I think it is in several ways and part of the blame is on previous generations.
Regarding yelling, I don’t remember the last time I yelled in my home. I prefer my wife not yell at me, but when she has, I have seldom yelled back. And I have said, “if you want to yell, we can go in the backyard and you can yell all you want while I just stand there.”
I do not want frequent yelling in front of children.
@dt79 can you imagine asking someone, after having complained about relationship drama and annoyance, “Why are you in this? What are you getting out of it?” and s/he responds, “It’s a testing ground for the real thing.”?
As I said, looking back on it and thinking about this construct, I concluded this is like adults playing with toy trucks.
I have actually known several men, including family members, repeatedly seriously complain about girlfriends, with some validity in the complaints. Some of the complaining was about emotional abuse. I have several times asked, “why are you with her?” In some instances there was no answer and the phone went silent or the guy looked at me speechless and dumbfounded.
One time someone was flipping out and angry at his girlfriend for repeated misdoings. When I asked, “So why not just end this?,” he looked at me frozen.
So there was not even an answer like, “Well, I know there are some problems here we need to work on. She’s a great woman and has a positive influence on me. She’ll be a great wife and mom, I think.”
Just ribbing you btw. In some aspects our generation is doomed as you’ve specified. My generation of youth from my perspective will have immense difficulty fostering and maintaining healthy relationships as entitlement is promoted, unrealistic expectations are all the rage and isolation over socialisation has become an accepted commodity (thanks covid!)
I saw this hilarious ted talk where a woman complains about being single, then proceeds to unravel a list of some 40 odd extremely unrealistic expectations that all served as requirements to qualify as an acceptable dating candidate… Let alone partner.
At the same time, I do believe most will still graduate school, go to college, earn a degree and get a job… That job might pay enough for an individual to afford adequate housing though as the property market has totally lost the plot in many large cities… And the entirety of Aus.
Most should be able to live life, however that life may be somewhat dysfunctional and directionless.
I’ve also noted many adolescents and young adults seemingly want little to do with anything intellectual. Reading books, philosophical discussions, academia, politics (aside from socialism and wokism)… You name it, many simply have no interest. They’d rather smoke cabbage and play video games. Not sure if this is a new phenomena, but I was thinking to myself the other day “Are kids getting dumber? Most can’t even drive down to the nearest pharmacy without the assistance of a GPS.”
If husband was me, that is the response I would get or close to it every time. Husband has learned not to care about stuff like that.
I think people are probably not going to be the same in regards to preferences. I don’t like clutter, and I don’t make a lot. My wife on the other hand like to pull stuff out to look at it or something, and doesn’t put it back. Clothes are a great example. She will pull out 5 outfits, pick one and leave the others out. This used to bother me. Now I realize it’s such a silly thing to be bothered by. The house doesn’t have to look how I want it. If I have no milk a day or two, it’s not the end of the world. I think I’ve done a good job on caring less about certain things.
Another thing we are working on is being consistent in expectations of others compared to ourselves. Her whole family has issues with this. Last Christmas, we showed up about 30 minutes late to her sister’s place due to an ice storm, additionally we forgot the rolls (we bought them, but forgot to bring them). Her sister threw a huge fit, and went off on how inconsiderate we were. The thing is, the sister is routinely that late to family gatherings, and has forgot items in the past.
My wife has a thing for me having to be very accurate about things like when I’ll be home from the gym. She will be really upset if I get talking to a gym buddy and miss my time by 30 minutes. But she is the queen of telling me a time and being off by a huge margin. I think this sort of thing is a her family thing. We have been working on that though.
I bring up these examples (that only involve my wife), but I am certainly not perfect at all (I am the harder one to be in a relationship with). We have been spending a lot of time communicating lately. It’s hard, and it doesn’t always go well. But I think it’s better to have an honest representation of what you are feeling, then holding it back for the sake of not having conflict.
Unrealistic expectations and entitlement → immense difficulty fostering healthy relationships
Isolationism → less opportunity to meet someone
The Ted talk I mention = about dating
Property market implodes → can’t afford a decent place in a decent neighbourhood → epidemiologically speaking there is a higher chance of adverse outcomes when raising children. It’s also not financially feasible to be able to tie the knot or have kids if you’re already living paycheck to paycheck just to pay rent.
If kids ARE getting dumber or more impulsive (I don’t think they are… Well… I have no reference point from interacting with adolescents born in prior generations) this may impede the ability to make good decisions or notice red flags when they appear. This may overlap and impede one’s ability to find a suitable partner capable of holding down a healthy long term relationship.
Here’s an example. I recently heard (in person) a self proclaimed feminist talk about her friend who only dates men (young adults) who are serial womanisers in effort to change them but “men are all assholes, you can’t change men” and I interjected and said “no… SOME men are assholes, some women are assholes. You probably can’t change an asshole… so don’t date one.”
However apparently this isn’t common sense to many my age, which has me questioning the level of emotional intellect harboured by my generation. If you lack this attribute, you may be unable to seek out a healthy lifelong partner. Imagine only dating serial womanisers, then getting all upset because they cheat on you. Infidelity is awful… But… Come… On… Be… Smarter…
I’m not advocating for forcibly arranged relationships, rather if emotional intellect is lacking we ought to bring back the constructs that develop this variable. I happen to believe it is lacking to a degree, there are SO many entitled brats who believe the world revolves around then. So many who seem to only give a damn about themselves. If one or both partners in a relationship are like this it is a recipe for disaster
Mine does this too. Fortunately, she has learned to accept that she does this. Unfortunately, accepting that it’s true doesn’t mean she has changed it or works toward being better at it.
Your wife & family remind me a lot of mine.
It took a pretty good learning curve to learn to live with a lot of that stuff.
I think that it is pretty common for people to be inconsistent with actions of others vs themselves.
We see a person cut over two lanes last minute to take an exit, and we think what a moron, learn how to drive idiot. We forget that last week we ran a stop sign we didn’t see. We always have a good explanation for our actions (just didn’t see the stop sign, honest mistake), but others are just inconsiderate.
I have this uncanny sense of time. I can call a time for a nap or even the nights sleep, then wake up from a dead sleep one minute before so that I’m awake At 6:30 am rather than starting to wake up when an alarm goes off.
Then there’s s my wife. She loses track of time so completely that she came to pick me up from a meeting one time (it was over at 9:00 pm.) and I was standing there talking to a cop.
She asks what he wanted, why he stopped to check up on me. I responded that it’s a courtesy to check on people who are hanging out outside of a church at 11:00 at night.
She honest to God had no fucking idea that she was 2 hours late.
So from then on, I drop her off at hers and come back to pick her up.
I’m pretty sure she actually has something wrong with her brain though. Like a physical deformation or damage to what ever makes us aware and conscious of time.
same!
Sometimes I have something on a timer in the kitchen. I’m working and suddenly feel like I should go to the kitchen. I go there and there’s <1min on the timer
My better half is very similar. She claims not to like clutter, but a look in any cupboard in our house will show the lie there. Used to drive me crazy, and I’d have this urge to “prove her wrong” and try and demonstrate how much clutter was there. Now, I just don’t care. I’ve realised it’s not a negative trait, it’s just very different to me (I’m so unmaterialistic it’s silly).
That was a mistake for me. We cleaned the house together, and I made note when doing so which items were my clutter and which were hers. It only resulted in her being mad at me. I’d rather be happy than have a clutter free house lol. And as I said, I think I am much more difficult to be with than her, so I need to keep how much of a PITA I am in mind, before I point anything out I don’t like that she does.
Sometimes, yes. But she’ll regularly go through and clear stuff out. It’s a family thing, her parents are borderline hoarders so from her viewpoint, she’s pretty minimalist and tidy. I come from the total opposite end of the spectrum. If I had my way, my home would look like a show home with just the absolute essentials of life.
@mnben87 yeah, I’ve previously been very guilty of letting my ego get in the way of happiness.
I have, actually, when I was in some kind of “relationship” with one LMAO. It was from a female who was prone to getting into shitty relationships and we had gotten into a rather casual one and we also had a working relationship at the time. Both of us were so involved in our careers we didn’t have time to date others so subconsciously we both knew it was temporary and we wouldn’t get too emotionally attached. To put it rather crudely, we were fuck buddies who are also good friends so we could be pretty open when talking about stuff like this without the fear of offending each other. It’s didn’t last very long but it ended amicably and we still have a similar working relationship although she’s finally found someone suitable and has less time for work.
And I’ll tell you this. She was always VERY nice to her close friends and loyal to a fault but to others, she was a fucking bigtime drama queen and a “fucked up c**t” in the words of almost everyone I met who had worked for her. Friends whom I didn’t know had known or worked for her before would have reactions that were usually wide eyed, jaw dropping displays of shock when they found we were in some kind of relationship and then a sudden acknowledgement that perhaps we were meant to be together since I can be a massive asshole too LOL.
Even in her real relationships, she’s the kind of woman who would start the fucking drama first to see if the man would stand up to her. If he did, she’d be a nice docile partner. If he didn’t, she’d look down on him and keep prodding him until he’d lose it and retaliate with stupid shit to the point of even smacking her since some of her ex-bfs I met were successful guys but they were the kind of guys I wouldn’t start shit with because IME I could tell they could be pretty fucking dangerous fuckers when provoked. But she was good at her career and we mutually respected each other so there was no drama between us unless shit happened when it came to work and the “friends with benefits” part came into play.
Different people have different thresholds for such drama. If you’ve never encountered it, you wouldn’t know how much it can affect you. Experience and failure are wonderful teachers and people who don’t learn from them should seek some actual professional help now that such services are widely available today. If someone meets a partner on their first relationship who’s completely fit for them, that’s great. But the odds aren’t on peoples’ side in general IME.
And, I mean, look, I’ve met lots of fucking WEIRD chicks. I’ve even dated a fucking Japanese cosplayer chick who had some hard on for Columbo (yes, that fucking TV series) and would spend hours watching reruns on VCD with my DAD when I visited them on the weekends. I couldn’t watch it because all my attention would be spent looking at how he moved his head and body so the audience wouldn’t notice his fake eye.
Here’s one story about an ex-gf. We ended our relationship amicably and she got a new boyfriend. When she introduced him to me, we hit it off so well she got jealous when we spent time doing guy shit and didn’t invite her lol. And then she’d get upset whenever I got a new girlfriend that she perceived was inferior to her. She went fucking ballistic when I met my wife who’s from China because she looked down on people from China at the time and we gradually lost contact. And I mean the “choose her or me” kind of ballistic while the guy who was still her BODYFRIEND at the time had become one of my BEST FRIENDS, which made no fucking sense at all.
