Thoughts on maintaining a relationship


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psgcooldog is offline psgcooldog Post #21  July 28,2010, 7:52am
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Sassafras54 wrote :
pscooldog -- I have never considered the idea of "entropy" in relationships before. It's interesting.

Just right off the bat -- you may have something there. A lot else seems to be subject to entropy; why not this. There's definitely an energetic process (talking technical here) involved in human interaction ... possibly subject to entropy.

I don't have any more to say right now ... need to ponder. But this is a very interesting idea, to me.

Oh wait, one more thing ... in the universe, individual processes wind down (entropy) but overall isn't there conservation of energy? (Not a physicist here.) Possibly a relationship is more like "the universe" than an "individual process"?

Will stop now.
Well now, your mention of conservation of energy only expands the metaphor, since entropy is the propensity of systems to go from an organized (high energy) to a disorganized (lower energy) state, and yes ... the energy has to go elsewhere --- in this case, the universe outside the relationship. (And in the worst case, into another "system" )

Very true ...
 
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psgcooldog is offline psgcooldog Post #22  July 28,2010, 8:14am
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deegoesgreen wrote :
Ain't that the truth! There are way too many couples I know/have known whose marriage stood upon crumbling layers of unresolved issues. I have sworn I will not let that happen if I'm ever recoupled again. (Tricky part is making sure my partner agrees to this. )
I'm certainly with you on this one.

deegoesgreen wrote :
psgcooldog (may I call you psg for short?): The cold, hard truth is that ALL relationships end. Period. IMO, that's the cruxt of maintaining a relationship. So in essence, I believe my outlook agrees with your premise, except that, believing that all relationships ultimately end, it's inherent upon people to maintain focus on what's important in life: people they love. It's not being jaded, pessimistic or a naysayer, it's being a realist. If you bear this in mind going forward with a partner, while you cannot control their choices, you can control yours. You can choose to make days count, to accept that some outside force of some sort will end your relationship.
That is not to say I am advocating one to always be vigilant or carry around a doomsday attitude, but to know that time is limited. And that goes back to not taking a loved one for granted, or expect that life will not become fluid.
Did I manage to hit the target, or make a glancing blow?
Yes, of course you may

Not all relationships do end, unless you're counting the cases where they end in the death of one or both parties (which I assume that you are).

All I'm arguing for is an explicit awareness of the tendancy for things to fall apart, which seems to me to be somewhat the opposite of the way we've all been brought up to think of love and marriage. Entropy is IMO the perfect word for it.

And here's another point, which ties back to Thinker's joke, which I believe was about over-analyzing, or perhaps just about making things sound complex with big words.

TheThinker wrote :
I don't feel the need to say the molecular state of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in my silicon based cylindrical refreshment apparatus is changing....
I just say: "my ice melted in my glass"...



I'd submit to you that the invention of refrigeration (and hence that ice in his glass) was not even possible until the concept of cold as differing levels of molecular energy states was well-understood. In order to invent Maxwell's Demon, and then actualize him, it was necessary to first think about what was really going on in the proper terms.

The guy that could only think, "the ice melted" was not going to get there (with apologies to Thinker).

From concepts to words to actions.

Fight Entropy!!!
 
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annother is offline annother Post #23  July 28,2010, 10:11am
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I think you are on to something here, psgcooldog. There is certainly change over time, and I'd say it was almost always a negative change. At the same time, to say a relationship will almost inevitably fall apart is not what I see in the couples I know. Sometimes the individuals grow apart in some ways, but still keep the relationship together.

In my own marriage (31 years) there was a falling apart but then a sort of stasis--an acceptance of the change without the need to separate further. So, not entropy, exactly.

It is significant to me that so many people accept negative change and work really hard to maintain the relationship in a revised form. You could say, as deegoes green does, that the marriages are based on "crumbling layers of unresolved issues," but you can also say that some issues remain unresolved by choice. It's not a lack of awareness or communication. It's a decision to leave some things alone and just get on with the business of living together as happily as possible.

I know that we live in a society that thinks all issues need to be resolved somehow (usually with the help of counsellors) but it is possible to be happily married without picking at every sore and without the marriage devolving to separation or divorce.
 
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AudioDad is offline AudioDad Post #24  July 28,2010, 2:21pm
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psgcooldog wrote :
Yes, Lucas, all you say is true, and it's also the usual "stuff".

But do you get what I mean when I say to think of it in the opposite fashion --- that the normal, natural, usual and customary thing is for it to end? If you have the gut feeling that things tend to go on, it's just WAYYYY to easy to stop tending that garden.

And our culture tells us that "true love" endures, so we tend to look at it from that angle. I think that's a myth, and it's a dangerous, destructive one.
Can any part of life be larger than life?
Even love must be limited by time....

- Neil Peart

Everything is transitory. All of my past relationships crashed for one reason or another despite my best efforts to be a "good partner." I'm currently in a relationship that at least feels different from the rest in that we're connected on a level I've never experienced before. We're nearing the one year mark and things seem to be going well so far. Does that mean it will last? Who knows. The "normal" relationship does tend to follow a certain trajectory - from the intitial rush of passion through a simmering down of the heat into more of a steady flame (assuming all is going well). It's also often the case that the things you initially found cute about one another evolve into things you can't stand about one another. If a relationship can survive the modern pressures of life and both people work together to get through it all, I suppose there's a bettern than even chance that it'll go the distance.

I don't know if acknowledging these realities on the front end of a relationship will guarantee its long lasting success or not, though I believe going into a relationship with your eyes open is the best policy. I'm inclined to think that maturity, compromise and a willingness to put your partner first are as good a measure as any in keeping a relationship healthy and going strong for the long term. Trying not to repeat the mistakes made in past relationships probably doesn't hurt either.
 
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yeahitsme is offline yeahitsme Post #25  July 28,2010, 2:28pm
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Imagine how you would feel if your relationship ended. Now imagine that you somehow got it back, and how happy that would make you. Try to keep that feeling in your mind and you won't take your relationship for granted. Or atleast not as much so

^Simple logic from a simple mind...
 
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AudioDad is offline AudioDad Post #26  July 28,2010, 3:01pm
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yeahitsme wrote :
Imagine how you would feel if your relationship ended. Now imagine that you somehow got it back, and how happy that would make you. Try to keep that feeling in your mind and you won't take your relationship for granted. Or atleast not as much so

^Simple logic from a simple mind...
That really depends on how the relationship ended. Thinking back on my past failed relationships....I wouldn't want to get back into any of them for anything at this point. But that's me.
 
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nightling is offline nightling Post #27  July 28,2010, 5:52pm
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We had a question here one time that asked whether love was an action or an emotion, and I said then I think it is both.

It takes the right actions to sustain the feelings in another person and create an upward spiral of love that grows stronger. Both have to take those actions or there begins a downward spiral and love grows weaker.

Knowing what will make your partner feel the best in any given situation is at the heart of this to me.

I happened to sit in on a public speaker who compared a relationship to a balloon. A relationship that is weak is like a deflated balloon. Anyone in the relationship could do something to inflate the balloon. A smile. Washing the dishes. A compliment.

So the important relationships I have, I like to think about it like that and like to put it in my list of things to do on a regular basis. What do I need to do this week to put some air into that relationship?

My 2 fwiw.
 
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psgcooldog is offline psgcooldog Post #28  July 28,2010, 8:01pm
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nightling wrote :
We had a question here one time that asked whether love was an action or an emotion, and I said then I think it is both.

It takes the right actions to sustain the feelings in another person and create an upward spiral of love that grows stronger. Both have to take those actions or there begins a downward spiral and love grows weaker.

Knowing what will make your partner feel the best in any given situation is at the heart of this to me.

I happened to sit in on a public speaker who compared a relationship to a balloon. A relationship that is weak is like a deflated balloon. Anyone in the relationship could do something to inflate the balloon. A smile. Washing the dishes. A compliment.

So the important relationships I have, I like to think about it like that and like to put it in my list of things to do on a regular basis. What do I need to do this week to put some air into that relationship?

My 2 fwiw.
It's both better and worse. It's a balloon filled with helium; at first buoyant, and lighter than air but those tiny little helium molecules constantly escape through the thin walls ... until exhausted and deflated, our balloon falls along with our hopes.

Of course, I think I'd prefer hydrogen myself - add some O2 and a spark, and BOOM!
Last edited by psgcooldog; July 28,2010 at 8:19pm. Reason: I do *so* love things that go bang!
 
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charmed59 is online now charmed59 Post #29  July 29,2010, 2:12pm
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This is one of those things that keeps coming up in discussions with my friends. Yes, a relationship takes "work." Sometimes you can get by for years with little effort, sometimes you let it go too long and have to put the time in to get it back. But "the work" is not rocket science, it's all the obvious stuff: communication, not going to bed angry, really being willing to compromise, letting go of things that don't matter, feeling you don't alway have to be right, working together as a team.

And this is where the discussion comes up. My friends are all running into empty nest issues after 20 years or so of togetherness. You look at the relationships they have built, and whether they like the person across the table or not right now, they know them, and more importantly they trust them. It takes a lot of trust. But once you build that up it's so much easier to fix the relationship you have rather than building a new one from scratch. If both people in the relationship are good people, that intend to make the relationship work, they can make it work.

And this is what is so frustrating to me, starting over, after I've put all the work in.
 
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psgcooldog is offline psgcooldog Post #30  July 29,2010, 3:59pm
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charmed59 wrote :
This is one of those things that keeps coming up in discussions with my friends. Yes, a relationship takes "work." Sometimes you can get by for years with little effort, sometimes you let it go too long and have to put the time in to get it back.

....

If both people in the relationship are good people, that intend to make the relationship work, they can make it work.

....

And this is what is so frustrating to me, starting over, after I've put all the work in.
(((Charmed))) yes, and in your case, it was successful, so the loss is harder to take.

On the other hand, all of us here, or at least the vast majority, are starting over too, but without the knowledge that we can do it right, ever.

You have that, and it's valuable.

My point isn't so much that we need to work on things, but more about a different way of looking at *why* we need to work on things.
 
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