Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
the myth of marital happiness
oceancaldera207
Veteran
I've met and had personal conversations with hundreds, maybe thousands of couples. I'm havIng a bit of a conundrum...I cannot remember ever having seen a relationship in which the people were happier together than alone. Additionally, I may have never seen a relationship in which both parties feel that their mate or coupling is an ideal situation. Is the idea of successful relationship a myth?
I've even met people who have been married for 30+ years...they successfully coexist...but still even after so many years they have cyclical arguments and intermittent periods of complete misery.
Have any of you had a positive outcome from a relationship, (besides children), and are any of your relationships free from cyclical arguments, horrible tensions, etc? I may be having an epiphany...that due to current human's tiny lifespan and lack of universal self mental/emotional control, love is not possible.
Don't mean to be depressing...it's just that I've always had a rather strong belief in love and romance, and admitting to myself that it probably does not exist is actually quite...
liberating.
I've even met people who have been married for 30+ years...they successfully coexist...but still even after so many years they have cyclical arguments and intermittent periods of complete misery.
Have any of you had a positive outcome from a relationship, (besides children), and are any of your relationships free from cyclical arguments, horrible tensions, etc? I may be having an epiphany...that due to current human's tiny lifespan and lack of universal self mental/emotional control, love is not possible.
Don't mean to be depressing...it's just that I've always had a rather strong belief in love and romance, and admitting to myself that it probably does not exist is actually quite...
liberating.
0
Comments
For example even if you consider that your relationship was better than being alone, the volitile nature of emotion and life span end up causing so much pain anyway that it hardly seems to be worth it.
Maybe I just get vented on by people in relationships, so I have a skewed view of them.
While I'm fairly good with women (my preference) , I've never had a serious relationship myself. I've never had anyone say I love you or anyone to come home to, or confide in. For the longest time I thought that was what I wanted more than anything else...but lately I try and try to think if I've ever seen that in real life with other people; not sure if I have.
the second is that its pounded into peoples mind that you must marry and have children, just look at these subliminal messages from "they live" hehe. I think marriage is for some people, and not for others, but you see this in women especially that society seems to pound it into their head that if they are not married with kids by 30 they are an old hag doomed to wander the world alone.
I like how Brahm talks about single people's rights, and celibate peoples rights haha. People should do what they feel is right for them and be confident in that decision, even if it goes against societal norms.
I love that movie btw. Delightfully spooky.
It's ironic that it seems as though it is the opposite way around with young folks. Women seem much more committed relationship oriented than men of the same age. Maybe there is a statistic about this one? Just my observation.
Women are also more sensitive about being single, it seems. I've been a member of a women's issues group for several years, and so many come right out and say they feel 'less than' if they are single. They feel shame for being single, as if it were a sign of their inadequacy. I wonder if this is related to the fear women my age and older grew up with, that we were not safe in this world without a man to provide for them etc etc. Since almost all women work and make equal wages to men, I wonder too if some women's need for a man is more about status among other women. Look at all the news stories of young mothers who leave their babies home with their latest boyfriend (who is unemployed) who abuses or kills the children. Those women aren't looking for financial security, it's something else.
My grandparents were married for 66 years. They were pretty much a single organism. They had their issues but I heard about them rather than witnessed them. They didn't gush love and affection at each other, they just seemed grown together like two trees planted close together.
I'm gratefully single after two pretty horrible marriages, spaced 13 years apart. I haven't experienced a long term intimate relationship with a 'peer' human being (not a child). I had a very close girlfrirend for 10 years, and we grew apart, my decision. I ended the marriages as well. I could blame it all on THEM but that wouldn't be true. Intimate relationships are, for me, more difficult than the benefits. I just haven't experienced the benefits to the degree some fortunate ones have.
But I do agree we underestimate the crucible aspect of intimate relationships and overestimate the value of romantic love. We paint very unrealistic pictures in pervasive media that sinks in and proliferates assumptions.
It's very hard, but probably the most important thing a person can do; to honor a commitment, within reason, to allow the crucible to do it's work on you. Both of my marriages were to men with drug addictions and such damage that they were abusive. Still I learned countless invaluable life lessons from those experiences.
Maybe it's that, more than the temporal success of any relationship, that is more important. What we learn, what we allow to impact us, and how we come to understand we may be individuals but in essence are not. What we give to those we commit to, however brief, is more important than a quantity of time as well.
Gassho
dont forget About the myth of the happiness of being unmarried……
I've nick-named Mrs Tosh "Atisha's Cook".
As for Ajahn Brahm, he describes the 'suffering of being single' and the 'suffering of being married' quite well. Both are suffering, they're just different types of suffering.
For me personally, I need a good woman to keep an eye on me. Left to my own devices, I can get up to all kinds of mischief.
If there were a switch, that I could flip to be permanently done with all romantic love...I seriously think I might flip it. I never thought I'd feel this way...but the longer I live the more I see the mess it truly is.
I haven't had a girlfriend in nearly 4 years and have not felt like i missed out, infact im looking to become the ultimate societal rebel and become a celebate monk. It's not something ive done through force of will, but naturally through the practice.
It does happen.
But there are people who are happier single.
It would be surprising if that were not so ...wouldn't it ?
My wife has the most amazing metaphorical slap btw - not many people can shut me up with a single sentence. I can imagine that some women on this site could as well, but that is not an invitation to assault me.
*half-expecting flippant comments*
There are lots of us around. We quietly go about our lives raising children or struggling to pay the bills and sometimes we argue and most of us probably aren't into public displays of affection so you won't be able to spot us in a crowd.
I know my own family looks at my wife and I like we've performed some miracle, finding happiness in each other's arms. Wish I could tell you the secret. Maybe we just got lucky. We both had a previous marriage that left us devastated, so we knew what not to look for. Maybe we both knew marriage isn't a magic fairyland of Happily Ever After, but equal parts responsibility and commitment. I don't know. All I know is, she's my wife and my best friend.
:bowdown:
As for myself I really do not believe in marriage in the modern day and age, I deem it to be unnecessary for most couples, but that is just my opinion and nothing more. The person I love does not require a sheet of paper from whatever source be it a Christian church or corrupt government saying that I love her.
My parents were married for 57 years.
My father was over a decade older than my mother, and he was literally the only man she had ever 'lain with'.
However, their marriage is not one I would immediately describe as 'Happy'. Certainly, not constantly.
Granted, it had truly countless happy moments, and it was fulfilling, satifying, stimulating, companionable, loving and uniting; but.... Happy? Hmmmm....
My father once had an affair. It was to their joint credit that they worked through this episode and remained together.
I cannot relate the whys wherefores, hows, and machinations involved in this progress, because I actually don't know them.
all I know is that it happened, and my father was presented with the choice: Stay, or go.
57 years would say he chose wisely....
My mother described herself and my father as 'not parents, but a couple with children'. She claims to lack all the typical, dare I say, stereotypical attributes a 'mother' is supposed to have; but she was, and still is, one of the finest minds I know. She is intelligent, articulate, educated, multi-talented and as knowledgeable on some subjects as any so-called 'expert' in not one, but several fields.
My father, I would describe in precisely the same terms, and when he died, I lost not only my father, but a Mentor, Guide, teacher, support and a person with a knowledge-base of Encyclopaedic proportions.
They had an undying respect for one another; they stimulated one another mentally, and were never bored, ever.
They never had television, but spent all their spare time feeding their intellects.
If that is a definition of Happiness, then they were in constant ecstasy.
But my brothers and I were witnesses to some real hum-dingers of an argument. Boy, could my Mother raise hell, when she wanted to....
She had always seemed the 'stronger, more dominant' of the two, but when my father died, half her world turned black.
I came to realise that if she soared (and I'm sorry if it sounds cliché) he really was the wind that transported her.
He encouraged her in all she did, and was a steadfast, reliable quiet rock, to her extrovert, outgoing character. If she was the life and soul of the party, he was the sounding board which gave her resonance.
A good deal of her, died with him, three years ago.
I have had three husbands.
And collectively, even amassing everything I experienced, that was happy, in my 3 marriages, it can't hold a candle to the relationship my parents had.
I know quite a few people who would like to get married but have been unsuccessful.
My guess is people who get married have more social skills than those who don’t. of course there are those who choose not to marry.
Going on 20 years here. First and only marriage.
Gratitude Aunt Fede for sharing your parents' story.
I related to it in a lot of ways.
Yes, I've been working/getting better with the hell-raisin' ......
I'm a work in progress, as the saying goes......
@federica
i'm single right now because seeking truth is exciting enough for me and i am not sure what my role is even within myself so i am not ready to be comfortable and fulfil a RPG exsistence with only one other person as my co-star/opponent. But one day, that is bound to change.
After the honeymoon, the couple find out that there are many things they both like, they have almost similar attitude regarding money, friends, family, lifestyle... They've already been friends long before they got married. They understand each other, they talk and listen to each other. They are both committed to their marriage and they are willing and happy (very important) to make some sacrifice for the other. Then they can look forward to a life long happiness together providing they must continue to work on it and never take their spouse for granted.
My marriage is like most other marriages. There are ups and downs. We are reasonably happy. But my husband now is my first and would be the last one. After him, I am happier to be single. No more husband please.
From person to person, happiness is a poorly definable word. Trying to apply it a couple as opposed to a single person just doubles it's variables.
but
If a single person sees happiness as helping others to be the best success that they can be, then that single person will be happy.
If two people see happiness as helping their partners to be the best success they can be, then that couple will be happy.
That happiness thing (whether single or coupled) seems to largely depend on the priorities that you live by.
I'll amen that....... *throws a hand in the air*
It's also in the top ten most ephemeral, delusional and doomed to quick disillusionment. "Romance" is about as illusory as it gets.
I was in my mid thirties when I met my second husband, and when I 'fell in love' I felt alternately 13 years old and in physical agony. It was not pleasant, except briefly; it was 90% craving and anticipating which is UNPLEASANT. And talk about lust. That is also very unpleasant. I'd studied enough Buddhism by then to be aware of the dissatisfaction component inherent in 'wanting'. I never want to go through it again. Possibly because the relationship was doomed from the git go (I was a quintessential victim and he a quintessential self-absorbed sociopath), the negative intensity was ratcheted up higher than typical romances.
Even so, the craving for sweetness is so lopsided it cannot result in anything but dissatisfaction and disillusionment. The best relationships travel through these rough waters, from what I hear. A lot don't make it because one or both of the partners clings to delusional 'sweetness' at the expense of reality.
Romance is a lot like being very, very hungry and sitting down to your favorite meal. It's over in an hour, and then you have to do the dishes.
Gassho
My only advice to anyone is to make sure you marry someone who is your friend as well as your lover!
@oceancaldera207
I do have it pretty easy, relationship wise, at this point in my life. My present 20 year partnership started late enough in life to have my priorities established and for them to be a deciding factor in us choosing each other. We are both committed to meditation and have experience with monastic & lay experience. (zen & vipisana).
We can bitch and fight like any couple but at the end of the day, pay more attention to our ego diet than our soap opera.
I think that our relationship success is simply a reflection of our willingness to place practice above anything else.
I think this applies just as much for any individual in a relationship.
We have gone though some difficult times together but one of us was always able to help the other in times of difficulty. For example, when our house burned down we were both quite depressed about it but one of us was 'less depressed' than the other and could pull the other back up - even if it was just a little bit. It was an opportunity for one of us to give Loving Kindness to the other.
We have always been a mirror for each other and, even during times of conflict we are able to look into that mirror and learn more about ourselves and each other. The commitment is strong and it gives us the opportunity to be completely open and honest with each other and, as a result, open and honest with ourselves.
I am a better person for having met her. Better still for having her in my life. I truly believe that I am the best version of me thus far because of her. I know how it sounds, but we've had cross words once in all the years we've been together and nothing approaching a fight.
She has patience when dealing with others that I could only dream of when we met. I watched and learned and am often told that I have the patience of a saint today. If they only knew... Too, when I do get angry at someone, I remember that their true nature is the same as my wife's...and it never fails to mitigate the anger. Never. It rarely worked when I told myself that their true nature was the same as mine.
I had a moment once... a vision or a hallucination, depending on what you'd like to call it... but I was at a gas station. I got out of the car and looked around and all I saw was her. The fellow pumping gas at the next pump, the woman behind the counter, etc., everyone. In that briefest of moments, I felt for everyone what I feel for her. Interestingly, the spell was broke when I looked into my side view mirror and saw myself. Nevertheless, the moment changed my life and she was the impetus...whoever she is.
Seriously though, I think happy couples (marriage not a requirement) are those that change together as time passes. If they don't change together in a complimenting fashion then they won't be as happy. The greater the differential the less the happyness and greater the chance of splitting/divorce...
I'm not saying there aren't unhappy couples, or that divorces don't happen. What I'm saying is that happy couples DO happen, and I wouldn't think they're that hard to find. Maybe it's a matter of shifting your focus?
If you see a relationship in one way (e.g. "settling"), the couple involved in the relationship may feel completely differently. The couples' take on the relationship is what matters, not an outsider's view (abusive relationships aside).
My fiancee and I have been together for almost 9 years. We're high school sweethearts. From the outside, I could see how someone might think we're just settling or bored of each other - we don't do any extravagant displays of affection, we don't have our hands all over each other, we don't go out on "dates." But we both feel like we can't be more perfectly matched.
I recently read part two of a two-part blog post called "How to Pick Your Life Partner." I felt it did a really good job of breaking down the myths of being in a "happy" marriage or committed relationship. My favourite passage: