Sorry, but “Love at First Sight” isn’t love at all — it’s actually lust

Love (at first sight) is dead.

“Love at first sight,” is a great romantic buzzword. People may ask you if you believe in it and romcom scriptwriters will throw it around with the same enthusiasm as a bride heaving a bouquet. But for the skeptic, it seems like a bit of a dubious concept. Rome wasn’t built in a day and a strong, loving relationship needs work, the skeptic will muse. Just take it from these couples married over 50 years. And guess what? Science is on the side of the skeptic.

According to a new study published in the Journal of the International Association for Relationship Research, “love at first sight,” or “LAFS” is almost always “a strong initial attraction,” i.e., lust. The study involved monitoring a series of 500 dating encounters from 200 participants and polling them about their different feelings of attraction to their respective romantic partner for each encounter. The participants were Dutch and German students in their mid-20s.

The research was divided into three stages: an online survey, a laboratory study, and three dating encounters lasting no longer than 90 minutes apiece. After the dating encounters, the participants were asked if they felt something like LAFS during the date and to what degree they found their counterpart physically attractive (eros). The “love components” that were measured were “intimacy,” “commitment” and “passion.”

Of all the encounters, LAFS was reported 49 total times by just 32 participants. And the vast majority of the time LAFS was reported, key love components, specifically commitment and intimacy, were missing from the romantic pairing. However, in almost every case of LAFS, the participant’s feelings of physical attraction to their counterpart was noticeably spiked.

The study was 60 percent women, but the majority of the reported instances of LAFS were by men. When LAFS was reported, it was almost always not reciprocated. Cue the ugly sobbing and “love is dead” recitations.

Only kidding! As mentioned before, love takes work and is very much alive. Looking for love yourself? Make sure to check out these expert-backed tips to get the love you want.

(SOurce: Reader's Digest)

Lawyers behind historic Section 377 verdict come out as a couple

In an interview to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on 18 July, Supreme Court lawyers, Menaka Gurswamy and Arundhati Katju opened up as being a couple.

Last year the Indian Supreme Court read down the draconian Section 377. Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju had spearheaded the legal challenge to strike down Section 377 of IPC.

The duo highlighted those who suffered under the law by enlisting more than two dozen gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people as co-petitioners. They contested that people risked arrest for publicly identifying themselves as part of the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) community.

“The loss in 2013 was a loss as lawyers, a loss as citizens. It was a personal loss. It is not nice to be a ‘criminal’ who has to go back to court as a lawyer to argue other cases.”
Menaka Guruswami to CNN

The judgement's relevance to the Global South pic.twitter.com/10xMOiiisy

— Saurabh Vashist (@saurabhvashist_) 18 July 2019

@MenakaGuruswamy @arundhatikatju Just posting a thread of this fascinating discussion on a judgement that continues to have profound relevance for the jurisprudence in the Global South and how this case was argued in the Supreme Court. pic.twitter.com/DG52vdpYFo

— Saurabh Vashist (@saurabhvashist_) 18 July 2019

Soon after the video was aired, the duo took to Twitter to tweet about #SareeTwitter.

Most court days you'll find me in a sari! Something about the 6 yards makes me sit up a little straighter, collect my thoughts and energy for arguments... #SareeTwitter pic.twitter.com/U9HDEyT70C

— arundhatikatju (@arundhatikatju) 18 July 2019

These women are sure breaking the glass ceiling and have paved the way for many more to do the same!

On 6 September the Indian Supreme Court struck down the draconian Victorian era law that criminalized homosexuality.

It emphatically overruled its regressive Koushal judgment of 2013, which had upheld Section 377 of the IPC in its entirety, allowing it to be used to punish even consensual same-sex acts.

History was made. It is no longer a criminal offense to be gay in India.

The Supreme Court of India delivered a landmark judgment, decriminalising a 157-year-old British-era law that criminalised even consensual homosexual relations.

The Constitution Bench, comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, as well as Justices Rohinton Nariman, DY Chandrachud, AM Khanwilkar and Indu Malhotra delivered a unanimous judgment.

“First step towards vanquishing enemies of prejudice and injustice has to be taken”, read the judgment. We must get rid of prejudice and discrimination. Concept of Constitutional morality creates responsibility of State to protect. Fidelity to constitutional morality must not be confused with popular sentiment.”
Justice DY Chandrachud

(Source: The Quint) 

Like most couples, I can't explain why my marriage ended in divorce

Nobody ever really knows exactly why they fall in or out of love. All that was clear amid the turmoil was that we could no longer stay together

The government has announced that married couples will soon be allowed to divorce without having to prove fault or apportion blame. It’s an important step that will remove the legal requirement to rehash and document personal grievances at a time when people are already wrestling with a tsunami of emotions, shattered hopes and dreams, and feelings of loss and betrayal. For couples with children, it can only help the parents to move towards a relatively stable and peaceful truce.

Currently, a partner who petitions for divorce has a choice of “adultery”, “unreasonable behaviour” and “desertion” as acceptable grounds for divorce, unless they can prove that that the two parties have already been separated for a number of years.

I’ve been divorced myself. The very idea that amid the pain of separation one of you has to sit down and list exactly why you are splitting up, just to clear a legal hurdle, makes no sense at all. Nobody ever really knows exactly why they fall in or out of love. In my own divorce, my ex-husband and I came up with the grounds together. In fact, it was the only part that was amicable, as the whole idea of a clear “reason” was nonsense; all that was clear was that we could no longer stay together.

There is no stability in a marriage that doesn’t work ( Getty/iStock )

“Divorce”, a friend advised me when I called her up in a flood of tears, my heart in tatters and my mind completely unable to accept what was going on, “is a decision that one of you makes and the other has to live with.” This is so often true. Perhaps there has been a couple who sat down to breakfast one morning and one partner calmly and rationally said: “I’m not really feeling this anymore. Are you?” And the other responded: “Not particularly, no. I was wondering when to bring it up.”

Perhaps. But I think the more common way to do it would involve some screaming of “YOU PROMISED YOU’D LOVE ME FOREVER!” and the lobbing of a fruit bowl at the wall.

In our case, I was very much the one who had to “live with it”. My view of marriage had been shaped by Disney and the example of my parents, Mr Chalk and Ms Cheese, for whom splitting up was (and still as) about as realistic an option as going to live in outer space. My husband, however, was raised on Star Trek by a single mum.

The one thing that we didn’t discuss, as we giddily planned our wedding, is what we would do if it didn’t work out. Perhaps we should have, but when you’re deeply in love and swaddled in oxytocin the possibility of falling out of it seems so much less of a priority than hiring a chocolate fountain.

Needless to say, not everyone is delighted by the proposed reforms. Andrea Williams, chief executive of Christian Concern, asked: “How can the justice secretary say in one breath that he wants to uphold the institution of marriage when he is tearing it down, allowing people to walk away from their solemn promises to hold together in life-long commitment?”

These objections always seem to revolve around “stability”, and the vital importance of forcing strangers to drown in misery “for the children”. But, of course, there is no stability in a marriage that doesn’t work, and nor can it provide a happy home to grow up in. Marriage doesn’t even guarantee that the relationship was stable in the first place; there’s no minimum period of cohabitation or legally mandated questionnaire that you have to fill out before you’re allowed to get hitched.

As it stands, we’re subjecting the transgressions – real and invented – of divorcing couples to a forensic examination in the courts, without ever bothering to establish acceptable grounds to tie the knot in the first place.

Centuries ago, when the state first got involved in marriage, it served as a kind of business contract that allowed people to survive, flourish, and foster allegiances, but in modern Britain, people get married most often because they are in love. Convention and tax breaks still play a part but, first and foremost, it is the ultimate way of declaring your love in front of everyone you know. If that love dies, then for many people their reason for being married goes with it, irrespective of whether their partner has cheated or even acted in an unreasonable way.

Just as marriage has changed, divorce laws have to change to keep up.

That all said, there is an institution that I want to uphold, and that is the institution of happy marriages. Thankfully, there will not be a single happy marriage affected by this reform. But a marriage where one partner wants to leave and the other won’t let them go is only an “institution” in the way that Wormwood Scrubs is.

(Source: Independent)

How to get over a break-up, according to psychology

Studies show that the brain responds to heartbreak like addicts experiencing cocaine withdrawal

There’s no way to sugar-coat it, break-ups are rough.

Sure, you can bitch and moan about your ex and chant self-love mantras till the cows come home – but there’s no denying the unbearable pain of parting ways with someone you once loved.

However, how long that pain lingers is ultimately up to you, explains psychologist Guy Winch, whose book, How to Fix a Broken Heart, debunks some common myths surrounding heartbreak.

While popular culture might have you believe that a new part-time lover and a perpetual supply of Ben & Jerry’s is all you need to move on, Winch explains that break-ups affect us far more severely than we realise.

“Functional MRI Brain scan studies have shown that the withdrawal of romantic love activates the same mechanisms in the brain as get activated when addicts go through withdrawal from substances like cocaine or opioids,” the TED speaker told The Independent.

“In other words, love is addictive and heartbreak causes us to go through powerful withdrawal.”

This, Winch explains, is why we obsess over our ex partners to the point where we feel we crave them as if they were a drug we have been deprived of.

This is also why it can be so hard to move onto someone else, he adds, because we’re inclined to idealise our exes to the nth degree, consequently distorting our memories of them by convincing ourselves that our romanticised vision of them is an accurate one, when most of the time it is not.

“You have to make sure that any thoughts you have about an ex are realistic and balanced,” Winch insists.

“If your mind conjures up images of your happiest weekend together, you need to add in the images from the weekend that drove you crazy and upset you tremendously.

“If you find yourself longing for their sweet embrace, you should remember the nights they rejected our advances and slept on the far edge of the bed.”

For those really struggling to get to grips with reality, Winch suggests writing down a list of all the reasons why the relationship didn’t work.

Another tricky aspect of heartbreak can be reckoning with the idea of “being dumped” and spending your days in a hole of self pity while the person who did the “dumping” is back out there living his or her best life without you.

Why is it so much harder to be broken up with than to break-up with someone yourself?

The answer might seem obvious, but Winch explains it’s crucial to fully understand this dissonance in order to fully “recover”.

While the break-up might seem sudden to the person who has just been dumped, Winch explains that their partner has probably been emotionally disengaged in the relationship for a long time.

“By the time the break-up happens, they are essentially over the relationship,” he said.

“However, the person who got dumped is just finding out and is in the most initial stages of grief and loss.

“People often find it bewildering that their ex was so normal and loving one week only to break-up with them the next. But the ex was only acting loving, because they hadn’t decided to ‘pull the plug’ yet, they weren’t actually feeling that way.”

When it comes to tackling heartbreak, Winch adds that there are a number of common traps people fall into.

Here, the author gives his top six tips to avoiding these and start your road to recovery ASAP.

Do NOT check up on them on social media. This will reinforce your ex’s presence in your mind and only make it harder for you to stop fantasising about your broken relationship.

Avoid creating mysteries about why the break-up happened, this will give your ex a starring role in your thoughts when you need to downgrade them to an extra. Accept any explanation that fits the facts and keeps your self-esteem intact such as they were unwilling to commit, they allowed themselves to drift emotionally and didn’t bring up what was happening until it was too late, or they were just not the person you thought they were.

Make a list of all of the compromises you had to make in the relationship that you would rather not make next time.

Do the things that used to bring you enjoyment and interest even if they don’t seem interesting and enjoyable now. Going through the motions is an important way to signal to yourself that life goes on.

Remove reminders of the relationship that cause you distress or pain such as texts and photographs.

Reach out to friends and make the most of their support; heartbreak is ubiquitous and everybody has their own words of wisdom to offer.

(Source: Independent)

The strongest couples are best friends first

The strongest couples go on dates that are fun, not just dates that are romantic. They visit amusement parks together and hold hands on roller coasters. They go to the arcade together and compete for the highest score. They watch comedies together and make jokes the entire time. They have fun whenever they are in the same room.

The strongest couples don’t only love each other, they actually like each other. They enjoy spending time together. They would rather watch movies and shop for groceries and take naps together than on their own. Everything is more exciting when they are side-by-side.

The strongest couples know what to say to make each other laugh. They know exactly what to do when their person is in a bad mood. They know which song or dance or youtube video will cheer them up the fastest.

Unsplash / William Recinos

The strongest couples can have a great time together without getting intimate. Without clothing coming off. Without things getting physical. The strongest couples love being around each other, even when they don’t get an orgasm out of the deal. They like each other for more than their bodies. They actually like their intelligence, their dedication, and their sense of humor, too.

The strongest couples tell each other everything. They talk about work. They talk about their families. They talk about their other friends. They give each other good news and bad news. They don’t hide anything. They don’t keep secrets. They are completely open.

The strongest couples laugh together. They have a million inside jokes to share. They have weird nicknames for each other that they aren’t embarrassed about using in public. They know exactly what to say when they want to tease each other but they never take it too far.

The strongest couples try new things together. They take vacations together. They sign up for classes together. They taste new foods and travel to new places together. If one person wants to see a certain concert or eat at a certain restaurant, then the other person is always willing to tag along.

The strongest couples can’t go a day without talking to each other. They send each other the dumbest jokes. They tag each other on social media just to be annoying. They aren’t afraid to send double or triple texts. They are completely comfortable with each other.

The strongest couples consider each other family, even if there isn’t any paperwork to make it official yet. They spend holidays together. They carpool to parties together. They are each other’s plus-one. They are a packaged deal.

The strongest couples act as a team. They have their own separate lives, and they realize they can’t be together all of the time, but they always support each other. They encourage each other. They have each other’s backs.

The strongest couples are best friends. They love spending time together, even if they aren’t doing anything more than lounging on the couch for the evening. They just love each other’s company. They love being in the same room. They love sharing their lives.

(Source: TC)

A 1946 love story: After 72 years of separation, 90-year-old man meets first wife

After Narayanan Nambiar and Sarada were split in 1946, their children from second marriages decided to set up a meeting for the two.

90-year-old EK Narayanan Nambiar finally met his 85-year-old wife Sarada recently, after 72 years of being separated from each other. When they met, bystanders say, Sarada went shy and quiet, much like the 13-year-old she had been when she parted ways from then 18-year-old Narayanan. As first reported exclusively by Mathrubhumi reporter CK Vijayan, Narayanan Nambiar and Sarada hadn't even spent one year together after their marriage in 1946 before fate and politics pulled them apart, following which they moved on to remarry and have their own families.

It was a meeting between their relatives that allowed their paths to cross once again. Like the greatest love stories, Narayanan Nambiar and Sarada’s story is suffused with drama, sorrow, heartbreak, and anti-feudal, anti-colonial politics.

An eight-month love story
Narayanan Nambiar and Sarada’s love story began and ended in 1946. The two had been married to each other for eight months when, in December 1946, “our story's hero” (as Narayanan Nambiar’s nephew Madhukar tells TNM), Narayanan Nambiar and his father Thaliyan Raman Nambiar decided to take part in the Kavumbai Farmers Rebellion, a farmer’s uprising to gain control over their own land and wrest it from the feudal leaders. In Kavumbai, the planned uprising was against the feudalist Karakattidam Nayanar, who controlled many parts of Kannur.

On the evening of December 30, 1946, Narayanan Nambiar, Thaliyan Raman Nambiar and 500 other volunteers marched to a hill near the house of Karakattidam Nayanar with weapons, planning to attack the house early the next morning.

However, members of the Malabar Special Police (MSP), tasked by British colonial rulers to protect the interests of Kerala’s feudalist rulers, caught wind of their plan and surrounded the hill that same night, firing at the group with machine guns. Five protesters were killed by machine gun fire, while EK Narayanan Nambiar and his father went underground. They were later arrested by police, after which they were imprisoned in Kannur and Salem jail. Although Narayanan Nambiar suffered 16 bullet wounds in the firing, he managed to survive, but continues to carry one single bullet inside him. His father Thaliyan Raman Nambiar, however, was shot dead in jail on suspicion of being involved in violent protests.

Meanwhile, on December 31, 1946, 60 members of the MSP had arrived at the home of Narayanan’s wife Sarada and his mother. They broke into the house, destroying their rations of ghee, milk, pepper and rice, and attacked his mother, as they suspected that Thaliyan Raman and Narayanan Nambiar had returned home. They returned soon after, and burned their house down.

With no signs or hopes of Narayanan’s return, and after a few more violent visits from the MSP, Sarada’s mother-in-law decided to send her back to her natal home, where she was soon remarried.

Eight years later, in 1954, Narayanan was released from jail in Salem and left for his home, only to find out that his wife had been remarried. Narayanan Nambiar, too, remarried and had seven children.

A date after 72 years
Narayanan Nambiar’s niece, writer Santha Kavumbayi, even wrote a novel based on the events of Narayanan Nambiar’s life, titled 30 December.

When Bhargavan, Sarada’s son, happened to meet Santha and Madhukumar, they decided to speak to their respective family members and set up a meeting between the two. They met at Bhargavan’s house in Parassinikkadavu in Kannur district.

Sarada’s family prepared a traditional Kerala meal of kappa (tapioca), kanji (rice gruel) and puzhukku (a root vegetable dish) to welcome Narayanan Nambiar, who came with his sister-in-law and her children.

In videos of their meeting, Narayanan Nambiar can be seen patting her head, while Sarada’s eyes were trained on the floor. At other times, when Narayanan Nambiar speaks to others present in the house about the events that cast them apart, Sarada can be seen stealing a few glances at him before looking away.

They discussed how neither of them was angry at anyone for the events in their life. As her children brought up memories of their mother, Sarada said that she never had to work and was treated like a daughter by Narayanan Nambiar’s family.

Before he was set to leave, again, Narayanan Nambiar laid his hand on her head and told her “I am leaving now”, while Sarada simply nodded and looked to the ground.

(Source: TNM)

How do you break up with someone? You asked Google – here’s the answer

Every day millions of internet users ask Google life’s most difficult questions, big and small. Anouchka Grose, a psychoanalyst, and the author of No More Silly Love Songs, answers some of the commonest queries in the Guardian. Read on: 

First of all, consult someone who’s messed it up horribly at least a couple of times. They will offer some mature and very wise counsel, not at all tinged with bitterness and regret. They won’t simply spout generic “good advice” about kindness, understanding and listening; they’ve lived. They will know that, in certain instances, it’s better just to get out and not think about the other person’s feelings; it’s thinking about their damn, stupid feelings the whole time that’s landed you in this decade-long misery-fest. If this is your case, just pack your stuff and do your thinking later. In the end you will both be glad. (See? Very sophisticated.)

 Not only are you choosing to throw yourself into the void, but you are also chucking someone else in involuntarily.

 ‘It’s awful to leave someone who doesn’t want to be left, but it can also be awful to stay with them.’ Photograph: Alamy

If, however, it’s you that’s the scoundrel – you’re having an affair or have just “gone off” someone nice who seems to love you – try not to be too much of a twit about it. It can be really shameful to be on the wrong side of this one, and shame can push you either to be dishonest or to try to redistribute the blame. Don’t attempt to convince yourself, and especially not your mutual friends, that the other person isn’t exactly a paragon of partnerhood either. Of course they aren’t, nobody is, but that doesn’t mean you have to highlight their flaws in order to make yourself feel better. Then again, there’s no need to make a massive show of self-flagellation. A touch of stoicism will do just fine. Take them out to dinner, take their feelings seriously, and let them shout at you a bit if they want to.

It’s awful to leave someone who doesn’t want to be left, but it can also be awful to stay with them. If you let them go, you will at least be giving them a chance to find someone else who is actually capable of loving them. And when you hear, 20 years later, that they are living in Brooklyn with their partner and child, you will almost cry with happiness. (At the same time as wondering, self-indulgently, whether their romantic good fortune has made it possible for them to forgive you at least a little bit. Wow, Anouchka, you really can’t let go of the idea of being a “good person”!)

Come to think of it, kindness, understanding and listening might have been quite a good idea, at least if you’re the scoundrel. There’s nothing more stupid than acting out rather than trying to articulate yourself. It’s got to be kinder to say you’re unhappy than to sleep with some passer-by (whom you then marry). The problem is that, when you start to talk and listen, you often find you can’t help liking, even loving, the other person – and that makes it very difficult to abandon them.

The one advantage of dumb acting out is that it can at least give the abandonee an opportunity to hate you. If you’re absolutely sure that leaving is essential then why spend loads of time trying to make it possible for them to continue to think well of you? This could even be considered a little vain. Attempting to do something horrible to someone in a polite way is inherently problematic. (Just look at the government.) While there might be a free-floating cultural ideal that tells us to try to be on good terms with everyone at all times, sometimes this just isn’t possible. Of course there’s no need to be nasty for the sake of it, but neurotically trying to be perfect can be time-consuming and messy. Some breakups take years. There are people who can, apparently, bring about the ideal disunion, but if everyone expects to do the same they might find themselves having a lot of very long, sad and frustrating conversations when they could have been out enjoying the sunshine. But, then again, sunshine gives you cancer and serious dialogue can make you more humane and insightful.

‘Consider divorcing on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour rather than waiting two years and calling it irretrievable breakdown.’ Photograph: Alamy

It’s hard to feel good about ending a long-term relationship, even when it’s ultimately for the best. Not only are you choosing to throw yourself into the void, but you are also chucking someone else in involuntarily. Whether they are an angel, a devil, or even just an ordinary human being, you might feel dreadful about what you’re about to do to them. That’s not a sign that you’re making a bad choice, it’s just a register of the fact that you do still care about them. So that’s nice.

On a more practical note, if you’re married to someone who does properly terrible things, consider divorcing on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour rather than waiting two years and calling it irretrievable breakdown. (But do bear in mind that it’s probably unwise to be too idealistic about divorce courts; #freetiniowens.) It’s so common for these things to be lost to history; the perp wants to go about their life as usual, find another hostage ASAP, and pretend none of it ever happened. Or if it did, it was just as much your fault as theirs. This sort of whitewashing can leave you with a disconcerting feeling of unreality. Possessing a legal document that acknowledges what actually went on might help. Having said that, if you’ve stayed in a long-term relationship with someone who’s demonstrably bad news you’ve probably lost your mental coordinates enough to find it difficult to fight for justice or recognition. If so, re-read the first paragraph, pack, and don’t forget to throw cress seeds on their sofa on the way out (or seek other good revenge advice on Mumsnet). It’s more important to be out than to be “right”.

As you can see, this is all very considered and impartial. Sometimes it’s them, sometimes it’s you (but don’t ever actually say: “It’s not you, it’s me”, obvs). And now I think it’s time for me to finally get round to doing that thinking.

Emotionally intelligent husbands key to a lasting marriage

In a long-term study of 130 newlywed couples, Dr. John Gottman discovered that men who allow their wives to influence them have happier marriages and are less likely to divorce.

This critical skill is not limited to heterosexual couples. It’s essential in same-sex relationships as well, but the research shows that gay and lesbian couples are notably better at it than straight couples. See The 12 Year Study for more on this.

I want you to meet Lauren and Steven.* While Steven believes an equal partnership is the key to a happy and lasting marriage, his actions speak differently.

Steven: “The guys and I are going fishing this weekend. We are leaving later tonight.”
Lauren: “But my girlfriends are staying with us on Friday, and I need help cleaning the house tonight. We talked about this. How could you forget? Can you leave tomorrow morning?”
Steven: “How did you forget I have my guys trip? I can’t change our departure schedule. We are leaving in a few hours.”

Lauren’s anger boils. She calls him a “selfish asshole” and storms out of the kitchen.

Feeling overwhelmed, Steven pours himself a glass of whiskey and turns on the football game.

When Lauren walks back into the room to talk, he stonewalls her. She starts to cry. He announces he needs to work on his truck and leaves the room.

Arguments like these are full of accusations, making it difficult to determine the underlying cause. What is clear is Steven’s unwillingness to accept Lauren’s influence.

Rejecting Influence
It’s not that marriage can’t survive moments of anger, complaints, or criticism. They can. Couples get in trouble when they match negativity with negativity instead of making repairs to de-escalate conflict. Dr. Gottman explains in The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work that 65% of men increase negativity during an argument.

Steven’s response doesn’t show that he hears Lauren’s complaint. Instead, he responds with defensiveness and sends a complaint right back: Why didn’t she remember his plans?

The Four Horsemen – criticism, defensiveness, contempt, stonewalling – are telltale signs that a man is resisting his wife’s influence.

My point is not to insult men. It takes two to make a marriage work and it is just as important for wives to treat their husbands with honor and respect. But Dr. Gottman’s research indicates that a majority of wives – even in unhappy marriages – already do this.

This doesn’t mean women don’t get angry and even contemptuous of their husbands. It just means that they let their husbands influence their decision making by taking their opinions and feelings into account. Data suggests that men do not return the favor.

Statistically speaking, Dr. Gottman’s research shows there is an 81% chance that a marriage will self-implode when a man is unwilling to share power.

What Men Can Learn From Women
There are books that say men are from Mars and women are from Venus. While this isn’t literally true, men and women often do feel alien to each other.

This starts in childhood. When boys play games, their focus is on winning, not their emotions or the others playing. If one of the boys get hurt, he gets ignored. After all, “the game must go on.”

With girls, feelings are often the first priority. When a tearful girl says, “we’re not friends anymore,” the game stops and only starts again if the girls make up. In The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, Dr. Gottman explains, “the truth is that ‘girlish’ games offer far better preparation for marriage and family life because they focus on relationships.”

There are plenty of women who are unaware of these social nuisances and men who are deeply sensitive to others. In Dr. Gottman’s research, however, only 35% of the men were emotionally intelligent.

Two Roads Diverged
…and I took the relationship-focused one.

The husband who lacks emotional intelligence rejects his wife’s influence because he fears a loss of power. And because he is unwilling to accept influence, he will not be influential.

The emotionally intelligent husband is interested in his wife’s emotions because he honors and respects her. While this man may not express his emotions in the same way his wife does, he will learn how to better connect with her.

When she needs to talk, he’ll turn off the football game and listen. He will pick “we” over “me.” He will understand his wife’s inner world, continue to admire her, and communicate this respect by turning towards her. His relationship, sex life, and overall joy will be far greater than the man who lacks emotional intelligence.

The emotionally intelligent husband will also be a better father because he is not afraid of feelings. He will teach his children to respect their emotions and themselves. Dr. Gottman calls this Emotion Coaching.

Because this man is deeply connected to his wife, she will go to him when she is stressed, upset, and overjoyed. She’ll even go to him when she is aroused.

How to Accept Influence
Dr. Gottman suspects men who resist their wives influence do so without realizing it. Accepting influence is both a mindset and a skill cultivated by paying attention to your spouse every day. This means building your Love Maps, expressing your fondness and admiration, and accepting bids for connection.

And when conflict happens, the key is to understand your partner’s point of view and be willing to compromise. Do this by identifying your inflexible areas and searching for something both of you can agree to.

For example: Steven understands that Lauren is stressed about having company when the house is a mess. While he may not be able to delay his trip until the next morning, he can push it back to later that evening so he can help her around the house first. Maybe instead of Steven vacuuming and wiping down the counters (typically his task), Lauren could wipe them down in the morning before her friends arrive so Steven could leave a little earlier with his buddies.

Accepting your partner’s influence is a great strategy for gaining more respect, power, and influence. Want to have a happy and stable marriage? Make your commitment to your partner stronger than your commitment to winning. If you do that, your marriage wins.

*Author’s Note: In the example provided, Lauren’s negativity is realistic (and understandable) because her needs are not being met. There tends to be criticism and frustration from both partners in these relationships. With that said, if Lauren had softened her start-up, Steven may have received it better and accepted her influence.

In all marital conflicts, both parties have responsibilities as a speaker and a listener. The listener’s role is to listen non-defensively for the emotional bid for connection, even if the tone used is harsh, while the speaker’s role is to use a soft start-up by complaining without blame.

(Source: The Gottman Institute)

Happy couples who post slushy stuff on Facebook all the time ‘probably hate each other’

Everyone knows a Facebook ‘power couple’ whose selfies and gushing posts look and sound like a love montage from a Hollywood film. But you know what? They may well hate each other’s guts. I'm not saying this. It's a research Metro has published. Read it to believe it:

Sexologist Nikki Goldstein told Mail Online, ‘Often it’s the people who post the most who are seeking validation for their relationship from other people on social media.

‘The likes and comments can be so validating that when someone is really struggling, that’s where they get their up from – not the person making the gesture, but what other people will say about it.

It can also be an indicator that one partner is controlling and possessive, Goldstein warns.

Previous research from Brunel University found that people who posted frequently about their romantic partner often had low self-esteem, according to the researchers, who surveyed 555 Facebook users.

When couples fight over books

How people keep, display and discard books can be the stuff of heated debate, writes Elizabeth Bernstein for WSJ: 

After bickering with her husband nonstop for a week recently, Amber Fallon made a huge sacrifice for love. Four books.

This represented an appeasement in the ongoing book battles between Ms. Fallon and her husband, John. Both are big readers. Both own many books. His are alphabetized in a floor-to-ceiling bookcase in their bedroom. Hers take up three of his shelves, fill their home office and stack precariously in a “To Be Read” pile in a corner.

When books start to spill onto tables and countertops, Mr. Fallon—who gives away many of his books once he’s read them—demands answers. Why does his wife need two copies of the same title? Why keep ones she’s already read? “She believes in some form of immortality by having books around,” says Mr. Fallon, 39, a systems technician.

The couple, in Maynard, Mass., reached a standoff when Mr. Fallon found two copies each of Stephen King’s “It” and Brian Keene’s “A Gathering of Crows” and “The Complex.” His wife explained that they were different editions—she had one hardcover and one paperback of each. Friends even sided with her. But she admitted she was unlikely to read both copies. And so she reached a compromise, donating four paperbacks—three by Mr. King and one by Dean Koontz—to the local library. She kept Mr. Keene’s books because he’s her favorite author.

“I am a collector and books are my friends,” says Ms. Fallon, a 33-year-old technical engineer for a software company who writes horror novels in her spare time.

If you and your partner haven’t bickered about books, you’re probably not readers.

Books are deeply personal possessions. What is a formative or essential volume to one might be nothing but clutter to that person’s spouse. Which books do you keep? Where do you store them? How do you organize them—alphabetized or by genre or color? How do you explain to a partner who has abandoned real books for an e-reader why you must keep all your physical copies? These dilemmas touch on control of space, but also on divergences between two minds. On top of all that, there’s the problem of being embarrassed by the titles your spouse has on the shelf.

“Books are about self-identity—personal history, formation, interests—and thus are markers of how much spouses accept their differences,” says William Doherty, a marriage and family therapist in St. Paul, Minn.

There are batches of books you can never give away. These come in two categories. “Influencers” are books that formed you. These include books from your childhood, college books, and that musty volume of poetry you read every day when you were 24.

“Sentimentals” are books you are loyal to, even if you will never read them again (if you ever did). These include books someone you loved who is now gone gave you, books that belonged to your grandfather or a another loved one now dead, and beloved books you read to your children. Add here books a friend wrote, no matter how bad. You can never part with those.

It’s been widely reported that after the travel writer Paul Theroux discovered first-edition copies of his books he’d personally inscribed to the novelist V.S. Naipaul, his mentor and friend, in an auction catalog, the two didn’t speak for about 15 years. Mr. Theroux later wrote about his hurt over this incident in an unsparing memoir about his relationship with the other writer.

So couples have conflicts. When Suzan French’s husband boxes up his own books to give away,” the 46-year-old New York marketing company owner surreptitiously re-shelves them. Titles that recently appeared back on the couple’s shelves include “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and “Venus in Furs.”

Author Jeff Burlingame’s wife, Lisa Patterson, a 41-year-old magazine editor, parks her car in the street outside their house in Tacoma, Wash., because her husband has hundreds of extra copies of his 32 books heaped in boxes taking over the garage.

Marlene Critch, 81, a retired health-information administrator from Burien, Wash., is still mourning the Merriam-Webster dictionary her husband nudged her to get rid of when they downsized into a condo three years ago. A 13th birthday present, it was inscribed: “To Honey Bunny from Daddy.”

When Ellen Jovin moved in with her then-boyfriend, Brandt Johnson, she wrote a small “e” in pencil on the first page of her books and a “b” in his, slipping a piece of paper with the initials in books she didn’t want to write in. “I saw the books as my critical property, a symbol of what I was, what I cared about,” says Ms. Jovin, 51, a communication consultant from New York City. “I wanted that identity intact.”

That was 23 years ago. The couple, now married, have merged their books—spreading them out across their home and shared office, combining sections and alphabetizing them. These days, Ms. Jovin is more likely to give away books she’s read, a habit she learned from her husband, and to see the merging of books as a metaphor for a relationship. “You turn outward, you become generous, and you don’t care so much about what is solely yours anymore,” she says.

ADVICE FOR COUPLES ON MANAGING YOUR BOOKS:
Don’t merge. If you have the space, keep your books separate. And set up boundaries regarding clutter and piles. “Books are very personal and it isn’t worth the stress on the marriage fighting over them,” says Sharon Gilchrest O’Neill, a marriage therapist in Mount Kisco, N.Y., who was once called to a couple’s home to help them cull their books.

Visualize your space. It is impossible to know how much needs to go until you know how much room you have. Think about everywhere you can put books. Build the bookshelves. Then decide what stays.

Discard equally. If you’re getting rid of books, you each need to remove the same amount. Decide on an equal number of books or bookshelves that need to be cleared out.

You have final say on your own books. But please consider your partner’s suggestions carefully. Defer to the more organized person.

Involve a third party. A friend, a sibling, your mom—all will understand what books are important to you. But you’ll be less likely to argue when they tell you to ditch the copy of “Tropic of Cancer” you got from your high school sweetheart.