(having some issues with the standard anon account, so I created another. pass is the same if anyone else needs)
Thanks, this is helpful.
You can’t directly transfuse happiness, but I find tradeoffs come up constantly, with varying rates of return. Doing extra household chores, staying up late when my partner can’t sleep, choosing their preferred activities instead of mine when these differ...
In light of this, point one is hard. As long as there are things I can do, I feel very responsible for their happiness.
Point two is tough because I fear feedback loops if I let it be known that their unhappiness is causing me unhappiness, so I tend to hide it when I’m upset. This is not-great psychologically. On the other hand, they’ve gotten pretty comfortable talking to me about these things, which does help.
We’re extremely strong on point three, which is why I’m flouting Adams’ advice.
One size does not fit all, so make your own choices—I do subscribe to some of the underlying principles of the advice, one of which I think of as “you can’t take care of someone else if you aren’t taking care of yourself”.
If you’re consistently failing with points 1 and 2, it’s worth setting some hard limits on when to abandon this project in search of a better one. I often recommend a book (The Dip)[http://smile.amazon.com/The-Dip-Little-Teaches-Stick/dp/1591841666] for work-related decisions of this form, but it applies to relationships as well.
Those feedback loops are real, and being mutually aware and communicative of them is necessary—it doesn’t remove the temptation to sacrifice for your partner (IMO, that’s a feature, not a bug), but it does let you see the reinforcement cycles and help you to choose which ones to damp and which to drive.
(having some issues with the standard anon account, so I created another. pass is the same if anyone else needs)
Thanks, this is helpful.
You can’t directly transfuse happiness, but I find tradeoffs come up constantly, with varying rates of return. Doing extra household chores, staying up late when my partner can’t sleep, choosing their preferred activities instead of mine when these differ...
In light of this, point one is hard. As long as there are things I can do, I feel very responsible for their happiness.
Point two is tough because I fear feedback loops if I let it be known that their unhappiness is causing me unhappiness, so I tend to hide it when I’m upset. This is not-great psychologically. On the other hand, they’ve gotten pretty comfortable talking to me about these things, which does help.
We’re extremely strong on point three, which is why I’m flouting Adams’ advice.
One size does not fit all, so make your own choices—I do subscribe to some of the underlying principles of the advice, one of which I think of as “you can’t take care of someone else if you aren’t taking care of yourself”.
If you’re consistently failing with points 1 and 2, it’s worth setting some hard limits on when to abandon this project in search of a better one. I often recommend a book (The Dip)[http://smile.amazon.com/The-Dip-Little-Teaches-Stick/dp/1591841666] for work-related decisions of this form, but it applies to relationships as well.
Those feedback loops are real, and being mutually aware and communicative of them is necessary—it doesn’t remove the temptation to sacrifice for your partner (IMO, that’s a feature, not a bug), but it does let you see the reinforcement cycles and help you to choose which ones to damp and which to drive.