Why Do Some Relationships Fail? | Hacker News Reader

Why Do Some Relationships Fail?

larrycheng.com

41 pointslwc12318 comments

I read this book after I divorced, and I remember seeing a lot of my own relationship in it.

Bottom line, everyone is not you, and to make the most of a relationship you need to understand how they see things, and accommodate.

you need to understand how they see things

Isn't that the hard part?

Yup, that's the hard part. Empathy is a skill that can be developed though, and it can be useful, and not just for altruistic motives.

It was for us. :-/

It is the hard part. Part of the value of the book is in providing a simple framework for people to understand something a little alien to them. This will increase your chances of understanding. This is not the same as trying put people in a box and limit them, it is more like trying to study what typifies a particular culture and being sensitive to that.

No. The hardest part is often the willingness to see things from another's point of view - and to have it be all right for the other to have a different point of view.

Understanding comes with that willingness.

In my experience realizing that your partner has different expectations for the actions--Physical Touch, Words of Affirmatio, Quality Time, Thoughtful Gifts, Acts of Service--that affirm your relationship is the hard part. Acting on that realization is straightforward if you are committed to the relationship. It's a good book and one I wish I had read earlier.

I'd like to see some explanation in terms of evolution theory for things being like that before I buy it. Otherwise, how different is that theory from "some people are born in the sign of scorpio and some in the sign of capricorn, and they don't mix together well"?

Any of the styles are compatible provided each partner understands that the other may have different style(s) and commits to using their "language(s)." It's not about compatibility but understanding a root source of miscommunication.

I'd rather see some evidence, personally. Evolutionary explanations for how people behave in relationships are usually just-so stories--you can make one up for almost any thesis you wanted to push.

I don't mean an explanation of the form "men have been hunters for 1000s of years, therefore they communicate love in five different ways". I mean an explanation why this trait is more probable to be passed on into further generations, and why they provide an evolutionary stable equilibrium.

I hate those pseudo evolutionary reasons you read in women's magazines as well.

Even if you provide evidence, it would still be interesting to discover a reason for the things being like they are. At least I think so.

Have you read Jared Diamond "Why is sex fun" or "The Third Chimpanzee"? I didn't have the impression that what he said about the competitions of the sexes were just-so stories, although in some cases there were several different theories.

I would be interested in examples of what you mean by "just-so-stories", too.

"I mean an explanation why this trait is more probable to be passed on into further generations, and why they provide an evolutionary stable equilibrium."

My point is that there's no real sign that any pattern of human behavior adheres to any kind of adaptive genetic trait at all. Less than 1% of hominid evolution has occurred in civilizations, and there's no sign evolution has caught up to the environments we're living in now. The sexual behaviors of urbanized book-reading humans today probably have something to do with evolution, but they aren't necessarily adaptive to our place and time and are dictated so much by environment, including but not limited to culture, that asking for an evolutionary explanation gets you almost no understanding of the process at all.

I disagree completely. Evolution is not something that has happened a couple of thousand years ago. It is an ongoing process. There certainly are behaviors in relationships that are a result of modern living conditions. I'd argue these are also results of evolution.

Maybe I should clarify: evolution is not limited to genetic traits. It also applies to behaviors, strategies, designs, everything. Perhaps it would be clearer if I asked for the economic reason (why is it economical for partners to behave like x in a relationship).

Okay, I'm not really sure what you're asking for, then. If your plausibility test for a model of human behavior revolves around whether it's rationally self-interested, you're probably set up for a disappointment, and I still think it's more fruitful to look for direct evidence for a pattern of behavior than to look for a plausible story to tell about how that pattern of behavior is adaptive.

I didn't say rationally self-interested. It just has to have a probability to survive. It's not a given that self-interest is the best survival trait, groups working together might improve their chances. No point in giving a crash course on evolution theory here, though.

Also, of course gathering data and evidence would be useful, too.

Article is short and simple. I definitely recommend reading the book.

Knowing about this has really helped my relationship with my parents and my friends. While every person doesn't fit neatly into this framework, it's useful as a starting point to understanding how to have a meaningful relationship with other people.

This book had a pretty big impact on me before I read it. Really it just serves to open your eyes to the fact that, yes, people are different. My wife and I both read the book before we got married and this simple framework was a good way for us to enunciate our preferences.

I'm not big on self-help books in general, but I found it to be marginally useful and worth the time to read.

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