How do we find/work on good relationships?
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Join Date: Mar 2014
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How do we find/work on good relationships?
Bad relationships are horrible in the damage they spew on everyone around them. We tend to reinvent a bad situation in a new relationship, because its the safe devil we know. Giving up the devil means maybe we give up a lot of fantasies about miracles, and work with our wounds. My son has Aspergers, social anxiety and is suffering from alcoholic liver failure after a failed marriage. I have a hard time telling him that my family is batting 100 on this and an education don't help none. I'm trying to help him embrace and love himself, but he becomes angry if I suggest he needs more structure. A lot of success is about liking the boring things.
My older son is very successful and popular. He was born like that. He was more engaged with his hobbies than achieving. I think he made as many mistakes as anyone, but he's very resilient. At the core of things, he stays in a safety net.
Financial stability, physical health and a fresh start are a good place.
1) I have a basic 'routine' of what it takes to make my life work. Pay bills, exercise, eat right, go to work, etc. Its important to evaluate the 'routines' of your peers and relations because you are likely to adopt their behaviors.
2) Relationships tend to be evaluated on how well you date and agree on social issues. Life is about how well work you work together, stability and ability to postpone reward.
People change. How do you pull out when things mess up? If you've tie up your finances, career, and social ties with someone socially stronger its pretty hard. They are controlling the show and you look foolish.
I think being a part of support groups that share your issues is important. But personal interest and doing volunteer work is also important. Volunteers learn to work together, not expect reward and appreciate diversity.
My older son is very successful and popular. He was born like that. He was more engaged with his hobbies than achieving. I think he made as many mistakes as anyone, but he's very resilient. At the core of things, he stays in a safety net.
Financial stability, physical health and a fresh start are a good place.
1) I have a basic 'routine' of what it takes to make my life work. Pay bills, exercise, eat right, go to work, etc. Its important to evaluate the 'routines' of your peers and relations because you are likely to adopt their behaviors.
2) Relationships tend to be evaluated on how well you date and agree on social issues. Life is about how well work you work together, stability and ability to postpone reward.
People change. How do you pull out when things mess up? If you've tie up your finances, career, and social ties with someone socially stronger its pretty hard. They are controlling the show and you look foolish.
I think being a part of support groups that share your issues is important. But personal interest and doing volunteer work is also important. Volunteers learn to work together, not expect reward and appreciate diversity.
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Good, good stuff.
Lots of thoughts about this. I recognize part of your story. I have kids on different paths -- and it's hard for the one who isn't "successful" in society's way of defining the word to not feel like a failure. I was also married to a (utterly dysfunctional and abusive) person who defined my standing in society and made most of the money.
I think for me, making sure I didn't repeat the same patterns in a new relationship started with making sure I was standing firmly on my own before entering into one. When I left my first marriage, I also left many of my friends -- not because they were "our" joint friends but because I needed to change in ways that didn't allow keeping them as friends. Just as I had married a person who was a user, most of my friends were people who would call when they were in trouble but who -- I discovered -- were nowhere to be found when I needed support.
New relationships are a tricky balance of compromising on the insignificant and never compromising on who you are. I tell my kids -- who are only now in their teens privy to witnessing a functional adult relationship between me and my new husband -- that you should marry your best friend. Someone who knows you inside and out, someone you know inside and out. Good looks fade, six-packs get embedded in a protective layer of fat, money is fleeting, so is success and fame. What lasts, at the end of the day, is a person's integrity. Make sure you have it, make sure the person you're involved with has it.
It sounds so damn boring compared to the being swept off your feet stories -- but what it comes down to at the end of the day is compatibility. Are my life goals compatible with his? My faith? My ideas? My routines? My dreams? My ability to postpone reward?
I am blissfully happy in my very mundane existence today. My husband and I both have failed marriages behind us, and we agreed when we started dating that there would never be any masks, any bullsh*t, any game playing between us. "No Drama!" was our motto.
I will say, though, that the one thing my first marriage taught me was that I have to come first. I remember sitting across the table from my then-fiance (now-husband) at a restaurant, looking him in the eye and saying "I love you more than I've ever loved a man in my life. But I will tell you this: If you became an alcoholic, I would be out of your life faster than you could say 'AA'." He looked at me and said, "Likewise."
So while we are committed to each other, to our marriage -- we also know that there are serious deal breakers. And I think both of us, having suffered through a decade or more of wanting to leave but not being able to, won't have that hesitation a second time. It works as long as it works. It works as long as you both work on it. And if you come to a place where one person no longer works on the relationship, or when the relationship simply no longer works -- then walking away from it is not a failure; it's the best thing to do.
Lots of thoughts about this. I recognize part of your story. I have kids on different paths -- and it's hard for the one who isn't "successful" in society's way of defining the word to not feel like a failure. I was also married to a (utterly dysfunctional and abusive) person who defined my standing in society and made most of the money.
I think for me, making sure I didn't repeat the same patterns in a new relationship started with making sure I was standing firmly on my own before entering into one. When I left my first marriage, I also left many of my friends -- not because they were "our" joint friends but because I needed to change in ways that didn't allow keeping them as friends. Just as I had married a person who was a user, most of my friends were people who would call when they were in trouble but who -- I discovered -- were nowhere to be found when I needed support.
New relationships are a tricky balance of compromising on the insignificant and never compromising on who you are. I tell my kids -- who are only now in their teens privy to witnessing a functional adult relationship between me and my new husband -- that you should marry your best friend. Someone who knows you inside and out, someone you know inside and out. Good looks fade, six-packs get embedded in a protective layer of fat, money is fleeting, so is success and fame. What lasts, at the end of the day, is a person's integrity. Make sure you have it, make sure the person you're involved with has it.
It sounds so damn boring compared to the being swept off your feet stories -- but what it comes down to at the end of the day is compatibility. Are my life goals compatible with his? My faith? My ideas? My routines? My dreams? My ability to postpone reward?
I am blissfully happy in my very mundane existence today. My husband and I both have failed marriages behind us, and we agreed when we started dating that there would never be any masks, any bullsh*t, any game playing between us. "No Drama!" was our motto.
I will say, though, that the one thing my first marriage taught me was that I have to come first. I remember sitting across the table from my then-fiance (now-husband) at a restaurant, looking him in the eye and saying "I love you more than I've ever loved a man in my life. But I will tell you this: If you became an alcoholic, I would be out of your life faster than you could say 'AA'." He looked at me and said, "Likewise."
So while we are committed to each other, to our marriage -- we also know that there are serious deal breakers. And I think both of us, having suffered through a decade or more of wanting to leave but not being able to, won't have that hesitation a second time. It works as long as it works. It works as long as you both work on it. And if you come to a place where one person no longer works on the relationship, or when the relationship simply no longer works -- then walking away from it is not a failure; it's the best thing to do.
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