This was one of those throwaway linksthat pop up when you are on news or magazine sites. some of the statements seem plausible and some less so. what’s your take on these claims?
Sounds like a decent bit of advice for the most part. The 69% statistic sounds like a laugh to me, but I don’t know that it’s wrong either.
I totally agree that there are breaches worse than affair. Affair would have to be like a 7 or an 8 out of 10 on the breachometer.
Letting go works for some things, but not all. So I don’t know if it’s ALWAYS better. Unless you can really let it go for real, and respect the other person’s position without getting too upset.
I would agree with those, except I think I’d change the word “fight” in the second item to “disagree” or something similar. Fight, to me, implies yelling, nasty words, and possibly stomping around and slamming doors. My husband and I disagree all the time, but I don’t think we’ve ever really fought. I think disagreeing is healthy; fighting, not so much.
This. mrAru and I have never had a yelling, stomping around and sulk afterwards fight. We do have an occasional disagreement, typically over what to have for dinner, or what to turn the thawed ground beast into, or perhaps occasionally what to get for someone for christmas. I think the most serious disagreement we ever really had was whether to get a hot tub or an indulgabath. I wanted the hot tub, he wanted the indulgabath. I didn’t want to go through the issue of ripping out the tub to replace it a couple of summers ago. Since it was my money, we got the hot tub.
Yeh, I’ve never had a petulant or particularly aggressive and insulting outburst with my wife of 16 years. We’ve had some pretty big transgressions to overcome and a lot of heated and tense arguing, but in the end, we always come around, forgive, let go and move on.
Once you accept them for who they are, so long as it’s tenable to a healthy relationship, everything just seems to click into place. Sometimes I feel like I can read her mind.
We’re yin and yang, a good mix.
•Sixty-nine percent of all arguments between you and your partner will never be resolved. So don’t try so hard.
I’m wondering how the heck they arrived at that figure. For that matter, how would one even begin to research the subject?
•A couple that doesn’t fight is in trouble.
Some people who don’t fight are in trouble (e.g., anger is repressed instead of healthily expressed), but this is not true for all.
•Having a “good enough” marriage is the most couples can expect and is actually quite an accomplishment.
The most they can expect? Again, true for some, but not for all.
•Letting go is sometimes better than discussing everything to death.
Makes sense to me.
•Respect, not sex or money, is the most important factor in a happy marriage.
I find this plausible. I’d like more info, thought.
•There are marital breaches worse than an affair.
Agreed.
•A therapist cannot teach, train, or guide you to “be happy.” That is not a reasonable outcome to expect from therapy.
Semantics. A therapist can help one to understand certain things and to do certain things that will contribute to one’s happiness.
What really bugs the hell out of me isn’t the above content, it’s the f*ckin’ sensationalist title. It’s an old stale technique, inaccurate, designed to appeal to thoughtless gut reaction, commonly used in the sleaziest ads for the sleaziest products. It’s hard to have confidence in any publication that stoops low enough to blare “What [whoever] doesn’t want you to know.” Here’s what I want them to know: whoever wrote that title is a piss-poor journalist, but a grade A asswipe.
I think it’s just more of the simplistic view that makes you feel good but doesn’t solve anything.
For example having a “good enough” marriage is the most you can expect. I think that’s poorly phrased. I think “good enough” may be “good enough” but it is not the most to expect. If you shoot too low in life, you aren’t going to get any more. You may not get it, but you should be trying for more. That’s like if I had an average kid and said, “Well you’re average, the most I can expect from you is a C, so don’t really try.”
Money is really the bottom line. Yes, lack of respect can hurt a marriage, but money is the foundation. Without a minimum amount to be happy, whatever that is to the couple, you can’t get past it
What could be worse than an affair? Maybe if you kill your spouse? Or set your spouse up to take the fall for a crime you committed? I would still think it would be hard to top an affair.
Agreed on this one; my SO and I don’t really fight so much as we have disagreements. They’re generally not emotional, and we don’t end up yelling, cursing each other out, or stomp about angrily over them.
BeaMyra, I would say that there are a few things worse than an affair for a marriage; the biggest would be addiction, IMO, especially when the addict attempts to keep it a secret from the spouse.
I thought this was going to be something I read a few years ago - that every therapist believes that in any given marriage, there’s one spouse who loves the other more than he or she is loved in return.
“In any love arrangement there are two parties; the one who loves, and the one who condescends to be so treated.” --Thackeray
It’s kind of interesting but not all that interesting. It does seem to be coming from an anti-story-book angle, assuming that everyone wants a fairytale wedding and for the marriage to be fun, easy, and to be perpetually 26 years old yet very rich for the rest of their lives.
perhaps if it was something major like crack or heroin. Something that ruins not just your life, but your loved ones too. This can even happen with alcohol and gambling, but since it’s not illegal, there’s not that kind of stigma attached to it.
But, if you’re sneaking a toke, smoking a bowl, abusing prescription drugs, or even smoking cigarettes behind his/her back, that’s just out and out lying/deceit, because you know they wouldn’t approve. Wrong as hell, but addiction is a tricky thing, since it becomes a physical/psychological dependency. That person could actually use your help, assuming you can get over your indignance.
Is that more devastating than finding you lover with another person? My gut tells me an affair would hurt more emotionally. Sure, plenty of marriages have survived such a thing, but the root is usually lost love for their spouse, lust or both. I think I’d find it far more difficult to overcome than addiction.
However, abuse to a spouse, or your kids; I can see putting that over and above an affair.
Fuck that shit. “Good enough” is a waste of my time.
The others depend on the situation. I’d probably agree with the one about respect being important, but the rest are going to vary by couple. For example, my husband and I do a lot better with discussing everything “to death” than letting it go; others’ mileage will vary. Also, for us an affair would probably not be one of the biggest marital breaches we could have, but for my parents it would be, for a bunch of different reasons.
The idea that there’s a set of pat rules that work for everyone is kind of stupid.
For those of you who are saying there are worse marital breaches than having an affair, what are you thinking of?
Having an affair with her sister.
Yeah, I’m struggling with that one. The only thing I can come up with is some kind of hideous violent crime, but at that point I think one has a lot more to worry about that one’s marriage.
The point is to work 69 into a marriage wherever/whenever possible.
Abuse, addiction, systematic screwing over of family finances, and putting his hobbies/job/friends/family before ours would all bother me far more than a temporary affair, mostly because I’m sure that the conditions under which my husband would be likely to cheat would be a lot more likely to be the result of personal stress rather than a marital problem.
Count me in as another vote for replacing fight with disagreement. My wife and I never really fight, but we do have disagreements that need to be resolved.
I wouldn’t necessarily agree with the “addiction” language cited above, but there are some *consequences *of addictions that might qualify.
If I found out that my spouse had squandered our child’s college fund on gambling, that would be far worse than any affair, especially if they were repentant about the affair.
By tautology: “good enough”, is.