Comment by zxcvvcxz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zxcvvcxz | Hacker News Reader

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> 2) Life pro tip on understanding other people (this is a quick reinforcement of a bunch of points in the article): if someone is behaving irrationally, 99% of the time its because they are subconciously insecure about something.

How about the possibility that they are tired of their partner? The irrationality might come from the fact that they are bound to them (e.g. marriage) and feel pressure to not break that apart. That'd be quite an internal conflict, and might produce irrational behavior.

If this is a possible explanation (I've seen it many times at least), do you really think it's an only 1% of the time cause? I think that's being unrealistically optimistic. Because then your narrative sounds very convenient and comforting: "Oh, I just have to help them get over their insecurities and it's happily ever after." Not to be a downer, but I think people need to be more realistic about these things so they have better odds of finding a partner with which they have a good dynamic.

(It's kind of like being stuck at a job you don't like, but you need the money. That's bad for both the employee and the business.)

But of course you could take a step back and ask why they're tired of their partner. Sometimes that's a result of an internal insecurity, too.

Put another way, you might say that a person who is 'tired' of their partner is in some perhaps fixable way insecure about the relationship itself, of which they are a part.

So if every (or most) relationships are fixable, what does it matter who you pick as partner?

You've discovered the secret! It doesn't.

It may not matter whether you can make it work, but it'll matter if you're having fun while you're trying...

You can have fun with a wide variety of people. It may require letting go of your preconceived notions of "fun" and being open to new experiences, though.

I used to think this way, but what happens when they become dependent on you for emotional/financial/whatever sustenance?

I think those who are 'fun' to 'fix' are therefore at risk of dependency on that. Like a drug.

"Have fun" != "fix". If those concepts are crossed in your mind, that could be part of the problem. Just don't date the people who need fixing - or if you do, make it clear that they are responsible for fixing themselves and you're not going to do it for them.

There are lots of people in this world who don't need fixing and can be quite fun to hang with.

I think who you pick as a partner is a pretty weak indicator for relationship longevity. Being/becoming the right partner counts more. As with many things in life, the day to day execution is much more important than the initial state.

It has a dramatic effect on what your children are like.

> How about the possibility that they are tired of their partner?

Then that goes to point #3. People who are "tired" of their marriage are the type who have little patience, persistence, hope, tools to fix their marriage. That is why they keep divorcing, because they can never feel complacent with what they have.

As far as the insecurity goes, it is like a pandora's box where all ills are born. They don't just affect marriage. They affect everything.

I don't think you two necessarily disagree.

One way to reconcile these ideas is to point out that it's entirely rational to push someone away you don't want to be with.

However, I think the grandparent comment is really talking about otherwise stable relationships where one party can, quite suddenly, start behaving very differently. Usually when this happens, someone will try to justify themself, saying that the reason is X or Y, often blaming the other party. E.g. they'll pick something close at hand, some bad habits or old points of conflict to justify the mood.

Consider two examples, with 'your' bad habit being leaving dirty dishes. If you just left a huge mess in the kitchen, an argument that evening is not irrational. If it happened earlier in the week without consequence (you cleaned up later), but suddenly it's being brought up as the cause of conflict, be suspicious that there's something else going on.

Honestly, sometimes when this happens to you, your relatively normal perception of the situation can make the really irrational stuff seem almost comical. However, it's so easy to get baited into an argument that that's what often happens. A little awareness and firmness in not getting drawn in can go a long way. There are patterns to recognize.

The key isn't to excuse irrational behavior (after all, the tailgater is still being dangerous), but to take it into account in how you respond. You can save yourself immense grief with half a second of realization that "something's up."

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