(October 5, 2016 at 7:43 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: I want a partner who has enough in common with me for it to be worth it, not for me to painstakingly try and find out some common ground on every single issue.

I don't think the point Dr T was making was to "painstakingly" try to find common ground. I think the point he was making was minimize emotional investment into people when the chasms are too wide. It's not too different from what you're saying, it's just saying it in a different way. He certainly wasn't encouraging overly solicitous compromise, at least insofar as I understood it relayed second-hand. I thnk the message was more along the lines of don't settle.

Those were the commonalities he found in relationships that work -- not benchmarks for which one should change, or insist upon change. In other words, he was giving advice about selecting a partner, not giving advice about negotiations.

That's what I get out of it, anyway. I'm normally pretty quick to cut ties, myself -- though not always -- and that tendency of mine may provide some bias even in this reply.

(October 5, 2016 at 7:43 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: If you love someone despite your differences with them, sounds to me like those things don't really matter anyway.

If you don't, it sounds like a lot of work for nothing. I want a partner who has enough in common with me for it to be worth it, not for me to painstakingly try and find out some common ground on every single issue.

But then again, there's love of course. It tends to make you far more sympathetic and/or accepting (of) to the other's views and tastes than you could even otherwise dream of.

This love talk is dangerous. If you are going into a relationship over the love emotion, you are almost for sure looking at a grim future.

If you have respect, shared interests and goals, at least enough chemistry to get it up once a week-- you're golden.

I've been married 15 years. I don't watch her sleeping and sigh with satisfaction. . . I don't get butterflies in my stomach when I talk to her over coffee. In fact, about 10% of the time I am borderline homicidal because of something she's done or hasn't done (she's probably close to 25%).

But we have a life we care about, and we treat each other well enough, and we sometimes take time to spend time.

(October 5, 2016 at 8:02 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:

(October 5, 2016 at 7:43 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: I want a partner who has enough in common with me for it to be worth it, not for me to painstakingly try and find out some common ground on every single issue.

I don't think the point Dr T was making was to "painstakingly" try to find common ground. I think the point he was making was minimize emotional investment into people when the chasms are too wide. It's not too different from what you're saying, it's just saying it in a different way. He certainly wasn't encouraging overly solicitous compromise, at least insofar as I understood it relayed second-hand. I thnk the message was more along the lines of  don't settle.

Those were the commonalities he found in relationships that work -- not benchmarks for which one should change, or insist upon change. In other words, he was giving advice about selecting a partner, not giving advice about negotiations.

That's what I get out of it, anyway. I'm normally pretty quick to cut ties, myself -- though not always -- and that tendency of mine may provide some bias even in this reply.

Your responses lately don't cease to amaze me. Thank you.

In the good old days, people stayed together just because. I think it's a disease spread through genetics.

(October 6, 2016 at 12:51 am)Excited Penguin Wrote: Your responses lately don't cease to amaze me. Thank you.

Like anyone else, I'm a work-in-progress. Thanks for the encouragement.

(October 6, 2016 at 12:47 am)bennyboy Wrote: But we have a life we care about, and we treat each other well enough, and we sometimes take time to spend time.

This sure would be nice.  

But I wasn't really looking for people's individual takes on relationships.  I have another forum that I post on, or used to post on, for relationships stuff and relationship problems.  But people there got pretty mean and negative towards me so I stopped posting there.  

I was hoping to have more of an intellectual discussions on the topics I presented in the OP.  I was indeed hoping that there would be some help to me on it, but it looks like no one else really thinks the way that I do on this.  Oh well.