraging everyone to raise children. Some individuals are simply predisposed to be bad caretakers given various environmental and genetic factors. Must we actively inspire people who do not have the ability, patience, or the mental capacity to raise children to do just that?

Aside from that, what is it from that we must be "prevail", exactly? If you are suggesting the continuation of our species, I might remind you that our global population is steadily increasing.

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

#105

Post by zxcvvcxz » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 3:03 AM UTC

5thbootloader wrote: post #10

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat raw but at the end of the day I'd say mostly true. I'll add my own conjecture: the root problem is that this hypothetical couple you describe (who is more common than many would like to admit) are both settling. They are settling because they didn't take marriage seriously earlier in their lives. They didn't take marriage seriously because society stopped forcing them to do so. And nature also didn't force t…

Do you imply that the only way of having a meaningful life when your job is mediocre is by creating a family? What about other recreational activities or hobbies? Somewhat anecdotally, I recall a grade school teacher that was single in her 50s but remained active within a large volunteer community supporting youth. She often discussed how her participation in this circle gave her life purpose. Maybe the systemic issu…

> Do you imply that the only way of having a meaningful life when your job is mediocre is by creating a family? What about other recreational activities or hobbies? Somewhat anecdotally, I recall a grade school teacher that was single in her 50s but remained active within a large volunteer community supporting youth. She often discussed how her participation in this circle gave her life purpose.

Yes, for the vast majority of people. There may be exceptions. There may also be a lot of coping behavior necessary to live without what you could have had.

> Maybe the systemic issue is that people who are reaching their 30s often feel pressured by their social group to get married and thus believe their lives are meaningless without that ring or child validating its purpose.

There is less pressure than ever, given the "freedom" and "free love" everyone is expected to have in their teens and 20s. The pressure in the 30s is that real-life realism coming to crash down. And again, I would argue this is even less as there are less marriages and less childbirths to citizens in the developed worlds (to which my comments apply), so therefore even less relative pressure than in the past.

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

#106

Post by Ma8ee » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 4:48 AM UTC

poisonarena wrote: post #102

charlesdm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My cousin has this with her husband. They're likely the best couple I have ever seen. Not a single fight, ever, afaik (from what her sister told me). They're best friends. Two great kids, wealthy and successful, and overall they just have a ton of fun together living and enjoying life.

do you think wealthy and successful plays a role?

Not having to worry about money eliminates a lot of sources for conflict. It’s not a big deal if my wife splurges on something that I find pointless, and paying someone to clean means we don’t have to argue about the mess in the kitchen.

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

#107

Post by charlesdm » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 6:49 AM UTC

poisonarena wrote: post #102

charlesdm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My cousin has this with her husband. They're likely the best couple I have ever seen. Not a single fight, ever, afaik (from what her sister told me). They're best friends. Two great kids, wealthy and successful, and overall they just have a ton of fun together living and enjoying life.

do you think wealthy and successful plays a role?

I would say no on the wealth part initially. But I think (being on the road to) success is a major part of what attracted her to him initially.

They were already together for a few years when he almost went under with one of his companies, on the verge of losing millions of euros (and most of his capital at the time), and she helped turn it around by helping out as much as she could.

Wealth however does make it possible to keep your lifestyle "fun" -- they travel frequently to interesting locations (a long trip every 3-4 months, sometimes with and sometimes without the kids)

As far as true love goes, it sure seems like that is what they have.

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

#108

Post by mmsimanga » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 9:31 AM UTC

EGreg wrote: post #38

mmsimanga wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No disagreement with your sentiment. To expand on my parent comment, I find once off acts of kindness easy. I can buy you a coffee, heck even two or three. When we get to number 10 maybe 20 I start to have reservations and negative thoughts on where this is all headed. I think relationships start out the similarly. Both sides show their best side. Afterall which woman/man are you going to woo showing how selfish you can be. So we start off on our best behaviour, the honeymoon phase. Then to perpertuate the kindness and consideration we show in the honeymoon phase both sides have to show appreciation and gratitude.

What complicates gratitude in my opinion is our expectation and how we value different acts of kindness. In large parts of Africa women are still expected do the cooking. It is easy for a man to think that task is her duty anyway so no need to be thankful. I think this is where problems start. You are absolutely right, we should be grateful first for the people in our lives.

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

#109

Post by ionised » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 11:07 AM UTC

laythea wrote: post #88

5thbootloader wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you imply that the only way of having a meaningful life when your job is mediocre is by creating a family? What about other recreational activities or hobbies? Somewhat anecdotally, I recall a grade school teacher that was single in her 50s but remained active within a large volunteer community supporting youth. She often discussed how her participation in this circle gave her life purpose. Maybe the systemic issu…

Why is it so unpopular to say that life exists to prolong life? Ie have kids. I'm sorry, but me and you don't matter. And any believe that we do is to satisfy our egos only. Its our kids that matter. And with this mentality humanity will prevail. If we loose sight of this humanity will eventually not. In my opinion. And yes, our kids should have the same mentality. And that is called the folly of life.

Of course life only exists to perpetuate itself. We are just vessels for our genetic code.

That doesn't mean I have to participate if I'd rather live my life in a different way. I have no desire to be a parent, or to produce children to satisfy a biological imperative.

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

#110

Post by collyw » Mon, Jun 25, 2018, 12:33 PM UTC

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…

Pretty sure I recently read that money is one of the main causes of relationship problems. If you can remove those problems it makes sense that you are more likely to have a better relationship.