Significant Other Advice

I don t think people should be obsessed by finding mister/misses perfect for the rest of their lives. Some get lucky and achieve that. Other s don’t and part ways. But that creates space for new relations to emerge. And that s perfectly fine to me.

Others will tell you we can have several relations in parallel, but that gets too complex for me :wink:

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tried that and did not like. too much management.

Not sure it’s really that simple. She put her career on pause to spend time with the baby, and I’m effectively the sole breadwinner while that happens. Assuming reducing my work by 80% is easily achievable in my industry, it would mean making the decision to bring in less money for my family to spend time with my electronic gadgets that don’t make much/any money. Rather than deescalating, that would escalate a lot :slight_smile:

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I understand that - maybe you could change with your wife? She goes out and earns the money, you do babysitting and maybe when the little human sleeps … there are some people around that have written a book while their baby was in dreamland. (Ok depends if its an active one or not.)

Wouldn’t work for a number of reasons, but no point in getting into a back and forth about every detail of my life situation… my SO and I just need to work this out in a way that makes sense for us, ultimately. And like I said, there will probably just be this unavoidable tension around work/family/passions and lack of time, hell even when I was single and childless I didn’t manage to find time to make music as much as I wanted, so it’s not a major surprise either. (I do appreciate it, though!)

I think empathy is encompassed within acceptance, but I won’t split hairs as it is an important thing as well.

The “try to say yes” thing is actually pretty in depth for me. While it has it’s roots in a business standard I set for myself while I was in a buy/sell/trade profession – I learned the hard way that saying no to trades can cost you a significant amount of business. So, if it could be done within reason, I always said yes, even if the deal wasn’t that great. Most of the time, the exchange was more about facilitating someone else’s goals, which lead me to form another mantra I tend to go by as well “Put people to work for you/see good in others.”

While it is seemingly benign on its surface, I started using this idea more and more outside of work environments. It has shown me that the difference between new experiences and finding random sources of enjoyment happened to be me. Kind of cliché to think about this; “You’re the one that is preventing you from being happy,” as it definitely sounds like some inspirational garbage you see on facebook, but I think it applies here, in this context. What’s the old bob moog quote about experimentation leads to a life of rich experience? Blah blah blah…lol

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Relationships, by nature, come at a cost of freedom. Personally, a relationship might be nice(I don’t really desire one, but for the sake of argument). I’d say anyone you find yourself desiring you need to be cognizant on this exchange and determine if it’s one that you’d really want to make.

I think the concept of Love is something one surrenders to, not actively seek like a synth that’s on sale with your currency in your hand.

Understand that in a relationship, “what you want” must reflect not what’s “best for you” but what’s “best for us”. So you have to change your calculus when it comes to your desires. Therefore you have to modify what makes you happy. Since true happiness comes from within, this shouldn’t be too difficult. Accept that sacrifices must be made (across the board) to ensure a future with someone. They will pay off, however, if your heart is “in it.”

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Sage advice