Relationships
Contents
Definition
Applications
Problems in Relationships Don't Go Away Unless You Solve Them
So if you’re having an argument with your partner and it’s not going very well, there’s a tremendous tendency among people who try to win the argument with their partner. But you can’t win an argument with your partner, because then you win and they lose. Then you have a loser on your hands. And if you do that a hundred times maybe you’re better at arguing than they are, for example, or maybe they think in a more intuitive way so maybe they can’t dance on their feet quit as fast as you, or maybe the situation is reversed. If you win the bloody argument a hundred times, you’re not a winner, you’re just someone who’s beat up your partner a hundred times. What you want to find out is what the hell it is that you’re talking about. And sometimes that takes a tremendous amount of patience and they should be doing the same thing to you and very frequently the kinds of things people are arguing about are only the tiny, like the snow on the surface of a glacier. The real argument is deep, deep, deep underneath. But unless you listen intently and for a long period of time, you’ll never figure out what it is that you’re arguing about. And then if you win, the person won’t be able to talk about it and that problem will be there for the rest of the relationship. And maybe for the rest of your life. Unless you solve the problem, it’s not going to go away. [1]
Interpretations
Friendships and relationships are designed to increase Simplicity and Irrelevance (in this context, irrelevant means something we don't have to pay too much attention to) because we have come to an agreement on how to behave. These are cultural systems designed to make things irrelevant.
By contrast, if someone dropped you, naked, in the middle of the jungle at night, everything would be highly relevant. And that's a recipe for stress.
If a relationship you have is not therapeutic, then you don't have a relationship.
God knows what you're doing, butting heads with one another, primate dominance hierarchy dispute, they're a tyrant, you're a slave…
If you’re going to have a relationship, you can’t let the ‘orderliness’ part of you get in the way…
If you think you are different from your wife, you are wrong. What happens to one, happens to the other
In an intimate relationship, you want to know that your partner is on your side, that they are not trying to compete with you in some way, to undermine you. You hope that they want your life to be the best possible.
People with the high trait of Agreeability may regard an intimate exclusive relationship to be the most important thing in their lives.
In a relationship, we need to figure out how to listen, say what you mean, learn to negotiate, tell the truth
Try to negotiate, at the very least, so you don’t walk away miserable, resentful and angry. If that happens, it means you had something to say but didn’t say it.
If you have problems in a relationship, you should shut up, watch and listen. Watch like a hawk. Watch and listen as though you are really interested in what they are saying, not in a way to reinforce your prejudices.
Probably the worst thing that can happen in a relationship is betrayal; it takes a huge chunk of order and turns it into chaos. Then you must examine the reasons why (the betrayal). There’s a surface reason, then a deeper reason, then an even deeper one, until you come face to face with everyone’s proclivity towards evil.
Do not do anything for anybody that they can do themselves
Things that appear in life are either:
- A help to you
- A hindrance to you
- Something irrelevant, so you don't care about it.
See Also
