Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Been Thinking...
about the notion of growing up...
So my memory of my childhood spanned back to when I was three... I have one vague memory of myself at Yamaha Kindergarten where the older sibling was studying Kindergarten One and I was there with Mum to pick her up. I was not old enough to attend school.
By four years old, I started my first crush on an unknown boy on my school bus. He was a year older than me and had a bald head (Funny Daisy likes to tease me about my "fetish" with bald headed guys-DL is bald too).
Then I recall primary school and my pre-Monday blues. I developed boy blues since I was 10- I liked this really smart boy in class for two years whom coincidentally was a buddy of Mr. London (another boy I had a crush for 8 years since 17 and subtly shaped my mentality and my self esteem in my young aduult years) in the army.
Then there is DL whom I met when I was 21- I literally had to struggle to grow up and attend to adult, financial responsibilities.
Just had a look through Facebook and spotted Random George on my Friends list. Random George was some guy whom I had a most random one night stand with in Paris when I was high as a kite from a combination of alcohol and weed. He went to school with M in Santiago. Random George and Nano have the same air of aloofness and they both look quite alike- I mean, really alike though I must admit I am partial to Nano. Both hail from old mega wealth traditional backgrounds from the old Colonial Spanish world, one in Chile and the other from Philippines. One's family made their fortunes from investment banking and the other from property development. They both had the same addictive personalities to vices of alcohol and drugs (marijuana for George and nicotine for Nano)and appear quietly uptight with a typical first child and son syndrome, both who are well aware of their responsibilites to come in their adult years as heirs to mega multi-million business empire. They both also displayed avidness in reading of classic literature but as expected, kept abreast of the latest financial news. Random George had even subscribed to the Financial Times whilst living in his rented apartment in Le Marais as an exchange student in Paris.
I notice I have a tendency to attract or be attracted to guys who are the oldest son of sons. Even the Old Boy is the older son of 2 boys who also came from the old wealth variety and could have been handled the silver platter to continue his father's legacy in construction. Alas, he lacked ambition and drive. I gathered it was a result of too much hand holding and love from a good natured mum.
Maybe it's the typical recklessness as a middle child that made me particularly attractive to the typically uptight first child.
But I reckon I get along best with boys who are the youngest in their family. They tend to be less uptight and display a keen-ness to "take care" of the opposite sex and being a middle kid who is used to be both an older and younger sibling, I love having the best of both worlds.
Then there are girlfriends- the most important people enlisted in my circle of trust. Some girlfriends come and go and some stay on and you know you have them as friends for life. Being a girly girl, I treasure my one on one time with my girlfriends be it stayovers, drinks, shopping and merry making. When that happen, the boys can wait. I cherish the girlish pacts we make about being god mums to our future newborns and what not...
So I grew up thinking girlfriends would remember things as lucidly as I do. But then I also learn that I needed to modify that because no matter how close friends could be, they might grow out of some things. Their newly made family may take precedence, they forgot the promises they made in bestowing you with the honour of becoming their children's godmother and that you take that up seriously because you would not treat a thing like this lightly since you would expect your own child to have who you think would be the best god mother. You learn to let go and put aside whatever hurt emotions you feel since you refuse to wallow in self-pity or hurt...
Maybe it's a middle kid of same gender order in me. I always felt alone despite the number of acquaintances and friends I surround myself with in my public social life. I do not feel lonely, just alone. I cherish my quiet time with myself and a big part of me love being left alone to do my "own" things, be it eating, shopping or just chilling out. I never run out of ideas to keep myself and time occupied. Honestly, I am not much of a groupie- I love one on one time with close friends.
When I was 22 or so, I bummed into a family friend's newphew, J who used to have a crush on me when I was 13 and was a year older. We started keeping in touch. By then, he had started working and was doing really well and had worked his way up to become his boss' right hand since he is Malaysian and didn't have to waste time serving the army after he graduated from the polytechnic. He told me he was over $100,000 in debt since his portfolio of stocks took a dive in value.
Being 22 or so and still very much a sheltered child, I was shocked to find out that one could amass so much debt at such a young age. At the same time, I was impressed with his financial independence and worldliness. He was the first person I knew who had taken some form of bank loan.
I grew up thinking it was scary to have a debt. Being young and naive at 21, I remember telling DL that when we grow up and decide to buy a house, we must pay in cash. To which, he baulked at the idea and said even his Dad only managed to pay off their family home when he received a lump sum from his retirement. I soon learnt that we only know what we are exposed to whilst growing up.
My family never had debt as far as I knew when I was a child. We bought our land and built our own home in the 80s when the stock market crashed. We bought in cash. I remember our house hunting when I was seven. There began my love for properties. I never tire of them. We begun house hunting all over Singapore to look for that perfect home but my folks must have found none that they were thoroughly satisfied with. Finally, through a recommendation from a friend, they bought a piece of land and built the house, all up $700,000. Our house must have taken 2 years or so to build and I remember going to check it out at various stage of the construction. It was our dream house back then and my friends never failed to be impressed with the way our bedroom was designed. Today, the land itself must be worth $5m or so.
So because of what I grow up with, I reckon all debt was bad. But I also didn't feel the danger as much for becoming self-employed despite ironically, my parents' desire for me to find decent employment in public service and the like. I remember feeling privately bad in primary school for classmates whose fathers had to work for someone else (although ironically, some of their parents in executive profession might well have done better financially than mine), as well as the mothers who didn't have the luxury to stay at home and had to work for a living. Back in the days, most of our mothers were housewives and I do not remember any of my friends with mothers who were working in executive professions. I associated salaried employment to a lack of life and financial choices, as well as personal freedom. And on the other hand my housewife mother who didnt have a choice due to lack of education but who had the savviness to pick herself a dependable husband had private ambitions for her daughters, we were brought up to think that with education, we had choices and we could choose to be single and happy. We didn't need to build home and heath.
So I grow up ambitious wanting to live up to this ideal notion of being that upwardly mobile young professional with a swinging bachelorette life. I thought I could be young forever and ever and make merry as long as I have my close girlfriends to conquer the world with. Marriage do not have a place for a modern female like me and it is a means for a damsel to have someone to depend on emotionally and financially. I reckon I was not emotionally needy, nor was I financially (although I was ironically) helpless. After all, my folks love me despite any love-hate arguments with them or how psychologically traumatised I was from my domineering and opinionated mum, I know my parents are always there for me. Most importantly, they love me. That, I am clear on. I already have a family, I don't need to start another one.
Then I realise it was just me. Despite whatever emotion or financial independence my friends have, they have different ideas and values. Ultimately, they just want to have their own family. They want the simple things- someone to love and to be loved and children.
Last night, I was chatting to Della online and she is contemplating marrying this nice churchy guy (as her back up) by June. He was an introduction from her mum. Della is rich and attractive and she just wants to get married to keep her folks happy since she is feeling jaded at the moment from all her past of bad brushes with romance. She told me she no longer believes in love and since he appears a good catch and tick all the boxes and both sides of the parents get along, she figured he could make her happy. "Marriage is just so you have someone to cover your back, P", she said. She came from a broken family. So despite all the wealth she is to inherit, she still feels the need to be taken care of. Perhaps someone to fill in that emotional void in her life that money could not buy.
My nostalgic self feel somewhat pensive. Whatever happen to those happy, carefree days? Surely even at age 32, we could still have fun. Is it really necessary to impose a time line for ourselves?
Here I am, almost 32. I can't believe time flies. Just yesterday, V and I were dancing in the Pump Room on X'mas eve heading into the new year, our 29th year on earth. On Xmas eve, she met her current husband- baby is popping in May.
Now I have just expended $400,000 in a short 16 months or so. I didn't know I was capable of spending so much money and failing so badly in business. Read somewhere that "When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with money parts with experience and the man with experience parts with the money". How very true.
I will be spending more. We need a car real soon. More legal fees and I just bought a house. Not on cash this time unfortunately. I took out a 30-year bank loan just like most Australians.
Growing older and growing wiser? Definitely.
Grown up? Not really.
With the wisdom, I am beginning to feel like I am finally living.
Things are finally coming together and I am beginning to have fun and focus on "me" and "us" time and lead that charmed life I have always envisioned for myself and whoever my life partner is. In this case, it is DL.
Now thinking back with all the trials and tribulations I went through, having existed for 32 years seems like quite a long time on earth. No wonder people get the big 3 "0" blues...
But not me. No siree, I want to live to be ninety-three...;)
I still have a long way to go and plenty of time to grow up!:)
about the notion of growing up...
So my memory of my childhood spanned back to when I was three... I have one vague memory of myself at Yamaha Kindergarten where the older sibling was studying Kindergarten One and I was there with Mum to pick her up. I was not old enough to attend school.
By four years old, I started my first crush on an unknown boy on my school bus. He was a year older than me and had a bald head (Funny Daisy likes to tease me about my "fetish" with bald headed guys-DL is bald too).
Then I recall primary school and my pre-Monday blues. I developed boy blues since I was 10- I liked this really smart boy in class for two years whom coincidentally was a buddy of Mr. London (another boy I had a crush for 8 years since 17 and subtly shaped my mentality and my self esteem in my young aduult years) in the army.
Then there is DL whom I met when I was 21- I literally had to struggle to grow up and attend to adult, financial responsibilities.
Just had a look through Facebook and spotted Random George on my Friends list. Random George was some guy whom I had a most random one night stand with in Paris when I was high as a kite from a combination of alcohol and weed. He went to school with M in Santiago. Random George and Nano have the same air of aloofness and they both look quite alike- I mean, really alike though I must admit I am partial to Nano. Both hail from old mega wealth traditional backgrounds from the old Colonial Spanish world, one in Chile and the other from Philippines. One's family made their fortunes from investment banking and the other from property development. They both had the same addictive personalities to vices of alcohol and drugs (marijuana for George and nicotine for Nano)and appear quietly uptight with a typical first child and son syndrome, both who are well aware of their responsibilites to come in their adult years as heirs to mega multi-million business empire. They both also displayed avidness in reading of classic literature but as expected, kept abreast of the latest financial news. Random George had even subscribed to the Financial Times whilst living in his rented apartment in Le Marais as an exchange student in Paris.
I notice I have a tendency to attract or be attracted to guys who are the oldest son of sons. Even the Old Boy is the older son of 2 boys who also came from the old wealth variety and could have been handled the silver platter to continue his father's legacy in construction. Alas, he lacked ambition and drive. I gathered it was a result of too much hand holding and love from a good natured mum.
Maybe it's the typical recklessness as a middle child that made me particularly attractive to the typically uptight first child.
But I reckon I get along best with boys who are the youngest in their family. They tend to be less uptight and display a keen-ness to "take care" of the opposite sex and being a middle kid who is used to be both an older and younger sibling, I love having the best of both worlds.
Then there are girlfriends- the most important people enlisted in my circle of trust. Some girlfriends come and go and some stay on and you know you have them as friends for life. Being a girly girl, I treasure my one on one time with my girlfriends be it stayovers, drinks, shopping and merry making. When that happen, the boys can wait. I cherish the girlish pacts we make about being god mums to our future newborns and what not...
So I grew up thinking girlfriends would remember things as lucidly as I do. But then I also learn that I needed to modify that because no matter how close friends could be, they might grow out of some things. Their newly made family may take precedence, they forgot the promises they made in bestowing you with the honour of becoming their children's godmother and that you take that up seriously because you would not treat a thing like this lightly since you would expect your own child to have who you think would be the best god mother. You learn to let go and put aside whatever hurt emotions you feel since you refuse to wallow in self-pity or hurt...
Maybe it's a middle kid of same gender order in me. I always felt alone despite the number of acquaintances and friends I surround myself with in my public social life. I do not feel lonely, just alone. I cherish my quiet time with myself and a big part of me love being left alone to do my "own" things, be it eating, shopping or just chilling out. I never run out of ideas to keep myself and time occupied. Honestly, I am not much of a groupie- I love one on one time with close friends.
When I was 22 or so, I bummed into a family friend's newphew, J who used to have a crush on me when I was 13 and was a year older. We started keeping in touch. By then, he had started working and was doing really well and had worked his way up to become his boss' right hand since he is Malaysian and didn't have to waste time serving the army after he graduated from the polytechnic. He told me he was over $100,000 in debt since his portfolio of stocks took a dive in value.
Being 22 or so and still very much a sheltered child, I was shocked to find out that one could amass so much debt at such a young age. At the same time, I was impressed with his financial independence and worldliness. He was the first person I knew who had taken some form of bank loan.
I grew up thinking it was scary to have a debt. Being young and naive at 21, I remember telling DL that when we grow up and decide to buy a house, we must pay in cash. To which, he baulked at the idea and said even his Dad only managed to pay off their family home when he received a lump sum from his retirement. I soon learnt that we only know what we are exposed to whilst growing up.
My family never had debt as far as I knew when I was a child. We bought our land and built our own home in the 80s when the stock market crashed. We bought in cash. I remember our house hunting when I was seven. There began my love for properties. I never tire of them. We begun house hunting all over Singapore to look for that perfect home but my folks must have found none that they were thoroughly satisfied with. Finally, through a recommendation from a friend, they bought a piece of land and built the house, all up $700,000. Our house must have taken 2 years or so to build and I remember going to check it out at various stage of the construction. It was our dream house back then and my friends never failed to be impressed with the way our bedroom was designed. Today, the land itself must be worth $5m or so.
So because of what I grow up with, I reckon all debt was bad. But I also didn't feel the danger as much for becoming self-employed despite ironically, my parents' desire for me to find decent employment in public service and the like. I remember feeling privately bad in primary school for classmates whose fathers had to work for someone else (although ironically, some of their parents in executive profession might well have done better financially than mine), as well as the mothers who didn't have the luxury to stay at home and had to work for a living. Back in the days, most of our mothers were housewives and I do not remember any of my friends with mothers who were working in executive professions. I associated salaried employment to a lack of life and financial choices, as well as personal freedom. And on the other hand my housewife mother who didnt have a choice due to lack of education but who had the savviness to pick herself a dependable husband had private ambitions for her daughters, we were brought up to think that with education, we had choices and we could choose to be single and happy. We didn't need to build home and heath.
So I grow up ambitious wanting to live up to this ideal notion of being that upwardly mobile young professional with a swinging bachelorette life. I thought I could be young forever and ever and make merry as long as I have my close girlfriends to conquer the world with. Marriage do not have a place for a modern female like me and it is a means for a damsel to have someone to depend on emotionally and financially. I reckon I was not emotionally needy, nor was I financially (although I was ironically) helpless. After all, my folks love me despite any love-hate arguments with them or how psychologically traumatised I was from my domineering and opinionated mum, I know my parents are always there for me. Most importantly, they love me. That, I am clear on. I already have a family, I don't need to start another one.
Then I realise it was just me. Despite whatever emotion or financial independence my friends have, they have different ideas and values. Ultimately, they just want to have their own family. They want the simple things- someone to love and to be loved and children.
Last night, I was chatting to Della online and she is contemplating marrying this nice churchy guy (as her back up) by June. He was an introduction from her mum. Della is rich and attractive and she just wants to get married to keep her folks happy since she is feeling jaded at the moment from all her past of bad brushes with romance. She told me she no longer believes in love and since he appears a good catch and tick all the boxes and both sides of the parents get along, she figured he could make her happy. "Marriage is just so you have someone to cover your back, P", she said. She came from a broken family. So despite all the wealth she is to inherit, she still feels the need to be taken care of. Perhaps someone to fill in that emotional void in her life that money could not buy.
My nostalgic self feel somewhat pensive. Whatever happen to those happy, carefree days? Surely even at age 32, we could still have fun. Is it really necessary to impose a time line for ourselves?
Here I am, almost 32. I can't believe time flies. Just yesterday, V and I were dancing in the Pump Room on X'mas eve heading into the new year, our 29th year on earth. On Xmas eve, she met her current husband- baby is popping in May.
Now I have just expended $400,000 in a short 16 months or so. I didn't know I was capable of spending so much money and failing so badly in business. Read somewhere that "When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with money parts with experience and the man with experience parts with the money". How very true.
I will be spending more. We need a car real soon. More legal fees and I just bought a house. Not on cash this time unfortunately. I took out a 30-year bank loan just like most Australians.
Growing older and growing wiser? Definitely.
Grown up? Not really.
With the wisdom, I am beginning to feel like I am finally living.
Things are finally coming together and I am beginning to have fun and focus on "me" and "us" time and lead that charmed life I have always envisioned for myself and whoever my life partner is. In this case, it is DL.
Now thinking back with all the trials and tribulations I went through, having existed for 32 years seems like quite a long time on earth. No wonder people get the big 3 "0" blues...
But not me. No siree, I want to live to be ninety-three...;)
I still have a long way to go and plenty of time to grow up!:)
Monday, January 24, 2011
Mona Lisa Smile
I can safely say I am more at peace with myself and feeling that domestic bliss of our lives- DL and me.
I have finally come to that place.
Life crisises neither take me in one fell sweep nor take on a domino effect on my emotions.
I must admit I am getting older and much wiser despite my unwillingness to grow up.
But not a day passed without thoughts of you.
In a fleeting moment, often before sleep.
To a place where I was once secretly happy and privately sad.
I stopped dwelling and stopped hurting.
A friend said I should get laid last night.
She probably meant it in jest since I seem uptight next to her.
I should loosen up.
I continue moving forward in my life, sorting out the debris of our past and restoring the order and rekindling the mini romances of our joint lives-DL and mine.
We are getting there.
I can safely say I am more at peace with myself and feeling that domestic bliss of our lives- DL and me.
I have finally come to that place.
Life crisises neither take me in one fell sweep nor take on a domino effect on my emotions.
I must admit I am getting older and much wiser despite my unwillingness to grow up.
But not a day passed without thoughts of you.
In a fleeting moment, often before sleep.
To a place where I was once secretly happy and privately sad.
I stopped dwelling and stopped hurting.
A friend said I should get laid last night.
She probably meant it in jest since I seem uptight next to her.
I should loosen up.
I continue moving forward in my life, sorting out the debris of our past and restoring the order and rekindling the mini romances of our joint lives-DL and mine.
We are getting there.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Overwhelmed
There is the saying, "it never rains, it pours".
This is exactly how my life and surroundings feels at the moment.
Previously, Australia was experiencing drought. This year the floods are swallowing up a majority of Queensland. The latest is the Brisbane CBD.
This week, a few things need to happen on the personal front.
I sign my contract tomorrow for my new house.
I need to have some form of answers regarding the fate of my busines. My solicitor happens to live in Brisbane. She had to be evacuated from her office yesterday. So thanks to Mother Nature, it seems like my personal matter, albeit sticky will need to be put on hold.
Again, I am made aware of the omnipotence of Great Mother Nature. One doesn't have much control over it,isn't it? My first brush was when I was stuck in a small town ("Luckless Land" I call it) due to bad weather and my trip was delayed for 2 days, although many preceeding fellow trekkers were already stuck for a good two weeks.
Next week,I start my new job. My new life.
Hopefully, 2011 bodes well for DL and me.
There is the saying, "it never rains, it pours".
This is exactly how my life and surroundings feels at the moment.
Previously, Australia was experiencing drought. This year the floods are swallowing up a majority of Queensland. The latest is the Brisbane CBD.
This week, a few things need to happen on the personal front.
I sign my contract tomorrow for my new house.
I need to have some form of answers regarding the fate of my busines. My solicitor happens to live in Brisbane. She had to be evacuated from her office yesterday. So thanks to Mother Nature, it seems like my personal matter, albeit sticky will need to be put on hold.
Again, I am made aware of the omnipotence of Great Mother Nature. One doesn't have much control over it,isn't it? My first brush was when I was stuck in a small town ("Luckless Land" I call it) due to bad weather and my trip was delayed for 2 days, although many preceeding fellow trekkers were already stuck for a good two weeks.
Next week,I start my new job. My new life.
Hopefully, 2011 bodes well for DL and me.
Monday, January 10, 2011
I have decided...
if and only if I really, as in really end up having children, I know EXACTLY where they will be going to school...
I was trying to google the fashion great, Monsieur G whom I had a fashion brush with whilst in Paris. The man who was interested in my work and was potentially interested to take me in as an assistant (and got my school principal to give me his telephone number) and guess what? I chanced upon this article...
http://the-polyglot.blogspot.com/2008/06/ever-wonder-where-french-fashions-elite.html
Damn, I met a fashion royalty of the most blue-blooded kind.
if and only if I really, as in really end up having children, I know EXACTLY where they will be going to school...
I was trying to google the fashion great, Monsieur G whom I had a fashion brush with whilst in Paris. The man who was interested in my work and was potentially interested to take me in as an assistant (and got my school principal to give me his telephone number) and guess what? I chanced upon this article...
http://the-polyglot.blogspot.com/2008/06/ever-wonder-where-french-fashions-elite.html
Damn, I met a fashion royalty of the most blue-blooded kind.
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Here is an interesting article...
I chanced upon online from the New York Times.
Enjoy!:)
Sustainable Love
The Happy Marriage Is the ‘Me’ Marriage
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Published: December 31, 2010
A lasting marriage does not always signal a happy marriage. Plenty of miserable couples have stayed together for children, religion or other practical reasons.
But for many couples, it’s just not enough to stay together. They want a relationship that is meaningful and satisfying. In short, they want a sustainable marriage.
“The things that make a marriage last have more to do with communication skills, mental health, social support, stress — those are the things that allow it to last or not,” says Arthur Aron, a psychology professor who directs the Interpersonal Relationships Laboratory at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. “But those things don’t necessarily make it meaningful or enjoyable or sustaining to the individual.”
The notion that the best marriages are those that bring satisfaction to the individual may seem counterintuitive. After all, isn’t marriage supposed to be about putting the relationship first?
Not anymore. For centuries, marriage was viewed as an economic and social institution, and the emotional and intellectual needs of the spouses were secondary to the survival of the marriage itself. But in modern relationships, people are looking for a partnership, and they want partners who make their lives more interesting.
Caryl Rusbult, a researcher at Vrije University in Amsterdam who died last January, called it the “Michelangelo effect,” referring to the manner in which close partners “sculpt” each other in ways that help each of them attain valued goals.
Dr. Aron and Gary W. Lewandowski Jr., a professor at Monmouth University in New Jersey, have studied how individuals use a relationship to accumulate knowledge and experiences, a process called “self-expansion.” Research shows that the more self-expansion people experience from their partner, the more committed and satisfied they are in the relationship.
To measure this, Dr. Lewandowski developed a series of questions for couples: How much has being with your partner resulted in your learning new things? How much has knowing your partner made you a better person? (Take the full quiz measuring self-expansion.)
While the notion of self-expansion may sound inherently self-serving, it can lead to stronger, more sustainable relationships, Dr. Lewandowski says.
“If you’re seeking self-growth and obtain it from your partner, then that puts your partner in a pretty important position,” he explains. “And being able to help your partner’s self-expansion would be pretty pleasing to yourself.”
The concept explains why people are delighted when dates treat them to new experiences, like a weekend away. But self-expansion isn’t just about exotic experiences. Individuals experience personal growth through their partners in big and small ways. It happens when they introduce new friends, or casually talk about a new restaurant or a fascinating story in the news.
The effect of self-expansion is particularly pronounced when people first fall in love. In research at the University of California at Santa Cruz, 325 undergraduate students were given questionnaires five times over 10 weeks. They were asked, “Who are you today?” and given three minutes to describe themselves. They were also asked about recent experiences, including whether they had fallen in love.
After students reported falling in love, they used more varied words in their self-descriptions. The new relationships had literally broadened the way they looked at themselves.
“You go from being a stranger to including this person in the self, so you suddenly have all of these social roles and identities you didn’t have before,” explains Dr. Aron, who co-authored the research. “When people fall in love that happens rapidly, and it’s very exhilarating.”
Over time, the personal gains from lasting relationships are often subtle. Having a partner who is funny or creative adds something new to someone who isn’t. A partner who is an active community volunteer creates new social opportunities for a spouse who spends long hours at work.
Additional research suggests that spouses eventually adopt the traits of the other — and become slower to distinguish differences between them, or slower to remember which skills belong to which spouse.
In experiments by Dr. Aron, participants rated themselves and their partners on a variety of traits, like “ambitious” or “artistic.” A week later, the subjects returned to the lab and were shown the list of traits and asked to indicate which ones described them.
People responded the quickest to traits that were true of both them and their partner. When the trait described only one person, the answer came more slowly. The delay was measured in milliseconds, but nonetheless suggested that when individuals were particularly close to someone, their brains were slower to distinguish between their traits and those of their spouses.
“It’s easy to answer those questions if you’re both the same,” Dr. Lewandowski explains. “But if it’s just true of you and not of me, then I have to sort it out. It happens very quickly, but I have to ask myself, ‘Is that me or is that you?’ ”
It’s not that these couples lost themselves in the marriage; instead, they grew in it. Activities, traits and behaviors that had not been part of their identity before the relationship were now an essential part of how they experienced life.
All of this can be highly predictive for a couple’s long-term happiness. One scale designed by Dr. Aron and colleagues depicts seven pairs of circles. The first set is side by side. With each new set, the circles begin to overlap until they are nearly on top of one another. Couples choose the set of circles that best represents their relationship. In a 2009 report in the journal Psychological Science, people bored in their marriages were more likely to choose the more separate circles. Partners involved in novel and interesting experiences together were more likely to pick one of the overlapping circles and less likely to report boredom. “People have a fundamental motivation to improve the self and add to who they are as a person,” Dr. Lewandowski says. “If your partner is helping you become a better person, you become happier and more satisfied in the relationship.”
A version of this article appeared in print on January 2, 2011, on page WK4 of the New York edition.
I chanced upon online from the New York Times.
Enjoy!:)
Sustainable Love
The Happy Marriage Is the ‘Me’ Marriage
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Published: December 31, 2010
A lasting marriage does not always signal a happy marriage. Plenty of miserable couples have stayed together for children, religion or other practical reasons.
But for many couples, it’s just not enough to stay together. They want a relationship that is meaningful and satisfying. In short, they want a sustainable marriage.
“The things that make a marriage last have more to do with communication skills, mental health, social support, stress — those are the things that allow it to last or not,” says Arthur Aron, a psychology professor who directs the Interpersonal Relationships Laboratory at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. “But those things don’t necessarily make it meaningful or enjoyable or sustaining to the individual.”
The notion that the best marriages are those that bring satisfaction to the individual may seem counterintuitive. After all, isn’t marriage supposed to be about putting the relationship first?
Not anymore. For centuries, marriage was viewed as an economic and social institution, and the emotional and intellectual needs of the spouses were secondary to the survival of the marriage itself. But in modern relationships, people are looking for a partnership, and they want partners who make their lives more interesting.
Caryl Rusbult, a researcher at Vrije University in Amsterdam who died last January, called it the “Michelangelo effect,” referring to the manner in which close partners “sculpt” each other in ways that help each of them attain valued goals.
Dr. Aron and Gary W. Lewandowski Jr., a professor at Monmouth University in New Jersey, have studied how individuals use a relationship to accumulate knowledge and experiences, a process called “self-expansion.” Research shows that the more self-expansion people experience from their partner, the more committed and satisfied they are in the relationship.
To measure this, Dr. Lewandowski developed a series of questions for couples: How much has being with your partner resulted in your learning new things? How much has knowing your partner made you a better person? (Take the full quiz measuring self-expansion.)
While the notion of self-expansion may sound inherently self-serving, it can lead to stronger, more sustainable relationships, Dr. Lewandowski says.
“If you’re seeking self-growth and obtain it from your partner, then that puts your partner in a pretty important position,” he explains. “And being able to help your partner’s self-expansion would be pretty pleasing to yourself.”
The concept explains why people are delighted when dates treat them to new experiences, like a weekend away. But self-expansion isn’t just about exotic experiences. Individuals experience personal growth through their partners in big and small ways. It happens when they introduce new friends, or casually talk about a new restaurant or a fascinating story in the news.
The effect of self-expansion is particularly pronounced when people first fall in love. In research at the University of California at Santa Cruz, 325 undergraduate students were given questionnaires five times over 10 weeks. They were asked, “Who are you today?” and given three minutes to describe themselves. They were also asked about recent experiences, including whether they had fallen in love.
After students reported falling in love, they used more varied words in their self-descriptions. The new relationships had literally broadened the way they looked at themselves.
“You go from being a stranger to including this person in the self, so you suddenly have all of these social roles and identities you didn’t have before,” explains Dr. Aron, who co-authored the research. “When people fall in love that happens rapidly, and it’s very exhilarating.”
Over time, the personal gains from lasting relationships are often subtle. Having a partner who is funny or creative adds something new to someone who isn’t. A partner who is an active community volunteer creates new social opportunities for a spouse who spends long hours at work.
Additional research suggests that spouses eventually adopt the traits of the other — and become slower to distinguish differences between them, or slower to remember which skills belong to which spouse.
In experiments by Dr. Aron, participants rated themselves and their partners on a variety of traits, like “ambitious” or “artistic.” A week later, the subjects returned to the lab and were shown the list of traits and asked to indicate which ones described them.
People responded the quickest to traits that were true of both them and their partner. When the trait described only one person, the answer came more slowly. The delay was measured in milliseconds, but nonetheless suggested that when individuals were particularly close to someone, their brains were slower to distinguish between their traits and those of their spouses.
“It’s easy to answer those questions if you’re both the same,” Dr. Lewandowski explains. “But if it’s just true of you and not of me, then I have to sort it out. It happens very quickly, but I have to ask myself, ‘Is that me or is that you?’ ”
It’s not that these couples lost themselves in the marriage; instead, they grew in it. Activities, traits and behaviors that had not been part of their identity before the relationship were now an essential part of how they experienced life.
All of this can be highly predictive for a couple’s long-term happiness. One scale designed by Dr. Aron and colleagues depicts seven pairs of circles. The first set is side by side. With each new set, the circles begin to overlap until they are nearly on top of one another. Couples choose the set of circles that best represents their relationship. In a 2009 report in the journal Psychological Science, people bored in their marriages were more likely to choose the more separate circles. Partners involved in novel and interesting experiences together were more likely to pick one of the overlapping circles and less likely to report boredom. “People have a fundamental motivation to improve the self and add to who they are as a person,” Dr. Lewandowski says. “If your partner is helping you become a better person, you become happier and more satisfied in the relationship.”
A version of this article appeared in print on January 2, 2011, on page WK4 of the New York edition.
