Tag: relationships

Every successful relationship is successful for the same exact reasons — Quartz

Hey, guess what? I got married two weeks ago. And like most people, I asked some of the older and wiser folks around me for a couple quick words of advice from their own marriages to make sure my wife and I didn’t shit the (same) bed. I think most newlyweds do this, especially after a few cocktails from the open bar they just paid way too much money for.

But, of course, not being satisfied with just a few wise words, I had to take it a step further.

See, I have access to hundreds of thousands of smart, amazing people through my site. So why not consult them? Why not ask them for their best relationship/marriage advice? Why not synthesize all of their wisdom and experience into something straightforward and immediately applicable to any relationship, no matter who you are?

Why not crowdsource THE ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP GUIDE TO END ALL RELATIONSHIP GUIDES™ from the sea of smart and savvy partners and lovers here?

Every successful relationship is successful for the same exact reasons — Quartz

How your sense of humor affects relationship quality

It should come as no surprise that we tend to look for a sense of humor in our romantic partners. The trouble is, we all find different things funny—or not funny. New research in the Journal of Research in Personality quantifies exactly how our particular blend of humor affects our relationships. The bottom line? You’ll do better if you can take a joke.

The study looked at three different approaches to humor: gelotophobia (entirely unrelated to a deep-seated fear of gelato; instead, this is the fear of being laughed at), gelotophilia (the joy of being laughed at), and katagelasticism (the joy of laughing at others). People can have mixtures of these qualities in varying degrees, but some people mostly enjoy being laughed at, mostly enjoy laughing at others, or mostly hate being laughed at.

How your sense of humor affects relationship quality

Do narcissists mean to hurt their partners? – Business Insider

If you are in a relationship with a narcissist, you will have been through a roller-coaster of ups and downs.

At the beginning, everything would have been wonderful. You might have even thought you’d found your soul mate. But after a while, things started to go sour.

This is because after a few weeks, months, or even years, the narcissist will no longer see any value in you. As soon as they realise you are a real human being, and thus flawed, they struggle to see the use of you any more. They’ll start blaming you for things, shouting at you, or even break up with you, leaving you to try and work out what went wrong.

But for many reasons, it is hard to answer the question: “Do narcissists mean to hurt people?”

Do narcissists mean to hurt their partners? – Business Insider

A Stanford psychologist on the art of avoiding assholes – Vox

The world is full of assholes. Wherever you live, whatever you do, odds are you’re surrounded by assholes. The question is, what to do about it?

Robert Sutton, a psychology professor at Stanford University, has stepped up to answer this eternal question. He’s the author of a new book, The Asshole Survival Guide, which is basically what it sounds like: a guide for surviving the assholes in your life.

In 2010, Sutton published The No Asshole Rule, which focused on dealing with assholes at an organizational level. In the new book, he offers a blueprint for managing assholes at the interpersonal level. If you’ve got an asshole boss, an asshole friend, or an asshole colleague, this book might be for you.

Asshole survival, Sutton says, is a craft, not a science, meaning one can be good or bad at it. His book is about getting better at it.

I sat down with him recently to talk about his strategies for dealing with assholes, what he means when he says we have to take responsibility for the assholes in our lives, and why he says self-awareness is key to recognizing that the asshole in your life may be you.

“You have to know yourself, be honest about yourself, and rely on people around you to tell you when you’re being an asshole,” he told me. “And when they are kind enough to tell you, listen.”

A Stanford psychologist on the art of avoiding assholes – Vox

The affair that saved our marriage

If any couple can be credited with pulling their marriage back from the brink, it’s surely Tal and Samara Araim. After 16 years and with two children together, Tal embarked on an all-consuming affair with one of Samara’s closest friends. It lasted two years, until Samara’s “oh-my-God moment” when suddenly, from nowhere, she knew. They separated immediately and didn’t speak for months. Samara wiped Tal’s number from her phone, changed her name on her email account and all communication was through lawyers. All the divorce papers were signed except one.

Fast-forward four years and here they are on a sofa talking openly, easily, lightly – and laughing a lot. Their journey has been so revelatory that Tal has not only written a book in an effort to share all he has learned, but also turned their former family home in Surbiton, south-west London, into a therapy centre, Compass4Couples. Downstairs is a lecture space that hosts free seminars and workshops. Upstairs, qualified counsellors provide individual therapy.

Tal is a man on a mission – his vision is a kind of “relationship gym”, not for couples in crisis but for those who are ticking along. “We have hospitals where you go when you’ve had a heart attack and gyms where you go to stay healthy,” he says. “With marriage, we only have the hospitals – we look for help when it’s almost too late. If Samara and I had gone somewhere like this at the beginning, the whole thing might never have happened – because, honestly, when I look at our ‘issues’, they weren’t that major.”

The Guardian