# Is it really that complicated?



## southbound (Oct 31, 2010)

jaquen made a comment in another thread that there is a lot of good advice here, "but there is a tendency to make everything so deep, involved, and complex. And sometimes it is just not."

I have often thought about that. Are the keys to a good relationship really as deep as it seems? When I first came here a couple of years ago, I thought I must be the dumbest guy in the world. How did I reach 40 and not know all this stuff that it takes to make a marriage work? i was dumb enough to think that a person should just be who they are, and somewhere, sometime, there will be someone who wants you and loves you for who you are, and with that, it will work out despite someone's shortcomings. 

If two people really have a deep love for each other, does it really matter if one of them missed the love languages book or if the husband is a little too nice? I've often thought that maybe my x wife just never loved me from the start, and that is why she thought all the things that made her unhappy were such big issues.


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## lovingsummer (Jul 27, 2012)

I think they are "deep" in a sense it's just my dam "irrational" mind that over thinks everthing and makes it much more complicated then it needs to be sometimes.


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## Caribbean Man (Jun 3, 2012)

No it is not that complicated.
My grandparents didn't read the love languages book, and they lived happily until death.
My grandfather fought in WWII , and my grandmother never had an affair.
He never read Married Man Sex Life , nor No More Nice Guy, but he was the leader of the home.

It is not that these books and all this information is bad or unnecessary.
Its just that sometimes we forget the fundamentals.
Love ,Respect , Family Values ,and a sound Moral foundation.


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## lovingsummer (Jul 27, 2012)

Caribbean Man said:


> No it is not that complicated.
> My grandparents didn't read the love languages book, and they lived happily until death.
> My grandfather fought in WWII , and my grandmother never had an affair.
> He never read Married Man Sex Life , nor No More Nice Guy, but he was the leader of the home.
> ...


My grandparents were married 51 years before my Grandpa died. I just think the love, respect, family values and sound moral foundation has sadly gone out the window for most.


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## working_together (Oct 16, 2011)

I think people are more aware of what they want now, and all we really want is to be happy. Many couples back in the day sucked it up and lived a miserable marriage.

The more we know, the better it is.


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## southbound (Oct 31, 2010)

Caribbean Man said:


> No it is not that complicated.
> My grandparents didn't read the love languages book, and they lived happily until death.
> My grandfather fought in WWII , and my grandmother never had an affair.
> He never read Married Man Sex Life , nor No More Nice Guy, but he was the leader of the home.
> ...


I agree. I guess i got my training from observing my parents and grandparents, and it just never seemed that complicated. Most of the deep advice of today never even crossed their minds. It seems like if they ever did give advice, it was always a "one-liner." My grandmother told me, "Just be good to each other and love each other and you'll have a happy life." Hmm. That seems simple. I guess she should have handed me an 800 page manual according to modern beliefs.


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## southbound (Oct 31, 2010)

working_together said:


> I think people are more aware of what they want now, and all we really want is to be happy. Many couples back in the day sucked it up and lived a miserable marriage.
> 
> The more we know, the better it is.


I see your point to a degree, but i think marriage has come to be all about fun and movie style romance these days. Men and women don't need each other the way they once did; it's more of a recreational thing now. All people want now is the person who is the most fun, and when the fun dies down, they are ready to move on.


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## luvintokyo (May 10, 2010)

When you met the grandparents they already got over the bumps, they went through all what we went through and I am sure they also considered "bailing out" sometimes, most of them hung in and reaped the rewards but there really is no such thing as happily ever after and yes from reading books from the Victorian times, they had affairs even then. Lets keep it real. They had fewer choices, the more you know, the more complicated life gets. Even in marriage, the younger generation feel entitled men and women alike, I think these books can make things worse. I didnt know about Love tank till I read Love Languages now I think I am also entitled to one that should be filled. It is what it is now , the Bible says "too much knowledge is weariness unto the soul".


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## Bellavista (May 29, 2012)

I think we do have a tendancy to romantize those who lived in prior years.
My parents would benefit from learning about each other's love languages, but they have been fighting each other for so long I think it has become habit.
My grandfather had a long term affair (30 years) until my granddmother was put in a home when he divorced her to marry his AP. My grandparents did not have a happy marriage. Neither did my other set of grandparents, although they both died in their 50's from alcohol abuse.
None of my aunts or uncles have/had happy marriages, as far back as I have been made aware of family history, there have been few happy marriages.
With all of the tools we have available now days, it should be better, but people are stil people no matter when they lived.


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## 2ntnuf (Jul 14, 2012)

Maybe I'm just tired but, I got quite a bit of good thought out of this one. I can see both sides.

Mom's parents slept in separate bedrooms. I don't know if they talked much. They were married over 55 years. Sounds to me like they may have wanted to live apart at times, not sure. Grandfather was a machinist. Not sure, but I think grandmother graduated high school.

Dad's parents were married for many years and I don't know how many. They were really poor, but happy. They had love between them. I can remember that even though I was so young. Grandma had a third grade education. Granddad had a first grade education.

Hmmm..... I wonder....


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## OhGeesh (Jan 5, 2010)

southbound said:


> jaquen made a comment in another thread that there is a lot of good advice here, "but there is a tendency to make everything so deep, involved, and complex. And sometimes it is just not."
> 
> I have often thought about that. Are the keys to a good relationship really as deep as it seems? When I first came here a couple of years ago, I thought I must be the dumbest guy in the world. How did I reach 40 and not know all this stuff that it takes to make a marriage work? i was dumb enough to think that a person should just be who they are, and somewhere, sometime, there will be someone who wants you and loves you for who you are, and with that, it will work out despite someone's shortcomings.
> 
> If two people really have a deep love for each other, does it really matter if one of them missed the love languages book or if the husband is a little too nice? I've often thought that maybe my x wife just never loved me from the start, and that is why she thought all the things that made her unhappy were such big issues.


I actually think it is just like that..........you just need both people on board!! Put others before yourself, bend don't break, dream together, plan futures, be real, be open, have the hard talks, have thsoe dates nights, that is how is should be.

All these mental games on both sides are just that....games!!


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## credamdóchasgra (Sep 24, 2010)

I've wondered the same thing--when I look at other people.

But I can only speak for myself, and one thing I know about myself is that I don't do *anything* the easy way...so why should my marriage be any different? 

I don't say that in a cynical way...I just know myself. I also married a guy who brings some complications to the table :/


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## credamdóchasgra (Sep 24, 2010)

But ironically, the more I've learned about myself and "how to be married" and all that...the more I'm seeing that some of the keys are really pretty simple. A lot of times it's our own egos that just make things complicated when they don't need to be.


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## anony2 (Apr 28, 2012)

I think that it has a lot to do with instant gratification. People are expecting to go into a marriage and everything work out okay without putting in the necessary "work" on themselves and the relationship, and I do not mean finding out love languages and all that jazz. 

You know, I would really love for my husband to love me for who I am, but what if 'who I am' is not healthy for me nor my husband? 

The necessary "work" for me is to be the best I can be and to work out my emotional baggage and not unload it on him at every chance I get. Unfortunately, in the past, we have both been known to do this, but gradually, we are working through this and learning to be intimate on a much higher level.


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## Mavash. (Jan 26, 2012)

I'm convinced what makes it complicated is more and more people are emotionally damaged or stunted. We are a society that is losing touch with how to be in long term relationships. Then we have all forms of media telling us what our lives should be look like and we feel depressed because it looks nothing like that. We feel dissatisfied and the first place we look is at our spouses.


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

"Happy Families are all happy in the same way, unhappy families are unhappy in ways all their own"

-Tolstoy


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## NaturalHeart (Nov 13, 2011)

I think it is perception. Some people just go through life not wanting to make things better because they see nothing wrong where as their spouse may see things differently - so they search for resolutions that may resolve the void or neglect they feel.

It not complicated for some... the one that may go through life and see something missing or something is wrong but never give attention to it. It can become complicated for the spouse that wonders why things are changing or distant and look for reasons, or analyzing and researching .... if I have made any sense at all...


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## sinnister (Dec 5, 2010)

Good discussion.

I've been wondering this myself. Marriage has become complex rocket science and it really shouldnt be. For every marriage help book theory out there, you'll find 10 with an opposing theory. That's one of the reasons why I will not read them. I refuse to game my wife into having the marriage I desire. 

I also think here in the west we've become far too focused on clinical "explanations" for behaviour. Sometimes a man who screams at his wife and punches a wall is not bi-polar. He's just a d*ck. Sometimes a woman who cheats on her husband with no remorse doesn't have a past history of abuse, she's just a w****. Sometimes when a man and woman aren't connecting it's got nothing to do with lack of romance, they're just being lazy.

In the old days, if you had undiagnosed AADD you were still expected to behave like a rational human being. If you had undiagnosed bi-polar disorder you were still an abusive ass if you hit your wife. We've strayed from the morals and values of accountability straight into the comfort of clinical excuses for bad behaviour.


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## Caribbean Man (Jun 3, 2012)

anony2 said:


> I think that it has a lot to do with instant gratification. People are expecting to go into a marriage and everything work out okay without putting in the necessary "work" on themselves and the relationship, and I do not mean finding out love languages and all that jazz.
> 
> You know, I would really love for my husband to love me for who I am, but what if 'who I am' is not healthy for me nor my husband?
> 
> *The necessary "work" for me is to be the best I can be and to work out my emotional baggage and not unload it on him at every chance I get. Unfortunately, in the past, we have both been known to do this, but gradually, we are working through this and learning to be intimate on a much higher level*.


:iagree:.especially with the highlighted part.
I sincerely wish both of you success!


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## credamdóchasgra (Sep 24, 2010)

There's a difference between "simple" and "superficial."

If I was content with what makes for happiness on a superficial level, there would be no problems.

It's when I want things to go a little deeper that we run into problems and things get complicated. I think what I want in my marriage is simple but sincere: care about me, be nice to me, "get" me. If you don't get me at least try, and if you're not nice say you're sorry.


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## Rowan (Apr 3, 2012)

My father's parents married during WWII when Grandpa was on leave. He re-enlisted, after coming home very briefly in 1946, and then stayed gone until the _Korean War _was over. They then slept in separate rooms until he died in 2000. They weren't happy, didn't really like one another all that much, and were not emotionally close. But they were married for nearly 60 years. 

When my mother's parents married he was a violently abusive alcoholic with grown children and she was a 21 year old socialite from a very respectable family that was being slowly crushed under increasing debts. The marriage was essentially arranged at her family's insistance for financial reasons. He died after 20 years of marriage, purportedly of cancer. Grandmother often "joked", a bit too gleefully, in her later years about having smothered the old [email protected] with a pillow. According to my mother, if she did kill him, he definitely deserved it. 

My parents have the type of marriage where I've actually recommended to both of them that they might be happier if they separated or divorced. They lack the capacity to be nice to one another on a continuing basis. My husband's parents had 48 happy years together (to hear the minister at the funeral tell it) before his father's death. What "happy" means in this case was 48 years of alcoholism, co-dependency and verbal and emotional abuse. 

So no, I don't think things have to be all that complicated. But I also hold no illusions that people were necessarily happier in "the old days." I think people, particularly women, simply had fewer choices and were less inclined to even think that they should be happy in their marriages. Marriage for many was a business proposition, a family obligaiton, the expected thing to do. And since you couldn't get out of it easily, once it was done you simply had to make the best of it - whether that best was working together to find true happiness, giving up and simply co-existing, or smothering the old [email protected] with a pillow.

The fact that people today imagine that they should have a close emotional relationship with their spouse, and have options if that relationship is not forthcoming, is what makes things "complicated".


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## credamdóchasgra (Sep 24, 2010)

Really good points.

My parents' marriage isn't bad, but I don't want the same patterns and dynamics they have. It could be better.
My husband's parents' marriage is BAD. 
My maternal grandparents' marriage: he was alcoholic, she was longsuffering and enabling. 
My paternal grandparents' marriage: surprisingly not bad, considering he was a depressive alcoholic. She was just very easygoing and didn't sweat it.

I still want a marriage that is deeper and more connected and, ok, "evolved" than any of theirs.


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## credamdóchasgra (Sep 24, 2010)

I think some of our problems come from my husband's idea that marriage "shouldn't" be so much work. We "shouldn't have to" try, it "shouldn't" be complicated at all.

Uh-oh....I feel a little bit of ornery, edgy bitterness creeping in. I better step it back and do something else with this energy... we have a counseling session in 2 days. I can save it till then.


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## southbound (Oct 31, 2010)

luvintokyo said:


> When you met the grandparents they already got over the bumps, they went through all what we went through and I am sure they also considered "bailing out" sometimes, most of them hung in and reaped the rewards but there really is no such thing as happily ever after and yes from reading books from the Victorian times, they had affairs even then. Lets keep it real. They had fewer choices, the more you know, the more complicated life gets. Even in marriage, the younger generation feel entitled men and women alike, I think these books can make things worse. I didnt know about Love tank till I read Love Languages now I think I am also entitled to one that should be filled. It is what it is now , the Bible says "too much knowledge is weariness unto the soul".


Good points. All I had was good examples of marriages when I was growing up. I didn't "know" marriage was supposed to be so complicated. It seemed like all my family members was happy with the simple life. I'd like to share what I put in another post that my aunt told me. 

My divorce tends to lend itself to a lot of conversations with various people. I'm always glad to hear different perspectives from different generations. My 83 year old Aunt, who I rarely see, recently gave me her views. This isn't word for word because i wasn't taking notes, but she basically said:

_Things have changed so much from when I was a girl and it makes marriage a lot different. When I was a young girl, men and women had different roles and we actually needed each other. Men and women don't need each other anymore, marriage is all about fun and games anymore, and when the fun dies down, they're ready to walk out the door. Women work and can take care of themselves, and men can cook and take care of the house just as well as anybody today. There was a lot more to consider in my day. All my grandkids seem interested in is finding someone that's a barrel of fun, and there is more to life than that._

I told her that many people would argue that in the old days, people were trapped in bad marriages and just had to stay because it wasn't so easy to leave. She said:


_I don't think anybody should stay in an abusive marriage, but this old stuff of divorcing just because they don't scratch your back the way you want them to or not loving them anymore because they don't talk to you as much as you would like is silly to me. I wasn't always thrilled with everything your Uncle did, and we went through a few times when we drifted some. But I had things to think about besides whether or not he was a movie star. In the extra time it takes to think about all the important things in life, we have time to hang in there, and in that time, I realized things weren't as bad as i thought, it was me more than anything. A few rough patches are just part of marriage, and despite those, I've had a wonderful life and marriage. _

I was glad to hear her perspective.


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