And more specifically about my two minds, which may not be related to each other. (1) I get where this person is coming from, because I really don't understand what the words "I don't love you anymore" mean. Seriously. Even strong ethical distaste is compatible with love, once love is there. I suspect when people say this they are describing a real event of some sort, but mis-reporting it. Maybe "I realize now I thought I loved you but I was wrong the entire time". Which is a hard claim to make when you've got however many years of marriage and children behind you. But (2), I'm not really sure that the whole "you've got to be happy with yourself first" mantra is what's at play here. And even if it is, does a healthy marriage really require that one partner take various kinds of abuse for awhile, and the other partner give it, and they pretend it's not happening and they're both not in pain? What?
I'm not really there yet, but I've been studying up on having a toddler. It's important not to get emotional when they act out. The explanations I've heard for this essentially boil down to the following: toddlerhood is a position of growing awareness of options, but inability to have control over choices about them. The experienced lack of mastery leads to behavior which seeks to have an impact on the world--anything which shows that your decisions matter is rewarding, because it makes the world seem less indifferent and more controllable. The analogy to the mid-life crisis of a person who's taken some hits to his feelings of mastery is imperfect, but informative
( ... )
you said: "If you're using it as code for some concept you have but cannot communicate because morons have leeched out the meaning of "love" through overuse, I don't know that there's any help available for you."
your sentimentality is touching ;-).
Also, I don't see any problem with hiding feelings from toddlers for disciplinary purposes. I might run into problems with practice (but let's hope not), but in theory it is abundantly clear that doing so is better for the child in the long run, so, therefore, the thing to do.
And even if it is, does a healthy marriage really require that one partner take various kinds of abuse for awhile, and the other partner give it, and they pretend it's not happening and they're both not in pain? What?
Um. Tough call. I would tend to say "yes", because Jennifer and I will occasionally have fights along this pattern -- one of us will just be cranky and jerk-ish to the other because some internal trauma is eating at one and one is (maybe stupidly) deciding not to talk about it right now. The usual result is that the other puts up with it for a period ranging from an hour to a few days, then eventually Has Enough, a Talk ensues, tears are sometimes shed, and we move on.
I'm not sure I'd know how to handle six months of that, but at the same time, if it was six months on a specific plan, and once there's a marriage and kids involved, it does seem a hell of a lot better than divorce...
The guy seems like he was being kind of a douche, but man, this woman is like a kung fu master of interpersonal relations. I'm impressed. Even if things end up not working out long-term, I find her discipline and ability to keep her eye on the "bottom line" very impressive. I aspire to be like her.
I would hazard a guess that the crap she had to put up with for 6 months (which is admittedly quite a while) was considerably less painful than agreeing to the divorce up-front would have been. Probably it would have been similar but with a lot of added legal and financial consequences, followed by the long-term change in everyone's state of affairs. So even from a straight cost-benefit analysis perspective I think it was a good move.
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your sentimentality is touching ;-).
Also, I don't see any problem with hiding feelings from toddlers for disciplinary purposes. I might run into problems with practice (but let's hope not), but in theory it is abundantly clear that doing so is better for the child in the long run, so, therefore, the thing to do.
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Um. Tough call. I would tend to say "yes", because Jennifer and I will occasionally have fights along this pattern -- one of us will just be cranky and jerk-ish to the other because some internal trauma is eating at one and one is (maybe stupidly) deciding not to talk about it right now. The usual result is that the other puts up with it for a period ranging from an hour to a few days, then eventually Has Enough, a Talk ensues, tears are sometimes shed, and we move on.
I'm not sure I'd know how to handle six months of that, but at the same time, if it was six months on a specific plan, and once there's a marriage and kids involved, it does seem a hell of a lot better than divorce...
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The rest of what goes on makes little sense to me, but then neither does living in Montana, so I'll chalk it up as anecdote.
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I would hazard a guess that the crap she had to put up with for 6 months (which is admittedly quite a while) was considerably less painful than agreeing to the divorce up-front would have been. Probably it would have been similar but with a lot of added legal and financial consequences, followed by the long-term change in everyone's state of affairs. So even from a straight cost-benefit analysis perspective I think it was a good move.
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