What is the most important thing in a long term relationship / marriage?

[jennypenny]

I knew what you meant. I was just trying to make a joke.

That's twice today my humor failed. I think I need to work on my delivery.

[Dragline]

This actually covers this subject pretty well:

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/money- ... al-success

Read it or listen to the audio. Basically, what you are looking for is someone with the following traits:

1. High Self Esteem
2. Responsibility
3. Honesty
4. Openness; and
5. Curiosity

Just the kind of person I would go into business with.

YMMV

[Peanut]

I'm amazed the word 'love' has not appeared once in this thread!

But re: the question, I think the answer is going to be different for each couple, and may also be different at different times of the relationship for any particular couple. The two members of the couple might even have fairly different ideas about what makes their relationship precious to each of them. To paraphrase Bill Clinton(!) marriages are a mysterious thing.

[GandK]

And this (depressing) article seems to imply that the answer is "friendship":

New Benefits of Marriage Study Actually Hints at the Horrors of Middle Age

[7Wannabe5]

A poor girl wants to marry, a rich girl wants to flirt
A rich man goes to college, a poor man goes to work
A drunkard wants another drink of wine, and a politician wants your vote
I don't want much of nothing at all, but I will take another toke

C. Daniels

[arrrrgon]

I'm amazed the word 'love' has not appeared once in this thread!

But re: the question, I think the answer is going to be different for each couple, and may also be different at different times of the relationship for any particular couple. The two members of the couple might even have fairly different ideas about what makes their relationship precious to each of them. To paraphrase Bill Clinton(!) marriages are a mysterious thing.

I just thought that love was a given.

[lillo9546]

They shouldn't marry someone unless they'd be willing to form a business with them.
There's got to be some sort of common goal, even if its skewed towards one or the other at times.

I don't know if this is in your case of long term relationships or marriages, but this is a great point.

Creating a business with them, what do you mean? Having an activity like a business? Just a hobby?

Having children with them and starting a family could be considered a "business together", but there are still many couples who separate even if they have this "business" active and in common.

While I also see couples with children, and with their own business/activity, where they work together both financially and family-wise

[Henry]

what do you mean?

Contextualizing your question within the thread topic, I think expressing interest in what someone said 10 years after they said it is probably pushing the response time when attempting to maintain healthy communication.

[ertyu]

Having children with them and starting a family could be considered a "business together"

Exactly. You need to be able to trust your partner with finances and financial decisions. You need to be able to discuss who will do what, and readjust as needed. You need to be able to trust that they will do what they said they will do when they said they will do it. You need to trust them to act not just in their own best interest, but in the interest of the common "business entity" they've chosen to be part of. Etc.

[7Wannabe5]

You need to be able to trust your partner with finances and financial decisions. You need to be able to discuss who will do what, and readjust as needed. You need to be able to trust that they will do what they said they will do when they said they will do it. You need to trust them to act not just in their own best interest, but in the interest of the common "business entity" they've chosen to be part of. Etc.

Yes, but this is very much the perspective of the dominant partner, or the one who has taken the lead. I mean even the meta-decision of the structure of the relationship is very much a "founder" move. IOW, the human who says, "We will have an egalitarian partnership." has already subconsciously tipped the relationship away from the egalitarian. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with this, but it may eventually become something which requires self-awareness, because you can't just declare a power structure into being. For simple example, it is unlikely that you will have an egalitarian relationship with somebody who is by all objective measures bringing more to the table than you.

[Henry]

I think as a culture we have become overly empathetic because everyone thinks they are entitled to empathy. Maybe I'll look down into your hole and see you down there and extend you some sympathy that you are in that hole, maybe lower a bucket of water for you. But don't ask me to join you in your hole. I'm not going down there so I can stand in your shoes in order that I can relate to your experience on such a deep level that I can honestly have empathy for you. Unless you're my wife, then I'll go down there.

[Frita]

@Henry

Counterpoint: Or could we be lacking empathy as a culture and using performative measures as stand-ins? Understanding, sharing, and experiencing others’ emotions requires that same ability with one’s self. (Self-absorption and self-interest don’t count!) And then there’s capacity and bandwidth for holding space, to include boundaries and limits…

[7Wannabe5]

I think I am kind of with Henry due to the frequency that my students will arrive for their math tutoring session and the first thing out of their mouth is "I am having a sad day." (age 7) or "My score on my mental health app today was 4 out of 10 (age 13.)" Some of my students are poor and live in very objectively traumatic situations and others are quite affluent and maybe just dealing with the everyday trauma of being in middle school. In either case, the fact that I am having to devote some not insignificant portion of a session that was supposed to be furthering their math skills to trauma counseling strikes me as rather inefficient. Especially since some of them have learned that communicating in this manner is an effective means for delaying having to focus on their school work. And oftentimes, the reality of their trauma and their attempt to utilize it as delaying mechanism can both be evident.

OTOH, in relation to what Henry mentioned, I just looked at my messaging stream in order to perform small data analysis on the variety of feeling words/phrases being emitted over the last few months by my older male partners:

Worried (2)
Tired (1)
Stress/Burnt (3)
Fantasizing/Horny (4)
Love/Fondness (2)
Lonely/Miss You (3)

Versus Me:

Feel Sick (8)
Sounds Fun/Good (4)

And this pretty much confirms my belief that I am not very good at verbally expressing emotions as well as my belief that my partners are fairly reliant on me for cool feminine energy/therapeutic counseling services, whereas I am mostly reliant on them for entertainment and free cough syrup.

[Henry]

@Henry

Counterpoint: Or could we be lacking empathy as a culture and using performative measures as stand-ins? Understanding, sharing, and experiencing others’ emotions requires that same ability with one’s self. (Self-absorption and self-interest don’t count!) And then there’s capacity and bandwidth for holding space, to include boundaries and limits…

I am not saying those issues are to be discounted and not addressed. I am just saying that a response to those concerns are appropriately measured through the lens of sympathy, not empathy. I am sympathetic to the fact that your grandfather died last night and you couldn't turn in your paper which, as you may recall, was assigned to you a month before Pop Pop stroked out receiving his final blow job from NaNa. However, I will extend to you a solution measured in what I feel is the appropriate sympathetic response which still requires you to hand in your fucking paper at some point. Now if it's empathy that you are really looking for, go cry to your idiotic friends at lunchtime.

[Frita]

I am just saying that a response to those concerns are appropriately measured through the lens of sympathy, not empathy.

Thank you for clarifying, Henry. I agree. Empathy requires bandwidth and emotional capacity. (There is high variation between individuals.) Sympathy is more available to give to everyone. Compassion, taking action on empathy, even less accessible.

I am sympathetic to the fact that your grandfather died last night and you couldn't turn in your paper which, as you may recall, was assigned to you a month before Pop Pop stroked out receiving his final blow job from NaNa. However, I will extend to you a solution measured in what I feel is the appropriate sympathetic response which still requires you to hand in your fucking paper at some point.

I don’t agree that giving a solution is necessarily part of sympathy. That is more of a need to control or fix, to minimize one’s own discomfort (e.g., “This student is sad, an emotion I can’t manage.”) or avoid some future problem (e.g., “If I don’t cut this kid some slack and they complain about their grade, the dean will call me on the carpet.”).

Now if it's empathy that you are really looking for, go cry to your idiotic friends at lunchtime.

Expecting empathy from lunch friends is highly dependent on their skillsets. Commiseration, just like fixing, often wears a mask of empathy too.

[Henry]

If we agree on the empathy/sympathy distinction, I think we might just be talking about management styles within the sympathy sector. Baseball teams hire a hard ass manager because the last manager was a "players" manager who wasn't tough enough on the team and that's why they missed the playoffs. Then when the hard ass manager doesn't take the team to the playoffs, they hire a player's manager. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. So the kids who respond better to a less hands on approach and a more cordial response to their ass hurt will go to Ms. Frita's office. For the kids who prefer an ass kicking and possible verbal assault on their ass hurt, they will go to Mr. Henry's office. But neither Ms. Frita or Mr. Henry are going to jump with the kid into their grandfather's grave who died ignominiously in sexual frustration. For that, they have their most idiotic friend who most likely just wants a morning blowjob like poor dead PopPop.

[7Wannabe5]

There's also the theory that the sort of "manager/therapist" you think you want is the type least likely to promote your growth. And this can be expanded to at least "cognitive", "emotional", "physiological." For example, according to this theory, and the internet test I took based on it, somebody like me would profit most from body-centered therapy, although I would prefer cognitive-based therapy. And actually this is one of the reasons why I value sexuality very highly in relationship. I need to be taken out of my mind and into my body and sex does this for me.

[Henry]

For example, according to this theory, and the internet test I took based on it, somebody like me would profit most from body-centered therapy, although I would prefer cognitive-based therapy. And actually this is one of the reasons why I value sexuality very highly in relationship. I need to be taken out of my mind and into my body and sex does this for me.

Probably explains why your posts, including this very one, are so mind fuckingly convoluted.

[Henry]

Empathy requires bandwidth and emotional capacity. (There is high variation between individuals.) Sympathy is more available to give to everyone. Compassion, taking action on empathy, even less accessible.

For those of us old enough to remember, we used to buy records with a Side A and a Side B. Side A song was the hit. Side B song was often awful. And I think within this discussion there is a Side A and Side B heuristic. When people speak in terms of "being taken advantage of", an initial extension of sympathy/empathy is often found as the root cause of the narrative. Friends, family members, students, professional associates, neighbors play with it. Professional grifters, con men, scam artists, catfishers make a living with it. The wide swath of humanity does not like to appear unloving. Nobody likes to be called mean or uncaring. So we are often prodded until we capitulate. I guess they coined the term "tough love" to create a category where someone can say they are being loving without capitulating to a request for sympathy/empathy. This also serves to militate against the possibility of not finding out until much too late in the game that you were not simply holding the umbrella for someone walking in the rain but you agreed to hold hands with someone walking beneath a personal shitstorm. If you extend sympathy/empathy, you are necessarily buying a narrative, so as with the purchase of anything, caveat emptor. Make sure you are not listening to a Side B story.

[7Wannabe5]

@Henry:

This is very true. I tend towards being a bit of a soft touch (tertiary Fe focus on social harmony), so this is why I developed my own personal hyper-rational-dismal-economist (secondary Ti focus on cold logic) version of tough-love practice. So, for example, if a man is trying to take advantage of my "soft-touch" nature in order to continue in sexual relationship with me, I might say something like, "I think it is more in alignment with my self-interest to not spend $1.25 in gas to drive over to your house." The funniest example of a man trying to take advantage of my soft-touch nature in order to re-gain sexual access was the time when I was in college and my recent ex-BF literally started butting his head against my fully-clothed breasts like an infant while offering his penitent sob story. This sort of thing still occurs so often, I am considering the possibility of following the example of Jane Juska ("A Round-Heeled Woman") and simply asking men if they are willing to buy me a cottage when they attempt to push my compassion button to gain sexual access. That ought to serve to dry their crocodile tears awful fast.