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We are extremely close to shutting down this thread for the same reasons the PUA thread was shut down. While some of the time this thread contains actual discussion with people asking help and people giving nice advice, it often gets derailed by rubbish that should not be here. The moderation team will be trying to steer this thread in a different direction from now on. Posts of the following nature are banned: 1) ANYTHING regarding PUA. If your post contains the words 'alpha' or 'beta' or anything of that sort please don't hit post. 2) Stupid brags. You can tell us about your nice success stories with someone, but posts such as 'lol 50 Tinder matches' are a no-no. 3) Any misogynistic bullshit, including discussion about rape culture. 4) One night stands and random sex. These are basically brags that invariably devolve into gender role discussions and misogynistic comments. Last chance, guys. This thread is for dating advice and sharing dating stories. While gender roles, sociocultural norms, and our biological imperative to reproduce are all tangentially related, these subjects are not the main purpose of the thread. Please AVOID these discussions. If you want to discuss them at length, go to PMs or start a blog. If you disagree with someone's ideologies, state that you disagree with them and why they won't work from a dating standpoint and move on. We will not tolerate any lengthy derailments that aren't directly about dating. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16710 Posts
I've had two really good long term relationships. I'm an only child. My first long term relationship occurred with the oldest of 5 children. The current relationship I'm in is with a woman who is the oldest of 3. Now that I'm over 30 I think I might be able to successfully navigate a relationship with another "only child". However, in my younger days ... there is just no way. | ||
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Artisreal
Germany9235 Posts
I'd say apart from anecdotal evidence you won't get anything of value without doing (or having someone else volunteer) some research. Out of the top of my head I can remember one friend who's in his, I think, third long term relationship, two of which have brought forth kids. He's 35. Would that score under successful for you? I'm genuinely asking what your idea of successful is here cause I don't know. Edit: afaik the current partner is an only child too | ||
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mahrgell
Germany3943 Posts
On November 20 2019 02:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Has anyone ever seen a successful long term romantic relationship between 2 only children? I've had two really good long term relationships. I'm an only child. My first long term relationship occurred with the oldest of 5 children. The current relationship I'm in is with a woman who is the oldest of 3. Now that I'm over 30 I think I might be able to successfully navigate a relationship with another "only child". However, in my younger days ... there is just no way. Only Child + only child, together for 8 years and counting, a son 2 years old. Am I successful enough for you? I really wonder how you even got to this weird idea about this having an impact | ||
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farvacola
United States18827 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16710 Posts
On November 20 2019 04:00 mahrgell wrote: Only Child + only child, together for 8 years and counting, a son 2 years old. Am I successful enough for you? I really wonder how you even got to this weird idea about this having an impact i've never seen one before. that's why i asked. On November 20 2019 04:00 mahrgell wrote: I really wonder how you even got to this weird idea about this having an impact I'll go to an extreme to make the point clear. Children who have 4 or more siblings have a very different upbringing from an only child. Generally speaking , only children don't share or compromise as well as children with 4+ siblings. Sharing and compromise are essential in a long term relationship. My father is one of nine. My mother is one of three. The differences between my father's family and the family i grew up in are huge. So, I don't think its a weird idea. | ||
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Aveng3r
United States2411 Posts
I've been seeing a gal recently who is an only child, and she really wears it. She is the most independent, self sufficient woman I think I've ever met. Compared to me (oldest of 3), I feel like a see the personality differences in a lot of different areas. To answer you broadly though, yes I'm sure there are examples of 2 people who are only children working out | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
On November 20 2019 04:03 farvacola wrote: But the real question is, how could two people of opposing astrological signs succeed in a relationship? IMAGINE THAT! it can work if they have very compatible myers-briggs personality types. see human design for more info | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16710 Posts
On November 20 2019 03:49 Artisreal wrote: Define successful? I'd say apart from anecdotal evidence you won't get anything of value without doing (or having someone else volunteer) some research. there is research out there. here is one example. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5098899/ Our findings suggest that sibling interactions during childhood have long-term value. Perhaps they promote skills for negotiating with intimate others that are uniquely developed via sibling interactions. If so, we observed a different pattern than Downey and Condron (2004). Whereas their article emphasized a distinction between only children and all others, our results point to a more incremental pattern – each successive sibling lowers the probability of divorce by three percent. This pattern prompts us to reconsider the mechanism by which siblings matter. One argument is that any sibling (even one) provides children with the kinds of interactions that promote social skills useful in adulthood. However, it appears that these skills cumulate as sibship size grows. Perhaps family interaction styles change as sibship size grows, becoming more conducive to building the kinds of skills needed for long-term relationships. Indeed, rather than diluting familial resources, this study suggests that when it comes to building and maintaining marital relationships, the more siblings the better.iii | ||
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Artisreal
Germany9235 Posts
Though I'm still interested in how you would define a successful relationship. I, for one, find the single indicator of an upheld marriage rather lacking. Too many unhappy marriages drag on and, from my point of view, cannot be classified as successful. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16710 Posts
On November 20 2019 04:49 Artisreal wrote: I appreciate you sharing a bit of the context of your question with us. Though I'm still interested in how you would define a successful relationship. I, for one, find the single indicator of an upheld marriage rather lacking. Too many unhappy marriages drag on and, from my point of view, cannot be classified as successful. The data came from the USA from 1972 to 2012. Marriage is not a perfect indicator of success. However, by 1972 divorces were prevalent in the USA and an indicator that one or both partners are unhappy. Had the data come from 1952 it would've been far less useful. I'd be surprised to find any study that showed a single child were better at socializing than a child with several siblings. From its beginning to its end ( or if its life long) .... A long term romantic love relationship involves a very specific type of socializing... but it is still socializing. Obviously, there are a myriad of factors that go into the execution of a long term romantic love relationship. Previous family life is only one factor. | ||
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
On November 20 2019 04:49 Artisreal wrote: I appreciate you sharing a bit of the context of your question with us. Though I'm still interested in how you would define a successful relationship. I, for one, find the single indicator of an upheld marriage rather lacking. Too many unhappy marriages drag on and, from my point of view, cannot be classified as successful. Thank you. I feel pretty strongly about this. When I look at most married couples (longer term, 5-25+ years) they dont seem nearly as happy as single people tend to be. The exception here is the low % few that truly speaking of their relationship in glowing terms. Those people seem to be the happiest of anyone I meet. But outside of a like 9/10 or 10/10 relationship quality I think in general it makes people less happy, though perhaps gives many more fulfillment/meaning. But that goes back to my skepticism of monogamy in general and especially my belief that jumping into a committed relationship isn't worth it unless you're with someone that really checks all your major boxes, something I don't think most guys vet for. The average guy meets someone he likes, obviously the first six months or year is amazing and he thinks "wow this girl I feel amazing with her" and gets serious. He doesnt stop or think about looking and/or waiting for the relationship to settle and see what being with this woman long term is going to be like. I also get the feeling for most guys their is very little earlier discussion when you first decide you're "dating/official" about really discussing what your values are, where you're headed in life, what your skeletons and biggest struggles are, etc. All stuff that finding out down the road can be incredibly frustrating, but knowing up front can help you both work through and understand from the start. | ||
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farvacola
United States18827 Posts
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
On November 20 2019 23:21 farvacola wrote: Looking to the flimsy and unreliable signs of happiness exhibited by others as a basis for determining personal action is a recipe for inaction, perpetual dissatisfaction/avarice, and/or some mix of the two. The path towards figuring out how one wants to approach concepts like monogamy goes inward, not through surface level self-help style observations. Flimsy? There is nothing flimsy about knowing how your friends, relatives, family, and coworkers feel about their life. Moreover, this is far from just personal observation. This is a relatively consistent trend borne out in studies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22059843: Relevant figures are 3 and 4. Meta analysis of 18 studies on the topic. Pretty clear what happens, happiness, life satisfaction, and relationship satisfaction all decay over time in married individuals. Opposite for those who divorced. It rises sharply initially (as expected) but continues to rise even years after as time spent single increases. https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/jomf/2009/00000071/00000005/art00010;jsessionid=1swhu3rko7vku.alexandra: After entry into a union, well-being slowly decreased. A large SWB decrease was found after union dissolution, but through adaptation well-being increased again. In other words, happiness decreased in marriage and initially dipped at divorce (not surprising) but then rose to higher levels. You could say that lifelong singles are, on the average, clearly on the happy end of the scale every year of their lives; that those who divorce experience lower levels of happiness, at least for a while, than continuously single people ever do; and that people who marry and stay married become happier at first around the wedding time but then, little by little, become less happy over time. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167219867960: Results indicated that being in a romantic relationship, interacting with one’s partner, and investing greater time into the relationship all predicted greater well-being. However, these effects were moderated by relationship quality, such that being in even relatively neutral relationships and interacting therein were associated with lower well-being than being unpartnered. In other words, almost exactly what I was saying. People in "decent" or "ok" relationships are significantly less happy than those that are single. The only time you do better is if you're truly in an outstanding or wonderful relationship. ---------------------- This is a consistent trend in studies, and not just something I decided because I "looked at a few people and they seemed happy". Unlike you, I believe that if you know someone well and have conversations with them and hear about their life, what's good and bad, how they're feeling, etc. you can get a pretty damn good barometer on how satisfied people are. This is what I was saying, and the literature supports my own personal observations throughout life. I'm not sure why you jumped on monogamy, when by FAR by bigger point was that if you want to be happy you need to have a 6/7 or 7/7 type relationship, "very good", "outstanding", "great", "amazing" are the words you want to be using. My main point was that most guys do not set themselves up for this at all. The model for the overwhelming majority of guys is: 1) Go out, meet a cute girl and find out that you like hanging out with her and maybe have some things in common 2) Decide you really like her, take her out on a few dates, have sex, find out your also sexually compatible and start really liking her. 3) Be a couple months into the relationship, everything feels awesome! You're learning about and exploring this new loving, kind, exciting human and nothing could ever ruin this. 4) Get a year into the relationship, maybe you've had some arguments and seen some rougher edges but hey, that's just who they are as a person, right? It still feels great, the person is still exciting, the sex good, and your connection is getting strong. Plus you're getting towards thirty and it's probably time to start thinking about a family right? I mean it's been a year and this girl is still uhh-maze-ing! Pop the question, get married 5) Aww shit. Get to about 3 years and the new relationship energy starts wearing off. Things start to feel the same. You realize this person has some habits and tendencies that really frustrate you, and their not quite as nice, loving, and warm as you remember 2 years ago. The sex is less frequent, less exciting, and to be honest you're getting this subtle sense that maybe she doesn't really like having sex with you as much as she used to. You also fight more, and sometimes find in this fights you disagree pretty significantly on important things. 6) Time goes by. You still love her, but it's just not the same. The passion isn't there, you guys have settled in a routine where you "compromise" and put up with alot of shit so that you're not making the other person miserable, but to be honest those compromises aren't great and they keep you from enjoying the life you had envisioned for yourself. Sex is infrequent, and it usually feels like you have to plead or negotiate with her to even have some. That's a pretty clear summation from the typical dudes relationship/dating history. No, it's not meant to be anything grim that says "getting into relationships suck, don't do it". I bring it up because I think guys in general do a terrible job with this. They rush into relationships based on looking inwards (all emotions), and don't really stop to think about is this the right long term partner. They especially don't have conversations early on in dating (e.g. a few months in, or as soon as you decide that you are "seeing" each other) about where the relationship is headed, what their struggles are, what they want out of life, out of a partner, out of themselves. What their good and bad qualities are. What skeletons they have. Or summed up: 1) Most guys are WAY less selective than they need to be. They hop on the first thing that feels good after two months of dating. 2) Most guys early on aren't discussing the important things that matter for setting up the foundations of good long term relationship. Lots of other things, but these are what I consider the two biggest sins you can make in the first few months of dating, and most guys make them. That sets you up for a mediocre at best relationship, unless you just happened to win the lottery of random chance and get that 1 in 10 or 1 in 50 woman that really is "your person" and fits you. | ||
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farvacola
United States18827 Posts
So yeah, look for life advice cues from data culled from studies or from self-help books or from the opinions of relatives or friends, all of it will bow to the circumstances of one’s own life/personality (and the life/personality of a partner) in one way or another. Reacting to that discord is where the real work begins, and form over substance nods towards data are only marginally helpful (and oftentimes unhelpful) on that count. | ||
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L_Master
United States8017 Posts
True “happiness,” if such a thing exists, is quintessentially idiosyncratic and fleeting, This is almost moving out of relationships, but I couldn't disagree more on fleeting if you mean that for everyone. I'm consistently happy and satisfied. Reconciling the discrepancies between lived experience and ostensibly objective portrayals of how life and its issues work out is a lifelong journey that necessarily flips back and forth as one gets older. No idea what you're trying to say here or how it relates. Flips back and forth between what? How does that relate to the information at hand? I'm also not sure I'd call studies "objective portrayals of life". It's more like observations that says "this is how the data skews for this population". That's objective, but I don't think it's objective in the way you are getting at, which seems to be more of a study of pieces of advice that would say: "Stay single is the best route" "Don't do X in a relationship because it will have Y consequence" These are definitely not the sorts of things being discussed. To me your statement reads, in plain english, as: "Your experiences may differ from what studies say works (often translated as "what is typical of the average")". Not sure if this is what you actually mean or not. So yeah, look for life advice cues from data culled from studies or from self-help books or from the opinions of relatives or friends, all of it will bow to the circumstances of one’s own life/personality (and the life/personality of a partner) in one way or another. Reacting to that discord is where the real work begins, and form over substance nods towards data are only marginally helpful (and oftentimes unhelpful) on that count. First part, yea definitely. To me that's again just saying everyone has unique experiences. Which at the end of the day comes down to "you have to know yourself". What the bit from "reacting to that discord is where the real work begins" is anyone's guess. I could be horribly off, but it's honestly really difficult to make anything of your posts for me. I'm not sure what your education background is or what circles you are in, but you write very philosophically and flowery. Your command of the language is great, but it's also overwhelming. I had to work through what you said for a good five minutes to get anywhere, and even then I'm not sure if I really understand whatever points you want to make. The gist perhaps, but not the nuance. I suspect the average person reading would say the same, and then when you consider TL has a global audience, I'm sure there are plenty of people that need to consult the dictionary 5+ times just to understand the word choice you opted for. | ||
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farvacola
United States18827 Posts
 My overall point is that there are enough confounding variables surrounding generalized notions like those supported by the studies you provided to render any consequent advice very limited in use. Some folks will always be happier single, some only when partnered, and some will never be happy at all nor understand what happiness even is. Some folks enjoy partnering up with someone who is exactly like them, while others need a polar opposite. Even where studies support some kind of mean-oriented trend, figuring how one individually relates to that mean is far more important than the trend itself. And that journey of personal knowledge looks wildly different depending on the person. In a nutshell, I think any claims that tend towards generality deserve a heavy dose of skepticism, and where people, especially young men seeking a partner, are too eager to find a set of reliable rules, they will both find those rules and then find themselves ultimately dissatisfied with them. In terms of this thread, I think personal stories are very useful, but situating the lessons learned from those stories on the part of the reader is far more difficult than it seems. | ||
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Artisreal
Germany9235 Posts
On November 21 2019 05:25 farvacola wrote: If you think that’s bad, you should look at my posts from 6-7 years ago My overall point is that there are enough confounding variables surrounding generalized notions like those supported by the studies you provided to render any consequent advice very limited in use. Some folks will always be happier single, some only when partnered, and some will never be happy at all nor understand what happiness even is. Some folks enjoy partnering up with someone who is exactly like them, while others need a polar opposite. Even where studies support some kind of mean-oriented trend, figuring how one individually relates to that mean is far more important than the trend itself. And that journey of personal knowledge looks wildly different depending on the person. In a nutshell, I think any claims that tend towards generality deserve a heavy dose of skepticism, and where people, especially young men seeking a partner, are too eager to find a set of reliable rules, they will both find those rules and then find themselves ultimately dissatisfied with them. In terms of this thread, I think personal stories are very useful, but situating the lessons learned from those stories on the part of the reader is far more difficult than it seems. Yes, yes and amen to your second and third paragraph. There is general advice that is unspecific and more a rule of thumb that is to be applied in context of the situation, less a clear yes/no pathway. Like listen closely to wear your partner says, does, might want (you) to do. The little things do matter in the day to day life and you can never say I love you too little times if you really mean it (though context matters here as well of course). | ||
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Metalreflux
United States165 Posts
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evilfatsh1t
Australia8651 Posts
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Metalreflux
United States165 Posts
Makes sense to me to maybe just kill the thread and start one that's not almost nine years worth of backlog no one sifts through anymore. Keep things more on topic. | ||
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