{"id":13008,"date":"2019-01-24T19:16:34","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T11:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/?p=13008"},"modified":"2019-01-24T19:16:34","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T11:16:34","slug":"relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/2019\/01\/24\/relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"Relationships are challenging + a lot of work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Preamble: Hello everyone! This post has been getting shared a little bit, so I thought it might be worth taking some time to put together a bit of context? This blogpost is basically a &#8220;cleaned-up&#8221; or &#8220;unrolled&#8221; post of 5 of my Twitter threads. I put this together because I think it&#8217;s a useful thing to share with friends who are engaged, or newly wed. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>1. There are reliable indicators that predict relationship failure <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>(The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/visakanv\/status\/1029920952258154496\">following thread<\/a> was something I wrote off-the-cuff, like most of my threads, but it ended up getting almost 1,000 retweets.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My wife predicts divorces &amp; failed relationships with stunning accuracy and I have learned a few of her tricks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Relationships are fucking hard, and to work they need a sort of functional \u201ceconomy\u201d (gratitude, laughter, kindness) and waste elimination system (pain, resentment).<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Relationships typically fail either because the economy died (no happiness) or the trash pileup in the street made it inhabitable (too miserable to function). Both have symptoms &amp; warning signs you can look out for. (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/visakanv\/status\/957556106821169152\">My wife notices these YEARS before I do;<\/a> it\u2019s insane.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just as how \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nateliason.com\/notes\/score-takes-care-bill-walsh\">the score takes care of itself<\/a>\u201d, there are some fundamental, structural things that need to exist in order to manage a relationship\u2019s economy. These are the equivalent of things like rule of law and a reliable money supply. It&#8217;s especially necessary for weathering inevitable disasters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cHow will this couple handle a year of unexpected misery, caused either by one, both, or neither parties\u201d? <\/strong>Will they talk about it honestly &amp; openly with each other? Do they <em>really<\/em> listen to each other? Do they speak of each other with tenderness? Do they build each other up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A serious relationship is a massive undertaking, a heavy burden on your back. It\u2019s like lifting weights, actually. You need to have good form. You can tell when someone has bad form, the weight is going to fuck them. But do it well and you get stronger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spending a lot of time together doesn\u2019t nearly mean as much as people tend to assume it does. Your relationship will die if you *don&#8217;t* have any quality time together, but simply spending lots of time together doesn&#8217;t guarantee anything. Spending a lot of money (that you can afford), going on fancy vacations together, throwing a fancy party (ahem: weddings) all don\u2019t mean much. All of those things are actually relatively easy and trivial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The \u201ckiller\u201d signs: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Contempt.<\/strong> Doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re laughing as you jokingly put each other down. One day it won\u2019t be funny. <\/li><li><strong>Dismissiveness.<\/strong> \u201cUgh, she\u2019s always like that\u201d <\/li><li><strong>Indifference<\/strong>. \u201cnah it\u2019s nbd whatever\u201d <\/li><li><strong>One partner constantly apologizing for the other<\/strong>. This is not sustainable.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This is bad form &#8211; when the hard times hit, they\u2019ll buckle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I find that you can often infer quite a bit from a couple&#8217;s body language and eye contact. A couple that is close will make eye contact often. Not necessarily stare lovingly into each other\u2019s eyes (my wife and I actually don\u2019t do this much), but just \u201cre-sync\u201d regularly to get frequent snapshots of each other\u2019s state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A sad warning sign: when one person has to constantly apologise for the other. It\u2019s usually women apologising for their boyfriends. Don\u2019t do it. It rarely gets better. If often gets worse. And y\u2019all often put up with it for <em>years<\/em> longer than you should. Let him go sis<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You weren\u2019t put on this earth to apologise for somebody else! You don\u2019t have time for that. It\u2019s a full time job apologising for yourself!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> ^ see, this is a joke that doesn\u2019t put anybody down. Anybody who needs to make other people feel weak\/small\/foolish etc is a red flag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also, while being rich won\u2019t guarantee relationship success, one of the biggest causes of divorce is financial conflict \/ debt-related frustration. Getting it right isn\u2019t enough, but getting it wrong will cost you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8220;Can you explain more about the resentment?&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sure! Basically, in a marriage, you\u2019re going to have to deal with the costs incurred by your partner\u2019s mistakes. THEY forgot something, THEY messed something up, you did your part but THEY didn\u2019t. This is painful and frustrating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It will become easy to get angry &amp; frustrated with your partner &#8211; especially since you\u2019re in such close proximity and your actions impact each other so much. So you need a system to acknowledge, address and resolve all this pain and resentment. In my opinion, this is more intimate than sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m not saying I\u2019m an expert. I just have some experience to share. Nobody\u2019s perfect. But if you want a good shot at making things work you gotta do your due diligence &amp; check in, regularly, even when you\u2019re tired, especially when it\u2019s hard. It\u2019s very easy to overlook this. Acknowledge the mess and work at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>There\u2019s a relationship death spiral that goes like this:  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>You&#8217;re tired, so you hit snooze on difficult conversations<\/li><li>your backlog from 1 is overwhelming<\/li><li>You start spacing out in each other\u2019s presence (how was your day? fine). You&#8217;re not really there for each other any more. Life is now just a series of tedious chores you have to do.<\/li><li>The \u201cspark\u201d is gone.<\/li><li>Since it\u2019s all chores and the spark is gone, you\u2019re subtly colder and more uncharitable towards each other. You\u2019re both play-acting corporate shells at this point and it\u2019s very unpleasant.<\/li><li>This buildup of resentment and frustration ends up being ignited in a fight over some trivial thing like dishes or laundry. Hint: It&#8217;s never really about the dishes or the laundry. It&#8217;s about the relationship.<\/li><li>Everything gets worse, and the cycle worsens. The fight leaves you feeling exhausted, which brings us back to 1.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>So the meta skill is to recognise that this is a spectrum. There&#8217;s an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/esther_perel_the_secret_to_desire_in_a_long_term_relationship\/transcript?language=en\">Esther Perel quote<\/a> that goes, &#8220;passion waxes and wanes, but erotic couples know how to bring it back\u201d. This is likely unique to each couple. But you can see it and you can feel it when you&#8217;re in the presence of a couple: how open and psychologically\/emotionally intimate people are with each other. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WWbT5x6hFzQ\">Funny  Wanda Sykes bit about the Obamas<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just to emphasise: we never root for any relationship to fail. Life is hard and love is precious, and we want all of our friends to flourish and be happy. It\u2019s just unfortunate that people are so often unprepared for the work. May you all nourish + be nourished in every way. \u2764\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>2. Your spouse will frustrate you more than anybody else<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/visakanv\/status\/1060046145936777217\">Wife and I were laughing about this last night<\/a>: the thing nobody quite tells you about marriage is: you\u2019re choosing the person in life who\u2019s going to upset, disappoint, annoy and frustrate you more than anybody else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is true even if your spouse is the least annoying, frustrating, upsetting person you know! Because of base rates. For example, suppose the average person has a 10% chance of annoying me, and my wife has a 1% chance. I still hang with my wife much more than 10x than the average person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spouses get to see the worst sides of each other more than anybody else, and so it\u2019s very easy for people to learn to think more poorly of their spouses than other people &#8211; which is sad because there\u2019s a sort of optical illusion \/ selection bias at play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marriage is the first relationship in your life that\u2019s anything like marriage. Nothing quite prepares you for it. When you\u2019re dating, you\u2019re not yet *entirely* subjected to the consequences of the other person\u2019s actions or inaction, and walking away is a cheaper option<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also this probably varies from culture to culture, but other people\u2019s assumptions and expectations become a big deal. Families expect things of wives that they don\u2019t expect so much of girlfriends. Women often seem to get the short end of the stick on this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For us, humor is central to keeping things interesting, fun, compelling. You\u2019re not going to escape pain, but if you can <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/visakanv\/status\/721180324034519040\">laugh about it together<\/a> (caveat: not contemptuously at each other) then it\u2019s still fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>3. Marriage is hard and requires deliberate project management<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>On the project management of a marriage, which is something I\u2019m still not very great at + always trying to be better at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The following is from an impromptu Q&amp;A I did with a researcher friend:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;<strong>How do you organize your schedules?&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> I\u2019m kind of sloppy about these things. I make plans but I don\u2019t always follow them. I tend to plan social meetups on Facebook Messenger, then add them to my Google Calendar once it\u2019s confirmed. My workdays are defined by my work tools\u200a\u2014\u200aTrello, Slack, Gcal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My wife has access to my calendar; she needs to know if I have after-work plans, or weekend plans. We also plan things together sometimes. We figure it out over chat and then we update Gcal accordingly. We also have a personal Slack channel where we go through everything more thoroughly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8220;It sounds like you put in quite some effort to sync your schedule with your wife\u2019s. is this important to you?&#8221;<br><\/strong><br>Well yeah, we have a finite amount of time together, so if we\u2019re out of sync it sometimes means someone is left in the dark, unexpectedly alone, lonely without plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you\u2019re married, there\u2019s a very large volume of things you have to care about\u200a\u2014\u200aeverything from dental appointments and family obligations (two sets!) to household maintenance. Slack is great for this because you can have multiple channels for each concern and not lose track. But you can use whatever; as long as you have a system that works for both of you. (We were both already using Slack at our respective companies, so it was a small thing to experiment with making our own, for fun. And it turned out great.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Can you tell me a little more about how planning your everyday life compares before and after marriage?<\/strong><br><br>There\u2019s a line from an article that goes, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/07\/19\/fashion\/the-wedding-toast-ill-never-give.html\">You\u2019ll find yourself wistful for the days when you had to pay for only your own mistakes<\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s like that. Each of your mistakes are going to cost both of you now. Sometimes you\u2019re going to do (or fail to do) something, and you don\u2019t just disappoint or upset yourself\u200a\u2014\u200ayou have to deal with the fact that you upset your spouse. Some people can\u2019t deal with this, and get angry at their spouse for being upset. And boom, one of the many spiralling vortexes leading to marital failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Before marriage, you are less of a joint unit.<\/strong> Cohabitation is a big part of that\u200a\u2014\u200amost Singaporeans don\u2019t cohabit before marrying. But even if you do cohabit, after marriage, you each subtly start to feel more obliged to be a bigger part of each other\u2019s life. (Of course this varies from couple to couple, some married couples are somehow super independent. I know one married couple that\u2019s like long-distance half the time. I don\u2019t know how they do it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An evil thought that arises after you\u2019re married &amp; have your first married fight\u200a\u2014\u200ayou don\u2019t HAVE to apologize. You don\u2019t HAVE to sayang &amp; manja them. I mean, you probably will, out of habit, but you could also be like, \u201cfuck it, suffer, I don\u2019t care. Whatcha gonna do, divorce me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The fact that the cost of walking away becomes so much higher permanently alters the relationship dynamic. <\/strong> The cost\/benefit calculus. anybody who says this doesn\u2019t affect them at all is either lying or very ignorant (or has attained Enlightenment.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Their problems are now your problems. <\/strong>There\u2019s all this family stuff\u200a\u2014\u200awhich of course varies from couple to couple too. Like, if your parents-in-law are being difficult or something, you can\u2019t really be like \u201cWell ok, good luck, not my problem, I\u2019m going bowling with the boys,\u201d or whatever. You\u2019re obliged to deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Once you get married, it\u2019s like your relationship is now in a smaller room.<\/strong> It\u2019s cosier, but you also can\u2019t yell or make as much of a mess as you could before. You could theoretically try, but it almost definitely will hurt the relationship. The skillset that gets you INTO a relationship is very different from the skillset you need to sustain one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8220;Would you say that you map out \u2018unfilled\u2019 time with your wife? how do you plan\/negotiate that?&#8221;<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> Our default state is a sort of vague coexistence\u200a\u2014\u200ausually involves both of us hanging out at home and each doing our own thing, me catching up on work or reading\/writing. over time we\u2019ve learnt to be more explicit and deliberate about making requests of each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We usually discuss things at a \u201cwhat needs doing?\u201d level, and then once we\u2019ve agreed that something needs doing, we put it in a calendar and try to follow it. Keyword: try. Hahaha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Something we\u2019ve been trying to be more rigorous about is having explicit time set aside purely for dates or couple time. when you first get married, you\u2019re around each other so much and so focused on each other, it feels like you don\u2019t have to. but you gotta do it. vvv important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8220;How does explicit couple time differ from \u201cvague coexistence\u201d? why is planning that so important?&#8221;<br><\/strong><br>Right. It\u2019s possible to vaguely coexist together for WEEKS, waking up, having lunch together while each of you is on your phone, replying to friends, work emails, having dinner together watching netflix, visiting parents, going thru the motions\u2026 and subtly drift out of sync.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By \u201cout of sync\u201d, I mean that each of you has a fresh set of concerns and worries that you haven\u2019t articulated to your partner yet, because the mere act of articulation is going to be a tedious process.<br><br> That\u2019s when you start responding to questions like \u201cHow was work\u201d with \u201cok la the usual\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200abecause you don\u2019t want to go through the trouble of explaining what was bothering you. (This is why it\u2019s useful to have a #feelings channel in your family slack, so you can just post your feelings as you go\u2026 Now that\u2019s a life hack!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Getting \u201csynced up\u201d as a couple is tedious, even when it\u2019s with your best friend of 15+ years. You have to negotiate things. You have to talk about feelings, and frustrations. it\u2019s always easier to be like \u201caiya later lah, i\u2019m so tired.\u201d You know in advance there\u2019ll be disagreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8220;Can you give me an example of friction points and sync difficulty?&#8221;<\/strong><br><br> A simple eg\u200a\u2014\u200asay we\u2019re both frustrated with our shitty old sofa + we both know we want to get rid of it. But talking about it means Having A Conversation. Because we each have different preferences, different styles. I\u2019m happy to toss it + make do. She\u2019d want to review options. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Negotiation is tiring, even when you both know exactly what the other person is going to say\u200a\u2014\u200abecause then you kind of have to do this waltz of feelings and considerations. It requires being alert and aware and sensitive to each other. Otherwise it means being disrespectfully dismissive, and that\u2019s the sort of thing that ruins marriages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the easy thing for both people to do is to defer the conversation. \u201cRemind me later\u201d. That\u2019s the 2nd worst outcome, you just quietly get increasingly frustrated with the suboptimal mess you call your lives. The worst outcome is a fight, because one person badly wants to do something and the other really doesn\u2019t want to deal with it. How you handle this, while tired af, is the heart of marriage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&amp; I\u2019m describing one of the simplest, most trivial friction points! Literally Every Imaginable Thing is a potential friction point in a marriage. A sofa is just an object. You\u2019re going to be having intense, difficult conversations about much more personal, contentious things. Imagine if you add kids into the picture! So it\u2019s insanely important that you both be good at doing this, believe whole-heartedly that you\u2019re on the same team, and be kind to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you don\u2019t have a system You Are Fucked. In the absence of a deliberately designed system, lots of families seem to defer to an improvised system of yelling, screaming, guilt-tripping, emotional blackmail\u2026 unimaginable cruelty because of a terrible system of management. It\u2019s very sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>There you go, a tiny little taste of what marriage is like. It\u2019s really hard, but it\u2019s also one of the best things in the world when you get it right. When you\u2019re really in sync (or even when you\u2019re not, but you trust each other to take care of things), you feel really wholesome, fulfilled, nourished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Feel free to tag your engaged \/ long-dating \/ soon-to-be-married \/ newlywed friends, I know I wish someone had written this sort of thing for me when I was freshly wed~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>PS: Do 1\u20131&#8217;s<\/strong><br><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Wanted to reiterate\u200a\u2014\u200aa very clever and effective way of dealing with the inevitability of friction points and sync difficulty is to schedule 1\u20131 meetings in advance. This is an idea I stole shamelessly from work. Basically, have some time set aside (at least once a month) for the EXPLICIT purpose of discussing difficult things. This has several benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>You don\u2019t need to feel bad about interrupting your spouse with what\u2019s guaranteed to be a frustrating discussion.<\/li><li>It lets you compartmentalize better, so you don\u2019t need to be quietly fuming at each other the rest of the time.<\/li><li>It also means that when you\u2019re having an argument, you can just have the argument and not have a meta-argument about how badly you are having the argument. That meta-argument can be had during the scheduled 1\u20131s.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>It might sound oddly bureaucratic, but it\u2019s a huge lifesaver\/relief\/anxiety-reducer. A lot of couples I talk to tend to get stuck in the meta-argument loop: they have some problem they need to solve, and whenever the argue about it they end up also arguing about how badly they\u2019re arguing\u200a\u2014\u200aand since they\u2019re already in a bad mood, they struggle to be receptive to one another. Few issues are perfectly 50\/50, so getting into a meta-argument always feels like a derailment of the original issue. AND the original issue never gets resolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a misery I wouldn\u2019t wish on anyone. (And yet it\u2019s probably super common in lots of families.) Compartmentalize your arguments, and schedule time to have them in advance so you\u2019re not caught off guard. It\u2019s also a great excuse to treat yourself to good coffee or beer, and go on long walks, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. It is *necessary* to become more considerate as a relationship develops.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/visakanv\/status\/1077199033855139840\">The longer a relationship lasts<\/a>, the likelier it is that you\u2019ll step on each other\u2019s toes in recognizably repetitive patterns.  The longer this goes on, the more hollow of an excuse \u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking\u201d becomes. It thus becomes *necessary* to become more considerate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s a maybe-unpopular opinion I have: I think lots of people end their relationships because they lack the will or the ability to modify their own behavior. It is easier to start over with someone else than to do the tedious, uncomfortable work of adjusting for each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, this is NOT to say \u201cyou should change who you are just to suit your partner\u201d or \u201cyou should force yourself to stay in unhappy relationships\u201d. Definitely not! That is bad! Rather, I think it\u2019s important to be mindful of the patterns of behavior within the context of a relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The pattern I\u2019m describing is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>start a relationship<\/li><li>enjoy the good times and good vibes<\/li><li>accumulate \u201cdebt\u201d from bad times and bad vibes<\/li><li>fail to address the debt; either avoid it or mishandle it (which makes it worse)<\/li><li>be overwhelmed by the scary debt, ditch the whole thing to repeat the pattern with someone else<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of pop culture takes on love is all about the good vibes and romantic gestures &#8211; about finding a soulmate who \u201cgets you\u201d. But even if\/when you find that person, you\u2019re going to piss each other off! and you have to figure out how to deal with that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s of course also a \u201cprisoner\u2019s dilemma\u201d aspect to this whole thing. What if you change to be more considerate of your partner, but they don\u2019t return the favour? That\u2019s an injustice. It\u2019s not fair if one person does all the work and the other person gets to enjoy it for free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Early on in a relationship, when you\u2019re still sussing each other out, this is understandable &#8211; and the way forward is to make small changes then look for reciprocity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a long-term relationship, if you can\u2019t trust your partner&#8230; what are you doing? You\u2019re very possibly wasting your time. Or your standards are so low that you&#8217;re willing to tolerate an untrustworthy partner because you&#8217;re scared of being alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Circling back to the start: \u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking\u201d is a hollow excuse <strong><em>even<\/em><\/strong> if it\u2019s true!! I feel like nobody really talked to me about this.  A relationship is a commitment to doing the work of becoming a more thoughtful person.  You have to think more!! This is challenging!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometimes people ask things like, \u201caren\u2019t you afraid you\u2019re going to get bored of each other after a decade?\u201d There are some \ud83e\udd14 buried assumptions in there. I met my wife in 2000 and honestly she gets more interesting every year. I\u2019d like to think the same is true for me. For the beginner, interestingness is about novelty. For the expert, interestingness is about nuance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally &#8211; I think some long-suffering couples solve the \u201cstepping on each other\u2019s toes\u201d problem by basically avoiding each other, and keeping to a highly-choreographed routine. To me this sounds like hell, but for some people maybe it\u2019s heaven? Do what works for you, I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyway, as always, I am not an expert or a counsellor or anything of the sort &#8211; just a nerd who overanalyzes everything and has some thoughts and experience to share. May you all nourish and support each other in all the ways you need to be nourished and supported. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">5. &#8220;Spicing up your relationship&#8221; is really about finding ways to be vulnerable with each other.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/visakanv\/status\/999144827567595522\">I have an essay draft<\/a> making fun of the idea &#8216;how to spice up your relationship&#8217; \u2013 people think it&#8217;s about toys and lingerie but it&#8217;s really about exposing vulnerable bits of your psychology to one another. You can love someone for decades and marry them and still have huge blind spots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Relationships become boring because they get reduced into shell-scripts, patterns and routines \u2013 because people avoid the difficult work of communicating hard, painful things to one another. At this point some people, desperate for stimulation, do crazy shit like cheat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s actually entirely possible to have an affair with your own spouse \u2013 just literally decide to break from your routine and ask each other questions about things you don&#8217;t normally talk about, and be honest with each other. Do hard and scary things together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think a big reason lots of people fail to do this is because they&#8217;re shy! You can see your spouse naked, and witness each other throwing up, etc \u2013 and yet be too shy to ask each other things that are outside of the stable\/familiar configuration you&#8217;ve established together. You&#8217;re scared that they will judge you for wanting something different, for wanting to be someone different than they&#8217;ve gotten used to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s easier to be a different version of yourself with a different person. You can open up your heart completely to a stranger at an airport that you&#8217;ll never see again, but you might worry about the consequences doing it to someone you have a long-standing relationship with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So&#8230; the challenge is to mitigate the consequences, whether real or perceived. Most people are probably overestimating the negative consequences of talking openly with their partners. But some people might not be. Something to think about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Preamble: Hello everyone! This post has been getting shared a little bit, so I thought it might be worth taking some time to put together a bit of context? This blogpost is basically a &#8220;cleaned-up&#8221; or &#8220;unrolled&#8221; post of 5 of my Twitter threads. I put this together because I&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[581,583,602],"tags":[607],"class_list":["post-13008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gender","category-peopling","category-society","tag-bestof"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5gxNz-3nO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}