Crowdsourced Advice for the Valentine’s Day
This week of the Valentine’s Day, I would like to share with you an article by Mark Manson (the author of a few of straight talk, “how to live a good life” books, link below). Here is what Mark did. Instead of coming up with his own advice, or consulting with the “subject matter experts”, he asked his blog followers to share their experience in the marriage and relationships, Essentially, he kind of “crowdsourced” the advice on relationships. 1,500 people with at least 10 years of marriages responded, and that resulted in the article that he posted on his website (link below). Let me share with your just a few, I think we all can find some wisdom here. I did.
HAVE REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS AND ROMANCE
Falling in love can make everyone “high”. But sooner or later the excitement will go away and reality will settle in. What was invisible before will become visible, and small cute quirks of a personality may start appearing as annoyances. People change in unexpected ways, and relationships may go into jeopardy. A lot of things can be worked out, but it does require work. It’s good to know what to expect and be able to work it out together.
THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN A RELATIONSHIP IS NOT COMMUNICATION, BUT RESPECT
A lot of things can and will break during a marriage, but one thing that will support you and protect from bad things happening is a respect to each other. In Mark’s observations, the more couples stay in a marriage, the more they emphasize respect as a foundational characteristic of the relationships. And “show respect” isn’t enough, you have to “do respect”.
YOU AND YOUR PARTNER WILL GROW AND CHANGE IN UNEXPECTED WAYS; EMBRACE IT
When you married someone, then you must have found him/her good enough to marry “as-is”. But over the years, you both change. “One day, many years from now, you will wake up and your spouse will be a different person – make sure you fall in love with that person, too.” – was the advice of one of the responders, and I couldn’t say it better.
PRACTICE FIGHT AND FORGIVENESS
Disagreements between partners can break relationships. But they also can make and strengthen them, if done right. Since you cannot avoid disputes, it’s worth to learn how to resolve them, if you aren’t good at it intuitively. Simple common sense is what makes rules here – don’t criticize character, don’t blame, avoid insult and contempt. Being right isn’t as much important as being human. The second component of the fight and disagreement – forgive and don’t keep score. And the one I found very useful – separate intentions from the behavior – if someone did something you find inappropriate, it’s probably not because he/she is a bad person.
Mark Manson’s article:
Mark Manson’s books: