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> But though we believe ourselves to be seeking happiness in marriage, it isn’t that simple. What we really seek is familiarity — which may well complicate any

> But though we believe ourselves to be seeking happiness in marriage, it isn’t that simple. What we really seek is familiarity — which may well complicate any plans we might have had for happiness. We are looking to recreate, within our adult relationships, the feelings we knew so well in childhood. The love most of us will have tasted early on was often confused with other, more destructive dynamics: feelings of wanting to help an adult who was out of control, of being deprived of a parent’s warmth or scared of his anger, of not feeling secure enough to communicate our wishes. This doesn't universally applies to all marriages. Obviously, you will find out more about your partner's flaws by actually marrying them, but you will also discover positives you didn't know about (especially in times of trouble), and you will both naturally change over time, perhaps in a way that makes your relationship stronger, sometimes leading to 'caring and swearing'. If there are differences of opinion or taste or interest, the trick is to develop coping strategies (implicit or explicit) that are acceptable to both parties. It also helps to realise, at the outset, that you are agreeing to spending the rest of your life sleeping at the wrong temperature. Source: been married for more than 30 years.

everdrive 6y ago
This is a flaw in nearly any pop-psychology article. They find a perfectly valid trend, and then write without subtlety or nuance: "When x happens we [all] think y." Well, that's obviously silly ... some people may act the way the article describes, but obviously people are different, and are operating under a number of different incentives and pressures.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >but obviously people are different, and are operating under a number of different incentives and pressures. Most people are not that different... I'd say, from my experience, there's a limited number of stereotypes most peoples lives/character etc falls into, and most of the variation is in lesser details...
  - everdrive 6y ago
    Sorry -- I get what you're saying, and we run into the problem that "different" can be a pretty vague term. 100% agreed that when thinking about measurable traits and bell curves, most people are pretty similar. (I'm not sure as of writing this, but I wonder if there are any human traits which do not have a normal distribution?) When a pop-psychology article makes an overly-broad generalization, I suspect you can encounter a few reasons for this: - The majority of people fit the trend described in the article, however the raw number of people in the minority is large enough a very large number of people feel the article does not accurately describe them. - Alternately, the basic premise may be too broad to be meaningful. Imagine two introverted people -- do they think of themselves a similar? Maybe one likes sports, and the other video games. Or one is a rock climber, while one a computer programmer. Whatever. They may not define themselves as similar, even though they both share the trait of introversion. As noted in my original post, what's missing here is the nuance. If instead this article was a dry scientific paper about "measurable specific traits and the similarity in parents and children with regard to mate choice" (or something like this) then we would avoid this problem.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    If there are only two stereotypes then the article fails to cover half of them. It only gets worse the more stereotypes there are.
thrav 6y ago
They have technology to solve the sleep temperature thing now. I don’t want to shill, but a quick search will find you some options. I finally picked one up during this California heat wave without AC and it’s a godsend.
- tenuousemphasis 6y ago
  Active or passive cooling?
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  > They have technology to solve the sleep temperature thing now My comment on temperature was a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that one might actually have to make some long-term compromises. (In fact, I am now better able to sleep in a warmer room that I would have liked when I was younger)
  - snegu 6y ago
    It's so true though! My husband and I have compromised so that we are both dissatisfied with our bedroom temperature.

everdrive 6y ago

This is a flaw in nearly any pop-psychology article. They find a perfectly valid trend, and then write without subtlety or nuance: "When x happens we [all] think y." Well, that's obviously silly ... some people may act the way the article describes, but obviously people are different, and are operating under a number of different incentives and pressures.

coldtea 6y ago
>but obviously people are different, and are operating under a number of different incentives and pressures. Most people are not that different... I'd say, from my experience, there's a limited number of stereotypes most peoples lives/character etc falls into, and most of the variation is in lesser details...
- everdrive 6y ago
  Sorry -- I get what you're saying, and we run into the problem that "different" can be a pretty vague term. 100% agreed that when thinking about measurable traits and bell curves, most people are pretty similar. (I'm not sure as of writing this, but I wonder if there are any human traits which do not have a normal distribution?) When a pop-psychology article makes an overly-broad generalization, I suspect you can encounter a few reasons for this: - The majority of people fit the trend described in the article, however the raw number of people in the minority is large enough a very large number of people feel the article does not accurately describe them. - Alternately, the basic premise may be too broad to be meaningful. Imagine two introverted people -- do they think of themselves a similar? Maybe one likes sports, and the other video games. Or one is a rock climber, while one a computer programmer. Whatever. They may not define themselves as similar, even though they both share the trait of introversion. As noted in my original post, what's missing here is the nuance. If instead this article was a dry scientific paper about "measurable specific traits and the similarity in parents and children with regard to mate choice" (or something like this) then we would avoid this problem.
- imtringued 6y ago
  If there are only two stereotypes then the article fails to cover half of them. It only gets worse the more stereotypes there are.

thrav 6y ago

They have technology to solve the sleep temperature thing now. I don’t want to shill, but a quick search will find you some options. I finally picked one up during this California heat wave without AC and it’s a godsend.

tenuousemphasis 6y ago
Active or passive cooling?
KineticLensman 6y ago
> They have technology to solve the sleep temperature thing now My comment on temperature was a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that one might actually have to make some long-term compromises. (In fact, I am now better able to sleep in a warmer room that I would have liked when I was younger)
- snegu 6y ago
  It's so true though! My husband and I have compromised so that we are both dissatisfied with our bedroom temperature.