Going to do something off brand: this is my relationship advice thread. 😳 What I wish knew when I was 20.
1. Don’t listen to your friends and relatives, and their opinions about who you should be with. They’re not you and don’t know what you need.
2. Do listen to your friends and relatives when they say your partner treats you mean. They don’t know what you need, but they notice the things you don’t want to see.
3. Relationship takes work. You’re both going to adjust to each other throughout the whole time you’re together. Sometimes, you’re going to annoy the hell out of each other.
4. If all you ever hear or say is that relationship takes work, beware. “We need to make it work” is a huge fucking warning sign, coming from either of you. Need why? Look deeper.
5. Liking the same things is a terrible signal for whether to form a relationship. If you want to be unhappy, marry your closest Last.fm match.
6. Some days you might talk for hours, other days you might barely exchange a word. In a happy relationship, both feel good.
7. Where there is pity or envy, there cannot be respect. Without respect, there is no friendship. Without friendship, there is no love.
8. You’ll learn more about your relationship in two weeks after moving in together than during two years before that. Delaying that is an irresponsible waste of time for both of you.
9. It there’s a nagging feeling that something is wrong, something is wrong.
10. Soulmates are bullshit. They’re not “the one”. But this doesn’t mean you can get along with anyone. You need alignment on two things: Values and Vibe.
11. You’re aligned on Vibe when both talking and sitting in silence feels good. You’re aligned on Values when you both agree what “good” means in life. Vibe is micro. Values is macro.
12. You’re going to hate each other’s guts sometimes. But in a loving way.
13. In a good relationship, there is no shame. You can let out a fart if you want. But there is also a personal space. Neither of you has to share everything.
14. In fights, you need to learn and respect each other’s coping mechanisms. If someone needs to go out and walk a few miles, that’s cool. If the other person wants to crawl in bed and not talk for the rest of the day, that’s cool too. Give each other the space to calm down.
15. The media portrayal of happy relationships really screws with our minds. For example, you don’t have to take every vacation together! It’s okay to take a break from each other, explore the world independently, and then share the fun things you found.
16. It’s okay to want to have kids. It’s also okay to not want to have kids. You probably want to discuss this sooner rather than later.
17. We already have Values and Vibe, so let’s add Vision and make it three Vs. Where do you both see yourselves in ten years? There might be things to figure out (e.g. disagreements on living in the city vs country), but you need to at least be able to have that conversation.
18. If you only ever talk about plans, something’s amiss. If you’re waiting for a relationship to get better after some arbitrary point (graduation? new job? move?), notice that the target keeps changing and is always just out of reach. We fool ourselves best.
19. Being alone is much better than being in a relationship primarily because you don’t want to be alone again.
20. If one of you needs warmth and physical affection and the other one can’t give or receive it, it’s not gonna work. Sorry.
21. Vibe includes a shared sense of humor. If you don’t have much intersection there, it’s gonna be tough. Values include a similar attitude towards money. This doesn’t mean coming from the same economic background — but it means a shared sense of what’s okay to spend on what.
22. This is correct
23. This is also a great point
24. Gossiping together is good. It means you trust each other.
25. A fight getting physical is a huge breach of trust and a good reason to end the relationship.
26. You don’t need to “earn” happiness by suffering. For example, both I and my wife are happy in our current relationship. But her past experiences have been way more positive than mine. I wish someone taught me better when I was younger. </thread>
