How I Blew My Marriage | Hacker News Reader

How I Blew My Marriage

danoah.com

46 pointswhite_raven34 comments

Never argue in front of the kids

You know, I have some experience with this. I had a friend in college that had parents that never once argued in front of him. Not once. This guy was completely unable to resolve any conflicts. You know what? People learn conflict resolution by watching others, and that goes for kids.

To give more details about my friend, he was a really nice guy, but he avoided confrontation like the plague. The problem is, you can only avoid it for so long. When he finally did get into it with anyone, he would literally start to fall apart. It drove him to drink and eventually most of his relationships fell apart and he became a binge drinker/alcoholic. He ended up dropping out of school and disappeared from the face of the earth. He drunk dialed me years later and left a message on my answering machine (without any details about where he was). A very, very sad situation.

I'm not saying everyone will react like this, but that watching an argument be properly resolved is a good thing for a kid to see.

This is really insightful. My parents never (knowingly) argued in front of me either (a few times I heard angry voices in the other room). And when I was younger I definitely avoided confrontation. Hmmm...

Fwiw, my parents argued in front of me all the time, and I also avoided confrontation when I was younger. I think there's a spectrum, and it's important to teach kids how to deal with confrontation productively.

If you argue in front of your kids, in a way that respects each other and eventually comes to a fair and agreeable result, then your kid will learn valuable conflict resolution skills. On the other hand, if you shout at each other in front of the kids until one of you throws their hands in the air and stomps off, and nothing is resolved and everyone is angry, then your kid will only learn the fine art of temper tantrums. And, as you say, if you do nothing in front of your kids, they will be utterly unequipped to do anything.

As my wrestling coach used to say, practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. The same holds true for kids and their acquiring habits from their parents: they will pick up the habits you demonstrate in front of them, for better or worse.

Also, this sort of stuff is exactly why I am absolutely terrified of having kids.

I wish I could join this comment and the parent comment at the hip. It is exactly right that your kids learn how to resolve conflicts by the way their parents resolve conflicts. This is one of the benefits of not living in a single parent household.

I liked the list in the article, it summarizes to communicate authentically. But it took me probably the first 15 years of my marriage before I understood the ramifications of that.

My parents argued badly, as well. Sometimes, not always, you can learn from watching someone do something badly. I like to think I didn't (and don't) make the same mistakes my parents made.

Also, this sort of stuff is exactly why I am absolutely terrified of having kids.

I'm not sure how old you are, but I had the same feeling when I was in my 20's. I gradually lost it, because I realized over time that kids are pretty resilient and it's not that hard to do the right thing. I don't regret it at all.

> People learn conflict resolution by watching others, and that goes for kids.

As someone that grew up watching my parents fight constantly in front of me, I still react to confrontation the same way as your friend. Their fighting frightened me because he was physical, so when I get into [really] overheated situations, I shut down instead because that seems safer to me than risking pressing forward.

In situations where I saw friends' parents fight, it was awkward and equally unsettling.

> Their fighting frightened me because he was physical

Arguing and abuse are two separate things. Watching my parents fight, often over incredibly stupid things using irrational tactics, taught me worlds about the values of patience, understanding, and rationality.

I just don't think this is universal. Even if he didn't hit her, their issues were always unresolved and their situation never got better, even after counseling.

It's anecdotal at best. Not only it can't be generalized, at different ages the outcome may be a lot different. Kids need a certain level of maturity to understand properly conflicts and learn conflict resolution otherwise they simply feel them as a crack in their world. There are not fast and hard rules here, every kid/situation may be quite different...

Well that went downhill rather quickly. That really sucks for your friend, but do you really think this would apply in every situation? On the opposite side of this you also find people having some social issues as well. Finding the happy "medium" is anyones guess.

fwiw, my parents NEVER argued in front of me and my 3 siblings[1], but I'm confrontational to a fault. I suppose the only difference could be that I had 3 siblings, and my parents took a "let them workout their own fights" approach which, with 3 siblings (all within 7 years of each other), will teach you how to deal with confrontation real fast.

[1]the one time we ever saw them fight, it was about the dishes, and the 4 of us kids were all so distraught about it we went into a corner and cried together while they fought. I remember it vividly.

Agreed completely. Great writeup on that topic (which was posted here a while back)

http://www.figarospeech.com/teach-a-kid-to-argue/

Most of these suggestions can be summarized as "don't be selfish".

My own approach is to consider the relationship as something somewhat separate from yourself. You like/love the relationship, and it fulfills you in one way or another, so do what it takes to maintain it. Sometimes that means "spending" some of your own ego.

Agreed. The golden rule could replace a good number of these.

I am guilty of a few of these myself, with the notable exception of financial stingyness (if anything, I am overly generous to her which could be a bad trait as far as my quality of life is concerned) and failing to look my best (I'm not the most attractive guy in the world, dressing in nice clothes and doing my hair makes me feel good about me.)

To add to this, I think the only way to not ruin a relationship is to listen to the person, often and with honest intentions. People tend to be saying something straight to your face which you have a habit of missing, I know this is my experience, but I've found that since I stopped talking at her and starting talking with her our relationship has improved in leaps and bounds.

Though I suppose like almost anything, you improve with iteration, I hope you take your mistakes and what you have learned and better apply them in your next relationship, thanks for sharing this with us, it made me realise some of my own flaws.

Comment: Wow, this flew up to the first page, looks like these flaws must be pretty common, or general enough to seem common, anyway.

I found this a curiously cold, superficial approach to loving another person.

A relationship isn't a software program, or a car. You can't apply discrete rules, algorithms or workflows and assume it'll stay in tip-top condition. You can't debug it, either. Not in a discretely logical way.

This other person who is your more-than-equal, who still gives you butterflies, and who you respect so much that you've entered into a partnership with them with both your lives? Treat them like that. Be open, be responsive to their emotional needs, and be communicative about yours. Like any partnership, don't enter into it lightly; it's okay to take your time. Take them for who they are, and make sure they're taking you for who you are. Turn a blind eye to nothing, but be sure of your priorities. And don't take any of it for granted.

It's also not a completely irrational thing. You can apply some general patterns and usually observe positive results.

None of what you said is wrong, but TFA has some very simple suggestions that anyone can follow that do have the ability to have a significantly positive impact on most marriages.

There is something that your argument misses, I think.

We like to think that our actions follow our emotions. The reasoning goes that if I am making intentional effort to do something that I do not necessarily feel like doing, I am just doing something artificial, and am therefore a hypocrite.

However, one's emotions also follow their actions. If I have to make an effort to choose to act like I am in love, I will feel love from making the effort. I am training my emotions to follow my actions. And then, before long, I am feeling the emotion behind doing the thing that I do. What was first artificial becomes genuine.

It is like teaching your children to say please, thank you, and I'm sorry. Do they actually feel these things when they say them? Not at first. But by ingraining the action, you instill the emotion. I speak from experience. I have six children.

I would add this:

Have a short memory for negative stuff and a really long memory for positive things. Some people have a tendency to do the reverse, and it is really toxic to relationships.

This site somehow brings my Firefox 16.0.1 on Ubuntu to its knees -- 100% CPU usage, window goes dark -- every time I try to view it. It literally raised the temperature in the room trying to render it.

I think number 12 is the most important. Having fun. (Or even just planning to do fun stuff).

If that stops happening, you are in trouble.

Now that is what I call an accurate headline. Those are indeed 16 fabulous ways to screw up a marriage.

Don’t poop with the bathroom door open.

What? Who does this? Why would this ever be ok?

My SO and I do this. What's wrong with pooping with the door open? We all poop. It's not that big a deal.

It think this should be extrapolated as follows: "If you have a particular personal hygiene habit that drives your SO crazy, then avoid it, for their sakes."

When you were a teenager living with your parents, did you poop with the door open? Did your parents poop with the door open? When a friend or coworker is visiting at your place, do you poop with the door open?

For most people, the answer is "no" in all those cases, because most people nowadays do not find the sight of pooping people appealing. Thus, when one does poop with the door open when their SO is around, but does not do so when others are around, the message one is sending is that the SO does not deserve the common courtesy that other people do, that the SO has become just a fixture around the house or perhaps a pet.

Because I don't enjoy looking upon the love of my life while disgorging some fiery, hot aftermath from last night's thai takeout?

Missing one of the most important ones of all.

And #10--really?

As funny as this sounds, this is so true.

First marriage: door open, miserable New relationship: door closed, happy

Hacker News indeed...

3 pages? Really??

/r/midlyinteresting is that way.

For people (like me) who hate pagination:

  1. Don't stop holding her hand
  2. Don't stop trying to be attractive
  3. Don't always point out her weaknesses
  4. Don't stop cooking for her
  5. Don't yell at your spouse
  6. Don't call names
  7. Don't be stingy with your money
  8. Don't argue in front of the kids
  9. Don't encourage each other to skip working out
  10. Don't poop with the bathroom door open
  11. Don't stop kissing her
  12. Don't stop having fun together
  13. Don't pressure each other
  14. Don't label each other with negative labels
  15. Don't skip out on things that are important to her
  16. Don't emotionally distance yourself after a fight

Having wrecked a good number of serious relationships in my time, I really feel those are just symptoms of underlying problems that can't be corrected by adhering to lists. There seem to be categories of things going wrong and a lot of these points are redundant in that context. Maybe the message should not be primarily that relationships require work, but that they often need to run better algorithms. People need to make more of an effort to see the world through their partners' eyes, but they also need to establish a clearer understanding about their own goals and feelings.

Holding hands (1), cooking for each other (4), kissing (11), having fun (12) - those are kind of obvious relationship indicators and they should not be items on a to do list. If they don't happen there are underlying causes such as lack of time, stress, apathy, or a general lack of affection.

Making an effort to be desirable (2), working out (9), not pooping publicly (10, WTF?!?) are general maintenance problems related to attractiveness, and they're kind of obvious.

The highly redundant items pertaining to not being a total dick (3, 5, 6, 13, 14) look like they might happen increasingly when the relationship has already entered failure mode.

Emotional distance (16) is what you're supposed to feel after a serious fight. Effort should go into addressing the issues leading to the fight, as well as the behavior of both people during the actual confrontation. If you feel distance after the "battle", that means the war is not over and you have a serious problem there that can't be addressed by simply forcing yourself to not feel distant anymore.

Finally, 15, skipping out on activities that are important to your partner. Well, I think it's important that both partners remain full individuals even during a relationship. Shared interests and activities are great, and it does make sense to attend stuff for the sake of your better half sometimes. However, if there are things one party doesn't like to do at all, there should always be a way to opt out peacefully. Attending stuff you don't like won't do anyone any favors in the long run, it's not healthy or sustainable.

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