10 ms·

> Marriage requires time, energy, empathy. Yes! As do all things. If you're not willing to commit the time, energy, and empathy necessary to get a cooperative

• ryanwaggoner 11y ago
  How long have you been married?
  • groby_b 11y ago
    Not that I'm the person you ask, but for the sake of addressing your unspoken implication: 20 - and I concur with most of what the OP said. So does pretty much any therapist working with couples. We can quibble about details, but codependence and abandoning your individuality is the path to misery.
    • ryanwaggoner 11y ago
      Married for 12, my parents and wife's parents have been happily married for 30-35+. My issue isn't with the statement that "codependence and abandoning your individuality" is a path to misery, but with OP's huge extrapolations that giving 100% to marriage constitutes "codependence and abandoning your individuality"
  • maratd 11y ago
    > How long have you been married? 6 years now. 2 kids. Why?
    • sageabilly 11y ago
      FWIW, I've been married 12 years with no kids and your response to this comment was absolutely spot-on and the response I wanted to make when I first read it. You said it much more eloquently than I would have.
    • ryanwaggoner 11y ago
      I think you really misinterpreted the person you were responding to. This says it better than I can: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10706886 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10706886
• ZenoArrow 11y ago
  I wish I could upvote your post more than once. Co-dependence doesn't appear to be a healthy basis for any adult relationship. As you say, co-dependence is different from offering empathy and help, I suspect the difference is when it becomes self-destructive. People have to take responsibility for their own happiness, partners (and friends and family) should never see it as their own responsibility to 'make you better', support seems to work best by being a friend for someone to talk to whilst they work through things for themselves. For those who haven't heard of co-dependency (in relationships), here's an overview of some common issues: http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-17039/10-signs-youre-in-a-codependent-relationship.html http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-17039/10-signs-youre-in-a-cod...
  • padobson 11y ago
    Co-dependency is definitely something to watch out for. I've read a number of books on the subject, and I'm a little surprised I was interpreted that way. There's a huge difference between healthy support and enabling bad behavior. Examples: Your husband is drunk in the gutter. You can A) leave him there or B) drag him inside, clean him up, and put him to bed. If you pick A, you're allowing him to experience the consequences of his own mistakes. If you pick B, you're enabling him and saving him from his own mistakes. The person picking B is co-dependent, not supportive. A wife has always dreamed of having a lake house. The state of the house is immaterial, she just wants to walk out the back door and see the water. She finds a house they can afford now, but the husband finds the dwelling unlivable, and they're unable to afford a nicer house. The husband can A) veto the lake house outright, saying he won't be uncomfortable for her dreams or B) move into the house and be uncomfortable for his wife's dreams or C) put a plan together to earn/save extra money and make sacrifices to get the house that will be agreeable to both of them. The person picking A is taking care of themselves, but sticking it to his wife. The person picking B is being co-dependent, doing something that makes him miserable for the good of their partner. The person picking C is the healthy one here, enduring shared, temporary pain to achieve an end that is agreeable to both. A husband and wife have a vacation fund. They set a goal to save enough to go to Nepal the following year, and put together a savings plan to go. The wife follows the plan, sacrificing her gym membership for jogging and making fewer trips to the hair stylist. The husband ignores the plan, buys a new TV, eats at restaurants too often, and finds himself with a sizable debt at the end of the year. When it comes time to pay for the trip, the vacation fund has enough money to A) Pay for just the wife to go on the Nepal trip B) Pay for both of them to go to Disney Land instead C) Pay off the husband's credit cards. The person who chooses C is a text-book co-dependent. The person who chooses A is probably being healthy, but missed an opportunity for relaxation with her husband. This makes B a suitable option as well. The husband still has to handle his credit card debt, but his wife was willing to sacrifice her Nepal trip so they could be together. Perhaps it will inspire the husband to change his spending habits the next time around, or perhaps next year he'll be waving to her from the dock as she leaves on a cruise with her friends. The key to avoiding codependency is setting clear, definable limits with your spouse, and then allowing them to suffer the consequences when they ignore those limits. It takes a level of self awareness to set good limits, but self awareness is not selfishness. If you're able to build a marriage around self-sacrifice that has clear, definable payoffs, then your needs will naturally begin to align and the needs of the couple will supersede the individual needs.
• amyjess 11y ago
  > No no no! This is the path to misery and unhappiness. Your interests should coincide! They should be mutually shared! The success of any partnership is based on common interests, not on the partners selflessly making themselves miserable for the sake of some perceived interest of the other party. Yes, what GP advocates is the foundation of an abusive relationship. There is no swifter way to guarantee the onset of emotional abuse than by pressuring any partner into sacrificing their happiness for the other.
• paulddraper 11y ago
  There are extremes, and I fear that the GP's intent was lost. Compromise and selflessness are key to marriage. Individual ambition is the opposite of these qualities. Extremity ambitious individuals who are not able to transfer this ambition to include the well-being of their partner set up the marriage for failure, regardless of their influence our talents. I not saying that's what happened, but the GP points out that otherwise successful people with poor marriages isn't so hard to imagine. Yes, there must be balance. "Abandon individuality" carried to it's literal extreme is wrong. But the essence of the GP's statement has truth: individual focus and individual ambition don't necessarily translate to a good relationship.
  • maratd 11y ago
    > Compromise and selflessness are key to marriage. Individual ambition is the opposite of these qualities. We're spending a lot of time talking about things in the abstract. A good example of what you're talking about is a wife quitting her job and staying home with the kids, even though she knows that it would make her miserable. To you, that's a curtailment of ambition, compromise, and selflessness. To me, that's the beginning of the end. She will make herself miserable and then, she will make everyone else miserable around her. I'm sure you have a counter-example at the ready, so let me say this. The key to a successful partnership (love, business, friendship, whatever) is pursuing common goals and interests without fucking the other person over. That last part is important. And honestly, you should be living your life that way with regard to everyone, not just your spouse. Why hurt other people? Be confident in yourself, what you have, and what you can achieve. Then give as needed to others. That's not compromise or selflessness ... that's just sharing what you have with others. I suppose where we disagree is that you feel you need to throw yourself on the sword to avoid hurting others? I have never found that to be the case in my life. I have always had enough to give to others without compromising myself.
    • paulddraper 11y ago
      "you need to throw yourself on the sword to avoid hurting others" Like I said, there are possible extremes, but in essence, yes. I believe that love is characterized by sacrifice.
• ninkendo 11y ago
  I had a different interpretation of OP's post. Phrases like "put the success of the marriage above their individual successes" and the like are more of a sentiment than a prescribed behavior. It's like telling your spouse "you're more important to me than my job". On the one hand, in my case it's true - my wife is more important to me than my career in a general sense - but on the other hand it's not like she's making me abandon my career to, like, wait at home and fawn over her or anything. But if that prioritization actually caused me to make sacrifices where I'm no longer happy, then that's more of the "path to misery" IMO. You can have a feeling of love strong enough to believe your spouse is the most important thing in your life, without being codependent. The codependency comes from the outcome: does this feeling cause you to abandon your own needs? To abandon your own pursuit of happiness? If not, maybe you do actually love the person deeply and you don't need to go worrying that you're in some dangerous, codependent relationship. Full disclosure, happily married 9 years now.
• baldfat 11y ago
  > So many talented, ambitious people have failed marriages because they over-think things. They go on the Internet and read stupid posts. Normal people don't do that! Normal people also have failed marriages for the same reasons. Selfishness and a lack of genuine communication ruins marriages.
• Mikeb85 11y ago
  > No! Co-dependence is the path to ruin. This is very different from empathy and rendering help. Don't be a crutch for anyone else. Ever. Support != dependence. It's as simple as someone who gives a shit about you beyond the level a room-mate would. I don't need my wife to get through life. But it's nice when she wishes me luck, or comforts me when something goes bad. And vice versa. > No no no! This is the path to misery and unhappiness. Disagree strongly. If I say, decide unilaterally to move to NY for a job (without the wife's approval), we're going to be unhappy. Compromise = putting the marriage first = trying to avoid when your wants/success directly conflicts with your partner's. > Your interests should coincide! They should be mutually shared! The success of any partnership is based on common interests Please, no 2 people have the same interests. Some shared goals are of course important (do both people want kids, want to live in the same country, enjoy certain activities together?), but they can enjoy different interests and get along. For example, when I play golf my wife will go on a spa date with a girlfriend or something... > A healthy marriage is where you can make the other person happy Fixed it. > So many talented, ambitious people have failed marriages because they over-think things. I'd say more likely because they pursue their own goals to the detriment of their relationships (and it's not always romantic partners, sometimes it's family and friends).
• dragonwriter 11y ago
  > > It requires mental, physical, emotional and spiritual support. > Co-dependence is the path to ruin. Co-dependence is a path to ruin, sure, but despite what one might infer from the elements that comprise the name, mutual mental, physical, and emotional support isn't even remotely the same thing as co-dependence. [0] > > A successful marriage forces two people to put the success of the marriage above their individual successes. > No no no! This is the path to misery and unhappiness. Your interests should coincide! They should be mutually shared! Both are right -- or wrong -- but in any case incomplete. Successful marriage requires a certain degree of shared goals (particularly, the shared goal of success of the couple together), but real people never have all of their interests shared. The common goals provide the basis for each partner to compromise the pursuit of some of their non-shared goals in ways which accommodate the other partners (non-shared) goals, because doing so promotes the common, shared goals. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codependency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codependency