Relationships | Compromise | Risk

Be a Better Husband or Be Her Ex — It’s Your Choice

How to change what isn’t working in your relationship

Flip a coin, any coin — heads or tails?

Not very romantic, is it?

Yet those damn statistics tell us that the odds of a marriage ending in divorce or separation are about 50/50. Roughly the odds of a coin toss.

Every venture has risks.

Every bike ride could end in a fall, but most don’t.

And yet half of those marriages in the past 50 years ended after about eight years.

Why so high a number?

How did so many partnerships, that began in love and want and in many cases, head-over-heels admiration for the other person, end up in divorce and acrimony with the inevitable separation of pets, property, and children?

There are many high-concept reasons for this failure rate: financial problems, a lack of communication, infidelity, boredom, and more.

They are neat little buckets that millions of lives get dumped into, but what do they tell us, if anything?

Enough to avoid the pitfalls?

Or simply prepare us for the inevitable?

Science fails us in determining what a perfect match is or even a pretty good one. But it knows how many people we’ll date — for up to a year or so — before getting married.

For men about five and women about six.

But not why it didn’t work.

Science can even inform a guess as to how many times our hearts will be broken before marriage.

For women, on average two times. But not what caused us to miss the signs.

If science doesn’t understand what makes us tick — romantically speaking — then how can we trust it to give us insight into not making the same mistakes as half the people around us?

Maybe common sense and observation might be able to.

FIVE REASONS RELATIONSHIPS FAIL

Sins

Perhaps not the perfect word because of its connection to religion, but it does speak to what takes place between two people. Every relationship is built on trust. Literally.
Love is great. Happiness is awesome. Sex and intimacy, are worth holding onto. But all of these rest easily or uneasily on the trust that develops over time.
Every act (action) that lessens this trust, every lie spoken in haste and not recalled, every unkind word said to another about a partner without saying it to them, leads to a fracture in that foundation of trust.
Do everything possible to not leave these sins unattended and unresolved. If you did it, own it. Then repair it, and rebuild the trust and everything above will fall back into place. Sins rarely go away on their own.

Stop Fixing it

Yes, Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. But apart from both being uninhabitable and forming a rather interesting paradigm — what do these planets have to do with actual relationships?
Men and women see the world differently. They are both human beings, but frankly, that’s where it ends.
If women ran the world there would be fewer wars, less conflict. Less road rage or children being conscripted into civil wars. They look at the world from a position of compromise and compassion.
Men look at it from a position of power, force, and execution. If it’s broken, fix it. If it won’t fix — dismantle the damn thing and rebuild it. Men need action now, not later. Waiting is bad because later there’ll be more shit to fix and they’ll fall behind.
Men need to curb the desire to fix whatever a woman is telling them about and just listen. There often is no fix required. Just an understanding. An acceptance of his role in her life and that shit happens to her just as much but manifests differently.

Tactlessly offering up solutions tells her you’re not paying attention.

Listen. Accept willingly. Acknowledge.

Building a Life Differently

Look at a man engaged in life and you’ll see things being built around him. New rooms, a treehouse. A stripped ’57 Chevy being worked on in the driveway. His and her two-story closets.
If you look for the same things in a woman’s life as you see in your own, you’ll miss what she is doing. All her loving input. The world she shapes and reconfigures to make living easier — no mean feat. It’s not just doilies and slipcovers.
If you don’t see these things, you won’t acknowledge their existence. If you don’t acknowledge and appreciate why they are there, they’ll soon stop happening and the anger at not being seen and appreciated will create distance between the two of you.

Distance is great for perspective and country living, but it sucks in a relationship.

Observe. Appreciate. Support.

Compromise

For men, compromise often equates to failure, and that’s bad. Grab the bigger hammer and pound away at the problem — it’ll give in sooner or later.
In real life though, it’s the constant realigning of goals and desires and making them work despite changes in finances, careers, friendships, or any other factor.

Compromise means that there is more than one way to achieve something.

This is one of the most difficult elements in a relationship because it often means leaving something behind. Giving up the Porsche for the minivan. The one-bedroom beach house for a home closer to school and work. The four nights a week racquetball for helping with homework.
Without goals — written down or not — relationships will drift. Without agreements — partners drift and will eventually pursue their lives elsewhere.
Compromise is synonymous will cooperation, negotiation, conciliation, and concession.

Even the beach compromises with the ocean and is willing to change in order to be close.

Oops, Picked the Wrong Person

There are consumer magazines, Facebook groups, brokers, and consulting firms available to help you pick the best automobile for your needs.
Firms for hire to help owners select their next NFL or NBA head coach.
But when it comes to marriages and relationships in general — other than an App — how do you know you’ve chosen the right person? Surely, a good part of that 50% failure rate has to do with picking the wrong person, to begin with.
But how do we know who is Mr. or Mrs. Right?

The answer is, we don’t. Not always.

But like picking a car or head coach we look for attributes and qualities that we feel are important.

We decide we need a man tough on discipline and organized to bring a team stacked with talent to the Super Bowl.

But he’s gone in 11 months. Why?

So, were the right traits even known and understood beforehand?

Why do you want a partner?
What need are you fulfilling?
What pain or discomfort are you trying to get rid of?

Ask the wrong questions and you’ll get the wrong answers.

Finding a partner is easy. Finding the right partner starts with understanding ourselves and what is missing in our lives. We can survive without a mate, so why do we need one? Take the time, ask the questions, demand the answers from ourselves. Then proceed.

Eliminating risk and pain is impossible, it will happen.

Reducing it and improving your chance at success is a reasonable outcome.

It’s not romantic to pick a mate like we pick a new sedan, true. But we can learn from every aspect of our lives. The answers are all around us.

Dr Mehmet Yildiz George J. Ziogas Paul Myers MBA Karen Madej Tree Langdon Desiree Driesenaar Jenine Bsharah Baines Claire Kelly Stuart Englander The Secret Aspirant Adelia Ritchie Esther George Rebecca Romanelli James Knight Linda Caroll Melinda Blau Salvatore Cagliari