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Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

nytimes.com

31–40 of 109 posts

Re: Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

#31
post #25

PROTIP: 1. Have a longterm vision/goal for your life that is achievable regardless of financial resources/location etc. 2. Find a partner in crime who shares that vision and is willing to join you on what will surely be a great adventure known as your life. Life will surely be no bed of roses. 3. Stress Test your relationship in some way to ensure the vision/goal is aligned. I decided I should marry my wife following…

There're random factors you can't control. Good example is post-partum depression. Every child birth is 20% chance; once happening, it can significantly change both partners.

So don't have kids, we're not running out of people after all.

Re: Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

#32

PROTIP: 1. Have a longterm vision/goal for your life that is achievable regardless of financial resources/location etc. 2. Find a partner in crime who shares that vision and is willing to join you on what will surely be a great adventure known as your life. Life will surely be no bed of roses. 3. Stress Test your relationship in some way to ensure the vision/goal is aligned. I decided I should marry my wife following…

no.

you tested with a lot of externalities keeping life exciting.

the real stress is being together through the daily, normal grind. in particular kids. where traveling for 6months through SA becomes unattainable - but you still remember those good old days.

the 7 year itch is very real and closely tracks having kids.

what you describe is the 20something vision of life. changes drastically mid-30s for most.

Re: Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

#33
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There're random factors you can't control. Good example is post-partum depression. Every child birth is 20% chance; once happening, it can significantly change both partners.

So don't have kids, we're not running out of people after all.

Or adopt already born ones that don't have much of a chance otherwise.

Re: Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

#34
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There're random factors you can't control. Good example is post-partum depression. Every child birth is 20% chance; once happening, it can significantly change both partners.

So don't have kids, we're not running out of people after all.

such a valid choice! We should have irreversible sterilization ceremonies for couples that want to decide at age 30 they wish to remain married without kids for the rest of their lives. The trouble with the choice now without sterilization is the option to have kids is always there and available. i.e. if u have a kid the domino falls in one direction. But if you choose not to have a kid the domino never falls. People will say "irreversible sterilization" sounds so permanment! But so is your first kid.

Re: Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

#35
tl;dr

A happy marriage isn't a result of magically picking the right person.

My 2 cents: Of course it isn't. A happy marriage is the result of two conscious decisions - one from each person involved.

To sum it up with a quote I heard growing up:

"'Soul mates' are fiction and an illusion[...] yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price."

Re: Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

#37
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There're random factors you can't control. Good example is post-partum depression. Every child birth is 20% chance; once happening, it can significantly change both partners.

So don't have kids, we're not running out of people after all.

Not sure why you're downvoted. I suppose you're not contributing too much to the conversation, and it seems a little sarcastic (or something), but i often feel not having kids is a forgotten option. My SO and I chose long ago not to have kids (independently, fwiw), and people often look at us like we have two heads (.. each, heh).

Re: Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

#38

PROTIP: 1. Have a longterm vision/goal for your life that is achievable regardless of financial resources/location etc. 2. Find a partner in crime who shares that vision and is willing to join you on what will surely be a great adventure known as your life. Life will surely be no bed of roses. 3. Stress Test your relationship in some way to ensure the vision/goal is aligned. I decided I should marry my wife following…

I figured if we passed that test, we could handle pretty much anything.

A relationship isn't hard when you are on an adventure and experiencing new things and facing new challenges. Relationships become hard when you have spent a few years in a daily rut of kids, work, house work, bills repeat repeat repeat.

Re: Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So don't have kids, we're not running out of people after all.

Or adopt already born ones that don't have much of a chance otherwise.

The myth of unadopted babies/kids is pervasive and pretty inaccurate. Most babies and small children who are up for adoption have multiple families vying to bring them home already...

If you want to talk about adopting preteens/teens/special needs children then it's a different ball game, but that's not what people try to do.

Re: Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person

#40
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what the author was trying to say is that every person is the wrong person to marry if you judge them by your expectations of what they should bring to the relationship.

I think interpersonal relationships is one of the places where it matters most to have expectations and standards. There will be trade-offs, but at the end of the day you need to be able to add to someone's life and vice versa. This whole low/no expectations thing can keep people in some pretty toxic situations. And if you have expectations, you also need to be able to extend yourself to meet the expectations of othe…

This whole low/no expectations thing can keep people in some pretty toxic situations.

It's not really about low/no expectations. It's about not letting smaller, less important things impact the larger, more important things. So, one person sometimes not putting down the toilet seat could either be a momentary frustration that is sometimes mentioned but largely ignored, or used instead as a catalyst for arguments and an example of how that person is lazy and uncaring.

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