Schnarch / Passionate Marriage is some next level shit and most adults will never get close to the level of maturity required to grok it. Something something wheaton levels something something.
ETA: Also this piece which you have probably already read:
Funny enough, I had this link on my bumble profile when I used that app. How many women who contacted me even bothered to read the link? One. Happily enough, I found my girl who reads. And she’s even read and grokked Passionate Marriage to boot! I cannot begin to explain how important mate selection is. As a result, please please please for the love of god, do not marry someone when you’re too young and stupid to even know anything about yourself, let alone your partner.
Mathiverse, please read Passionate Marriage. While trite sayings may help in heated moments (my favorite is “remember to turn toward hubby” when Suo rubs me the wrong way), nothing beats that slog of a book, nay, tome. Congratulations on your marriage. And you, too, White Belt! I need to catch up on your journal, I guess.
suomalainen wrote:Schnarch / Passionate Marriage is some next level shit and most adults will never get close to the level of maturity required to grok it. Something something wheaton levels something something.
Yes, both Schnarch and Deida "The Way of the Superior Man" are for readers beyond or approaching the line of being "construct aware" within their relationships. Deida's book for female (or those who prefer to be in their feminine energy in relationship)readers. "Dear Lover" is superficially a much easier and more saccharine read then "Passionate Marriage" but only if you don't realize that he has some Asimov futurist novel level psycho-emotional-hyno-voodoo influence weaved into his prose.
Schnarch is also very clearly on the same page as Kegan "In Over Our Heads:The Mental Demands of Modern Life" if you read Kegan's descriptions of marital interactions at levels 4/5. Very important note that Kegan makes is that it entirely possible to be centered at Self-Authoring (4)in your professional life while still centered at Roles/Rules/Conformity (3)in your relationships. This is one of the reasons that marriages that are formed too early in our culture often successfully-fail at midlife. And there are other variations on this theme, such as my too early first marriage which was much more Naive Green in the Park than Conformist Blue in the Church. I wince at the memory of those two hopeful very young humans literally vowing to support each others personal growth absent clue one of what that might actually entail, and I was already knocked up too. What a recipe for disaster!
At the stage of First Love this couple can integrate or loop back into aspects of the Roles Stage in their current process without fear of losing themselves or their identity. This can be seen in assigned duties where they can temporarily work in a hierarchical configuration. This helps avoid conflict other less developed couples would experience. In their sexual relationship, where maintaining the polarity between the masculine and the feminine (Deida, 1995) is combined with aspects of power (Schnarch, 2009), the couple is able to maintain a vibrant sexual encounter. David Daeda describes how the healthy masculine can open up a woman into her full femininity. A man in a relationship at the lower Relational Stage of development for example, occasionally moves too far and too quickly away from his power learned at the Roles Stage of development. Rather than bringing forth power and including “equality is…often overvalued so that differences tend to get flattened, marginalized or drained of vitality” (Masters, 2012). In this instance we are referring to Daedas’ masculine and feminine polarity. The diminishment of male power in the relational stage I have found sometimes correlates with problems in sexual performance. It appears that in an effort to become more mutual and equal, he rejects and thus fails to integrate masculine power to the detriment of himself and his lover. Transcending without including masculine energy precludes a fully charged dyadic sexual polarity, David Deida and David Schnarch independently concluded.
it's also very important to not take on this responsibility for your partner. If you believe that they are likely to divorce you or take off if you make reasonable request or uphold reasonable boundary, then just be prepared to wave bye-bye.
Yes, each person is responsible for themselves. Stay out of the dreaded Drama Triangle even if your partner lives there! As a person who does not personally believe in divorce, having self-respect while being disrespected seems like dancing on a pinhead in toe shoes. It normalizes disrespect which is a huge issue. Being prepared to part ways intellectually seems more skillful, though that is not my personal value.
Schnarch / Passionate Marriage is some next level shit and most adults will never get close to the level of maturity required to grok it.
Schnarch’s idea that marriage can be a (last) chance to grow up resonates. It’s about being differentiated from others. This is part of healthy development in one’s first family and generalizes to one’s new family/partnership. If that hasn’t happened, for one or both, it can be a slog to a disaster.
Emotional maturity is largely internal and can be faked. The rubber hits the road when things get tough. (I have the same thoughts about commitment.)
Frita wrote: As a person who does not personally believe in divorce, having self-respect while being disrespected seems like dancing on a pinhead in toe shoes. It normalizes disrespect which is a huge issue.
Well, as Andelin would argue pre (as is in alignment with your god-given role) and Deida would argue trans (as is your choice in alignment with core value awareness), the desire to be "respected (narrowly defined in manner not synonymous with admired or treated politely) is within the province of the adult-like masculine energy, the desire to be "cherished" is with the province of the child-like (functional not dysfunctional) feminine energy, the desire to be "liked" is within the juvenile masculine energy, and the desire to be "appreciated" is within the adult-like feminine energy. For example, a human we admire, would generally be somebody who we believe to be highly functional in both adult-like feminine and masculine functions. IOW, they seem competent and caring. If they take on authority without responsibility, then they are villain. If they take on responsibility without authority, then they are martyr. A man (or woman) who was an attractive, successful "player" would be largely strong in their adult AND juvenile masculine energy, but out of touch with their feminine energies. In our "winner" culture, it's hard to envision a physiological adult of above normal IQ human who is very out of touch with their masculine energy, but,maybe, an extremely well-meaning, very sincere, very sweet, human who can't even begin to manage their class of kindergarteners would come close. Deida describes a man who is very much in his relaxed feminine energy as being akin to a Hawaiian Beach Bum.
Anyways, my current thinking is somewhat post or more accurately "to the side" of Habib, Schnarch, and Deida, because (for obvious reason), I don't believe they adequately address or recognize the Ginger Rogers Paradox (the fact that she had to do everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels.)
The thing I appreciate/value about my marriage with DW is our ability to fairly quickly (<24 hours) figure out our disagreements w/o taking emotional offense. We're both Te in our auxiliary. This makes it possible to mutually explain to each other what we're doing and expecting even if we're not on the same page wrt why.
I should note that the main cause of our disagreements come down to having different dominant functions: Ni vs Si. This results in a conflict between "This is not what you literally said/it's never happened before" vs "This is what I figuratively meant/it's possible".
Whereas a disagreement of the "it's not about the nail"-type is Fe (wanting sympathy) vs Te (providing solutions).
There are many (8*8/2=32) other combinations, but you only need to know those if you're a therapist. Since your own is already locked in, there are really only 8 and since your partner is fixed, you only need to specialize in 2 (yours and theirs).
I find it highly useful to know at least the dominant and auxiliary mode of the people I care about. Mileage may vary though. It can get too theoretical. Remember that theory is just a model. Many would prefer to substitute theory for lots of factoids about each and everyone they know.
Ne vs Te would be more like Exploring Options vs. Nailing It Down. Or maybe that's Ne vs. Se ? Obviously, the cognitive load for polyamory is quite a bit higher. Kind of like reading 3 thick books at the same time. Thus my dysfunctional tendency to just shorthand to "grouchy old man."
Ne vs Te would be more like Exploring Options vs. Nailing It Down. Or maybe that's Ne vs. Se ?
In my experience, if a relationship is moving into crossing between perceiving--judging functions (for a given maturity), it becomes less stable in time. One side has answers, the other side has questions. That's a temporary arrangement.
Yeah, that totally makes sense. It's like an AI processing a very large yet static data set. Eventually you think "Nothing more to learn here." and you move on.
Well, alternatively, it's like Lego or Minecraft. Take these functions to make something more complicated ... or robust ... or whatever the next metaphorical concept may be[come]/driven by.
I'm not sure what else can be added to this thread but I think it is important that each partner respect their individual goals and aspirations (within reason actually so some expectations here*) but also have a shared future vision. That can be anything. In a good marriage, each partner will respect each other's individual visions with little impingement if any:
Example:
Lemur: - I like to maximize free-time from my job,, exercise 3-4x a week, go on long walks, check up on my Grandfather, and read in solitude.
Mrs. Lemur - Grow business, supports her family financially overseas, travel, foodie.
But also have a shared vision and integrated values (we both care about our respective families, want to grow our net-worth pot to be FI and not depend on employment one day, travel to other countries, raise our child to be a productive and caring member of society) that they contribute to.
Probably helps to choose right as well: sure we've our differences but Spouse & I are similar in many cases: both introverts, both family guardians..., both OCD about keeping house clean and organized in a certain way, both like to settle disagreements rather quickly, similar libidos, both are frugal with money.
* for instance if I suddenly decide to become a bull-riding champion, then that is up for discussion lol.
I also read something once a long time ago about tossing in the occasional novel experience.
I'll try to weigh in with more of the "how" then the "who":
-- sit next to each other, if you can, while working on issues. touch in the "im here with you working on this together" way. say i love you if you can after working on issues when you're still mad as hell at each other. go to bed knowing and trusting that you are going to figure it out together. have a hug rule (which can be seriously hilarious): you have to accept a hug no matter what, which means that a strategic hug (because it's a rule) can often dissolve 80% of the difficulty of a harder talk.
-- be okay with the "easy for you but hard for them" stuff taking a long time. if it was as easy for them as it was for you, well, that is the whole list of things that your person already does that is great, so notice those things as well and say thank you for them. it's a real treat when my wife says "hey thank you for doing that weird credit card points thing so we could go on that trip". you can give that to your person regularly. be patient with the stuff that takes longer b/c it's going to be something that takes longer, so don't sweat the details and instead appreciate whats getting done.
-- focus on having fun even with times are really tough. laugh at how bad the tough times are as they're happening. sometimes life IS a cosmic joke (at least for that day) so accept the chaos. writing this feels so utterly clique until you're both dealing with some very very hard stuff.
-- know what % of 100 you have to give at a given tough situation / decision you two face. if you're at 10% b/c you're work stressed and under slept then say it and preface what you can give / what your person can expect from you. sometimes you both cannot give up to 100% of effort -- be okay with stuff literally not getting done in these cases, that's life. nurture being happy together when the hardest things are happening over dishes and the recycling bin.
-- my wife and i have a kid now and we very very very much treat our relationship between ourselves as something that is separate than the time we spend with our kiddo (99%) and requires its own kind of nurturing and care. your partnership does not dissolve when you take on additional board members!!
I come at this from a probably different perspective from most, for two reasons: Both of us have ADHD, and we come from diametrically opposed subcultures within the US (extremely authoritarian Christian and, uh, leftist feminist lesbians) and yet arrived at a spot with similar values (respecting an individual's autonomy and a repulsion to traditional gender roles/judging a person by their genitalia). We've also been together for over half our lives now, and only got married once we were sure it wouldn't change our relationship.
One of the first things to realize, and I think our very different backgrounds made this more obvious to us than perhaps others who come from more similar backgrounds, is that words/actions don't always mean the same thing to both people, and if you're having a conflict, it really helps to start by defining your terms/stating what the action means in your background.
I also think it's crucial to have a concept of mental/emotional/physical buffer: for example, if you're tired, hungry, thirsty, and too hot, you're going to be more emotionally prone to anger. If you've had a long, mentally and emotionally difficult day at work, you're probably not in the best mindset to tackle another mental task at home. It gets more subtle than that, but the main point is to a) learn to recognize when the problem isn't you or your partner, but your current state, and extricate yourself from any conflicts during that setting b) figure out how to prevent/reduce the times when you're low buffer.
Take advantage of the ways in which you are different, and appreciate each other, loudly, for them. He's better at cleaning, I'm better at cooking. I'm better at navigating to new places, he's better at returning to a place a year later after one visit with no directions. I'm better at researching, he's better at talking to people.
Develop shared and separate interests, and encourage both. Develop shared and separate relationships with other people, and encourage both.
Be able to say, hey, I really can't have this conversation right now/I'm super overwhelmed/I'm angry but it has nothing to do with you, and walk away from a conflict and come back after you've settled yourself. We've never gone to bed angry, because it turns out if you can give you/yourself the space to return to a steady state, you can then come back to a conflict and, as others have said, approach it as us vs the problem, instead of me vs you.
General life advice for all relationships, but get good at determining what the underlaying issues are, instead of arguing about the surface level effects.
I personally think that it helps a lot for both people to be life-longer learners that share what they learn with each other. I think topics around human sexuality, motivation, happiness, etc are all good things to develop an interest in.
Botton also just put out a very good lecture on Romanticism and the problems in causes in our love lives due to its lack of realism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPOuIyEJnbE
I found useful advice on approaching the problems that come up in my relationship in the above video. In the same thread, J_ recommended the related book by Alain de Botton named "The Course of Love" which I put on hold at the library.
