My Yearly Rant.....

tug_boat

10-Year Member
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Jun 18, 2012
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Lifelong commitment is not what everyone thinks it is. It's not waking up early every morning to make breakfast and eat together. It's not cuddling in bed together until both of you peacefully fall asleep. It's not a clean home and a homemade meal every day.
It's someone who steals all the covers. It's sometimes slammed doors, and a few harsh words, disagreeing, and the silent treatment until your hearts heal. Then...forgiveness!
It's coming home to the same person everyday that you know loves and cares about you, in spite of and because of who you are. It's laughing about the one time you accidentally did something stupid. It's about dirty laundry and unmade beds without finger pointing. It's about helping each other with the hard work of life! It's about swallowing the nagging words instead of saying them out loud.
It's about eating the cheapest and easiest meal you can make and sitting down together at 10 p.m. to eat because you both had a crazy day. It's when you have an emotional breakdown, and your love lays with you and holds you and tells you everything is going to be okay, and you believe them. It's when "Netflix and chill" literally means you watch Netflix and hang out. It's about still loving someone even though sometimes they make you absolutely insane.
Living with the person you love is not perfect, and sometimes it's hard, but it's amazing and comforting and one of the best things you'll ever experience.

Push Hard, Press Forward!
 
When the answer to the question, even in the most difficult times, "are you better off with him or her or without," and the answer is ALWAYS "with."
 
I've been married for 24 years (together 27 years). We joke that we will always love each other - but we don't always like each other [emoji173]️
 
Lifelong commitment is not what everyone thinks it is...It's about still loving someone even though sometimes they make you absolutely insane.

Tug,

Your thesis is backed up by neuroscience.

From today's WSJ:

Brain imaging reveals some secrets of a happy relationship

What makes a happy marriage? Psychologists offer myriad suggestions, from active listening to arguing appropriately and avoiding contempt. But my brain-scanning partners and I have stumbled on what happens in the brain when you are in a long-term, happy partnership.

In research published in 2011 and 2012, we put seven American men and 10 American women (all in their 50s and 60s) into the brain scanner. Their average duration of marriage was 21.4 years; most had grown children; and all maintained that they were still madly in love with their spouse (not just loving but in love). All showed activity in several areas of the dopamine-rich reward system, including the ventral tegmental area and dorsal striatum—brain regions associated with feelings of intense romantic love. All also showed activity in several regions associated with feelings of attachment, as well as those linked with empathy and controlling your own stress and emotions.

These data show that you can remain in love with a partner for the long term.

More intriguing, we found reduced activity in a region of the cerebral cortex known as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is associated with our human tendency to focus on the negative rather than the positive (among many other functions linked to social judgment). These brain functions may have evolved millions of years ago—perhaps primarily as an adaptive response to strangers who wandered into one’s neighborhood. Natural selection has long favored those who responded negatively to the one malevolent intruder, rather than positively to myriad friendly guests.

But reduced activity in this brain region suggests that our happily-in-love long-term partners were overlooking the negative to focus on the positive aspects of their marital relationships—something known to scientists as “positive illusions.” Looking at our brain-scanning results from other experiments, including long-term lovers in China, we found similar patterns. We humans are able to convince ourselves that the real is the ideal.

The neural roots of tolerance, mercy and pardon may live deep in the human psyche.


Dr. Fisher is a biological anthropologist at the Kinsey Institute and the author of “Anatomy of Love,” recently published in its second edition.

My DW still needs a little convincing from time to time.

Happy New Year to All!
 
My DW still needs a little convincing from time to time.

If you have any tricks for that, do pass them along...

I'm not saying I do any of the convincing.

Best bet is to convince the members of her book club that you're the greatest guy in the world and then hope for the best.

I met the future Mrs. CB in the fall of 1978. In the previous summer, this 21 year old Polish girl traveled from Warsaw to Peshawar and Quetta, the Baku to Pakistan leg over land. No one every had or has convinced her of anything since.

Given your SAF persona, I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Scout and Miss Scout are cut out of the same cloth as Mrs. CB. If they are then you have a great foundation for a long happy marriage.
 
25th for us this year as well. We took a divide and conquer approach. DW does things she is good at / requires to be done a certain way, and I do things that fit my skill set. Not always stereotypically gender tasks. She dusts, I vacuum. I used to offer to fold the towels, but I wasn't doing it properly so we discussed it and both agreed that if she wants them done a certain way, she will do them. I do finances, but we both discuss budget. There are plenty of things we enjoy doing together, but we found out early in our marriage that we don't have to do everything together.
 
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