noahrevoy

If foolish behavior is not incentivized, it largely disappears even without moral instruction.

'Like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.' If your boundaries are not operational, clearly stated and enforced people behave as if there are none. This applies to marriages as well as nations.

If your dog gets out of control and you cannot physically bring it back under control yourself, meaning you cannot grab its collar and restrain it, then the dog is too big for you. It is frustrating to see people walking dogs they could not control if their life depended on it, with the only thing preventing that dog from attacking my child being a thin leash they are barely holding onto.

Question from a reader: “As I get emotionally closer to my girlfriend, is it okay to say ‘I love you’ or ‘I miss you,’ or does that come across as needy?” Answer: Whether those expressions come across as needy or not depends on where they are coming from. When “I love you,” “I miss you,” or similar expressions of affection are spoken from a place of abundance, where there is already so much positive feeling present that it seeks confidant expression, they do not come across as needy. They are said because they are deeply felt and because the speaker chooses to say them. When the same words are spoken from a place of lack, where the expression is driven by a need to hear it returned or to receive reassurance, that is when they take on a needy quality. Much of the confusion around this comes from advice that fails to distinguish between a confident, secure man who speaks from fullness and choice, and a man who speaks from fragility and a hunger for attention. Understanding that distinction resolves the question.

One of the clearest indicators of a dysfunctional marriage is not the presence of conflict, but the absence of a workable method for resolving it. Conflict is inevitable in any marriage. What determines stability is whether disagreements can be processed productively rather than allowed to accumulate. Couples with even very serious problems, money, sex, extended family, parenting, can remain highly stable if they have a reliable way to resolve conflict. Over time, issues get addressed, renegotiated, or adapted to, and alignment is restored. By contrast, couples who begin highly aligned but lack conflict-resolution capacity tend to deteriorate. Each unresolved disagreement adds friction; resentment accumulates; communication degrades; and eventually the couple deviates so far from one another that the marriage breaks down. This is why, in practice, no substantive marital issue can be solved before conflict resolution is solved. Chores, finances, and life logistics are unsolvable if a couple cannot even have a structured disagreement without escalation or withdrawal. Until conflict becomes productive, every problem threatens the relationship itself rather than contributing to its improvement.

A lot of what we are calling 'mental health issues' are immaturity issues that society has pathologized for profit.