How to understand whether we are going to connect our lives with the right person? And is it possible to make life together long and happy? Popular blogger Tim Urban has developed his own idea of a couple, based on the work of psychologists.
Living together is not a honeymoon in Thailand. Not celebrations about buying your first home. And certainly not the endless Valentine’s Day. Of course, it also includes all this. But in microscopic quantities.
For the most part, life in a couple consists, for example, of Thursdays. As well as Tuesdays, Fridays and other inconspicuous days, which it’s hard to remember tomorrow. And the only important thing is that this Thursday, like several hundred (well, or thousands, if you’re lucky) others, you will spend with the same person.
Well-known blogger Tim Urban is sure of this. A Harvard alumnus and author of one of the fastest-growing resources, Wait But Why, suggests likening a long, happy family life to climbing to the top. It cannot be reached in one jump: you need to break your route into small segments and gradually overcome each of them.
Urban considers that very ordinary Thursday to be such a segment of life together. And, based on the work of several family psychologists, he shares his idea of how to achieve this goal.
«Trick test»
The partner should be your friend — perhaps the main tenet of Tim Urban. To determine true friendship, he recommends a «cork test». It’s not what you thought. Here is how the author himself explains this concept: “I like to stay up late with friends. But when the time comes to disperse, one of us throws the other up to the house, or at least to a car parked somewhere. So, if I dream that traffic jams will form on the road at that moment, it means that I am in the company of a true friend, every second of communication with whom is dear to me.
And the partner, the person with whom you hope to live your whole life, must certainly meet this criterion, Urban is sure. He highlights several key components of successfully passing the “cork test”, insisting that the friendship that has passed him only becomes stronger over time.
1. Sense of humor and the ability to see the funny. What could be worse than the prospect of living to a golden wedding laughing for 50 years at jokes you don’t really find funny? However, in such a situation, you definitely will not live to see the golden wedding. The same applies to the remarkable ability to see the funny in the most mundane and sad events — homework, flight delays at the airport or a long tiring road.
A study by psychologist Huston showed that the more often and more partners laugh or at least smile, the higher their chances of staying together.
2. Respect for other people’s judgments and ways of thinking. If your partner’s judgments are not important to you, if you are not interested in his assessments, then why would you share with him what seems important or interesting to you? And as a result, even staying close to him, you will inevitably feel alone.
3. Common interests and hobbies. Without them, it will not be easy for you to compromise when planning every next weekend. And over time, those habits and addictions, which in many ways make you exactly you, will begin to shrink little by little, leaving a feeling of regrettable emptiness.
«Make yourself at home»
I mean, no, stay at home without any «hows». Feeling calm and relaxed, feeling safe and finally feeling like ourselves — that’s what we can afford in our home. With the same criteria, you need to approach relationships that you want to keep forever. To do this, according to Tim Urban, the following conditions are required.
1. Trust and peace. Secrets and secrets are poison that slowly kills any relationship. They build a wall of mistrust between people. And who wants to live years in lies and painful attempts to hide something? Or endlessly tormented by suspicions — it doesn’t matter if they are justified in the end or not. There is nothing more short-sighted or destructive than trying to have an affair on the side if everything in your relationship with your partner is, in general, satisfactory. It won’t get better. It will get much, much worse.
2. Chemistry in relationships. It is difficult to explain in words, and, perhaps, it is not very necessary, since it is clear even without words. You must be on the same wavelength with your partner. Well, or at least for one range. When these ranges are too different, relationships quickly turn from pleasure to torture.
3. Ability to accept shortcomings. By the way, you also have them. The presence of shortcomings is generally one of the characteristic features of any person. This is fine. But what is not normal is to “nag” each other every day for these shortcomings. To live a whole life, constantly listening to what (or what) you are not good (or not good), is a fate more than deplorable.
This is not a reason to justify yourself in everything and to abandon self-improvement. It is rather a call to remember that the flaws of a partner are as much an integral part of him as the virtues for which you chose him.
4. Positive attitude. There is nothing to add to the research of the psychologist, a specialist in the field of couples therapy, John Gottman, who showed that in a relationship for every negative interaction there must be at least five positive ones, otherwise parting is almost inevitable.
Work!
Relationships are work. If you don’t lift a finger at work, then you can forget about career growth. Similarly, you can forget about strong, harmonious partnerships if you don’t put in the effort. Which ones? Tim Urban notes several directions for the application of forces.
1. Communication. The words that proper communication between partners is necessary for harmonious relationships, just as air is necessary for any living being, sound trite. But that doesn’t make them any less faithful. It is poor, insufficient or incorrectly built communication that is called the main reason for divorces by those who go through these divorces. And it is the right communication that they see as a guarantee that their next relationship will not fail.
Solving this problem is not at all easy. Even the most prosperous couples often have to “negotiate on the shore” about many things, defining certain rules of communication. And often you can not do without the help of family therapists.
2. Equality. Unfortunately, distortions in this matter happen all the time, go unnoticed and lead to irreparable consequences. Thoughts, emotions and desires of only one of the partners cannot always be the most important in a couple. Even if we have consciously chosen the model of sacrificing our interests to the interests of a partner, it will only work in the short term. And then it will stop working.
3. Ability to quarrel. It sounds scary, but there is nothing to be afraid of. Everyone quarrels, and there are no exceptions. Only some do it right — perceiving what is happening not without a share of humor, even in the heat of a quarrel, hearing the words of a partner, understanding them and avoiding insults and humiliation.
And others, alas, use their fists, frying pans, and behind the cry they no longer hear not only their partner, but also themselves. It is easy to guess who is more likely to maintain a relationship. By the way, according to John Gottman, 69% of typical quarrels in a couple are based on fundamental and in principle irreducible differences between partners. And those who quarrel correctly, over time, understand this and conflict less and less. And those who are wrong, part. And it’s good if it’s on time.