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To me humility across the board, not just in romantic relationships is probably one of the most admirable traits one can have. I'm especially impressed if the person is an accomplished person, really adds punch to it. I don't mean fake and insincere humility, but when it's genuine.
I also think that people that own their own crap and take responsibility for their side of a given situation is great too. I don't think these things come to us early in life, my opinion only.
I don't think it's possible to check your ego at the door, unless you are faking it, and that never lasts. I'd say it's important for people in a relationship to respect each others' egos, know where their lines in the sand are and respect them. There also has to be a willingness to compromise your position when it's a line in the sand for the other person. I've found in marriage, each of us has gotten about 15% of what we alone want, about 50% of what we both agree on, and the other 35% gets vetoed by one of us. Having an ego means you know who you are. You are confident and self assured and are not looking for someone else to lean on. When both people have an ego they stand up for themselves. They are equal partners in the relationship. Ego is self esteem. Having an ego doesn't mean you need to dominate someone else. That's more of a bad relationship for both parties, the dominator and the one being dominated. It's a lack of respect for the person being dominated by both parties. Having an ego also doesn't mean the need to brag, act superior, or seek constant praise or approval. If anything, these are signs of lack of self esteem, not ego.
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Originally Posted by Mink57
In order to not hijack the thread, "Why did you drop out of the dating pool?", I decided to start another thread about "ego" as a separate issue.
Personally, I'm one of 'those' people who believes that an out-of-control ego, a.k.a., an immature ego, is what causes MOST of the problems in our lives. Including intimate relationships.
So many seem to believe that they "deserve" a certain amount of 'happiness', and that "happiness" is to be supplied by others. From the man who believes that he "deserves" sex-for-dinner, to the woman who believes that 'he' should buy her a 3-week Tahitian vacation, simply because she "looks good"...after dating for 3 weeks.
Ego creeps up in everyday things. I have been with men who believed that they were going to 'control' me. And it all came down to ego for them. Controlling another human, especially a woman, felt "good" to them. Made their ego soar.
I have read that SOME "experts" believe that in order to have a successful intimate relationship, that BOTH parties need to "check their ego at the door".
I tend to gravitate toward men who have humility. I don't mean the 'wimpy' guys who say that EVERYTHING is their fault. But the ones who can look back on their lives, even if it was yesterday, and say, "Yeah. I really screwed up there".
Now, I've been with a few men who have literally faked humility. But I also discovered pretty quickly, that it was a fake-out.
Humility is actually what I see as MOST attractive in a man. It's actually why I don't sleep with men right away. If they show any sense of entitlement, I'm OUTTA THERE. PRONTO.
So, what say you? Do you think that ego belongs in a successful relationship? Do you think that a relationship can be successful without it?
Everyone gets into a relationship based on their own needs. No one gets into a relationship thinking hmm, what can I do for that person, unless they have some sort of saviour complex. Now if you satisfy each others' needs you have a match. Maybe you both like sex, or both like eating out, or both like the way each other looks and acts. Maybe neither cares about money or power, they are just looking for a person that makes them feel happy. Maybe they're both in love. What do they have to give? Themselves. You can't give more than that. That's why the wedding vows say "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part."
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Originally Posted by Mink57
Wow...Someone FINALLY gets it!
I've seen SOOOOO MANY PEOPLE who get into relationships based on their "needs". Of course, they're talking about sexual 'needs'. Makes me think whether or not we get into relationships for SELFISH reasons.
Seems that what we may have to 'offer' is either sex, money, or power.
What's left?
I agree. I see that humility IS considered a 'weakness' by many. But...
Just because one has humility doesn't mean that they're automatically a doormat. Then again, someone may feel that there's some kind of 'power' in being in front of someone who admits their mistakes....
...even if they have the same or WORSE mistakes.
Maybe we just have to sit back on our laurels, and patiently wait for 'the one' who sees humility as an asset instead of a 'flaw'.
I would say 95-98% of people think they are both humble and 'not wimps'.
So, it's really useless without context.
The only other thing I would add is that in retrospect the guys I knew when I was younger that were labeled 'kind of wimpy' because they were too nice around women, were honestly just really nice guys, and altruistic, and people I would much prefer to work with, have as friends, etc, etc.
It's really more about surrounding yourself with the people who are more like yourself.
Yes! In addition to this, does anyone actually want a partner to continue being with them, despite the relationship not meeting THEIR needs, just silently dealing with it? I don't.
This all speaks to something I bring up a lot around here. I think that a lot of people go into relationships with a lot of assumptions, that the way that they see things is the One True Way, and if another person is not on that page, then they are a bad person. Well, no, but they might be a bad partner for you specifically. And no one of us is an ultimate moral authority on how relationships must be, nor a mind reader. So the best way to figure out if you're compatible is just...to have conversations.
The post up a bit talking about giving people rope to hang themselves, man, that sounds like a whole game I would not want to play. It is, in my thinking, just as ego-driven to be like, "I'll do whatever I want, you're not the boss of me!" as it is to say, "My expectations form the shape of your objective moral value, and if I'm uncomfortable, then clearly you are an immoral person for making me that way." There are a lot of aspects to the very happy marriage I am now in, that would not be OK to that poster and others, but instead of silently judging me about it, if my husband did not like something (or vice versa) I would expect it to be brought up and discussed. In fact, we have both caused each other these moments of discomfort, and we brought it up, talked about it, processed, sometimes adjusted either a behavior or an expectation, and got past it.
Because I absolutely DO care about his feelings. And I expect him to also care about mine. Conflict resolution is a two way street, requiring negotiation, communication, compromise, and giving your partner the grace to be a human being.
So yeah, there is a sane middle ground between martyr and egomaniac, someone who has just a solid sense of their own self worth, and an appreciation of the value of their partner and a genuine desire to create a mutually beneficial relationship. Honestly I like that my husband has some ego, and stroking and uplifting it sometimes makes me happy. There are times we go to events together and I get done up to the nines (despite how that's not a typical thing for me to do) because I want him to feel proud of the wife on his arm. Yes, I want other men to look and want, and THEN, I want my husband to grok that I only have eyes for him and that I think he deserves to feel some pride. Ego doesn't have to be a monster, it can be something to play with for a bit of happiness, too.
That depends how you handle things, all I'm saying is you can't actually force anyone to do anything no matter how much you want to do so, and the way you word things does matter. There's a huge difference between expressing how something makes YOU feel and telling someone else not to do something. "I forbid you to leave the house dressed like that" doesn't go over well, at all. But a frank discussion of, "It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable if you're going to dress that provocatively, like I already find you so attractive, but I don't want every guy staring at you and checking you out." Obviously, some girls don't care, they're going to do what they want, but the truth is you don't have a right to both do whatever you want and demand people don't judge you. If you dress like a prostitute, I'll assume you are one.
I would say in the past, as it's not an issue anymore after 10 years, of course the best thing is to have honest discussions and lay down the ground rules. To me, that was very simple, there is no contact with any other guys unless it's a necessary professional contact, like speaking to a client clearly. These things aren't just accepted outright in 5 minutes, though, it literally took years for my wife to "get it," and let's be honest many women never do get it at all. They live in total ignorance their entire lives, which if that works for their guy, fine, but it's no less naive. My wife (girlfriend at the time) respected my wishes but kept up with the, "I feel like we should be able to have opposite sex friends, though," and I'd just ask, "So you're ok with me having a hot girl friend?" No, of course not. "But I want to be, I wish I was cool with it!" I don't aspire to be different than I am, I aspire to the truth, no matter how ugly it might be, so I never shared such a misguided idea. She had to learn the hard way, and I had a good chuckle about it. Some guy in her photography class asked if she wanted to grab coffee, and I told her to send the guy back, "Sure, that'd be fun, my boyfriend is coming too though." The guy wrote back and said nah, that's ok, sorry that's too awkward. If he wanted to be just friends, it shouldn't be any issue. This kind of thing played out again and again, I'd laugh every time, and eventually years down the road she got the idea. Guys don't want to be friends with girls, ever, for any reason besides finding them attractive. Any protestation to the contrary is just fantasy land and a willful denial of reality as it is for the belief that some utopia exists in their mind where this isn't the case. Every guy knows it, no guys are naive about this fact, it's sadly just girls. There have been many studies conducted on it too, and they did find for GIRLS, it's possible to be just friends with a guy, but for guys, it wasn't.
That depends how you handle things, all I'm saying is you can't actually force anyone to do anything no matter how much you want to do so, and the way you word things does matter. There's a huge difference between expressing how something makes YOU feel and telling someone else not to do something. "I forbid you to leave the house dressed like that" doesn't go over well, at all. But a frank discussion of, "It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable if you're going to dress that provocatively, like I already find you so attractive, but I don't want every guy staring at you and checking you out." Obviously, some girls don't care, they're going to do what they want, but the truth is you don't have a right to both do whatever you want and demand people don't judge you. If you dress like a prostitute, I'll assume you are one.
I would say in the past, as it's not an issue anymore after 10 years, of course the best thing is to have honest discussions and lay down the ground rules. To me, that was very simple, there is no contact with any other guys unless it's a necessary professional contact, like speaking to a client clearly. These things aren't just accepted outright in 5 minutes, though, it literally took years for my wife to "get it," and let's be honest many women never do get it at all. They live in total ignorance their entire lives, which if that works for their guy, fine, but it's no less naive. My wife (girlfriend at the time) respected my wishes but kept up with the, "I feel like we should be able to have opposite sex friends, though," and I'd just ask, "So you're ok with me having a hot girl friend?" No, of course not. "But I want to be, I wish I was cool with it!" I don't aspire to be different than I am, I aspire to the truth, no matter how ugly it might be, so I never shared such a misguided idea. She had to learn the hard way, and I had a good chuckle about it. Some guy in her photography class asked if she wanted to grab coffee, and I told her to send the guy back, "Sure, that'd be fun, my boyfriend is coming too though." The guy wrote back and said nah, that's ok, sorry that's too awkward. If he wanted to be just friends, it shouldn't be any issue. This kind of thing played out again and again, I'd laugh every time, and eventually years down the road she got the idea. Guys don't want to be friends with girls, ever, for any reason besides finding them attractive. Any protestation to the contrary is just fantasy land and a willful denial of reality as it is for the belief that some utopia exists in their mind where this isn't the case. Every guy knows it, no guys are naive about this fact, it's sadly just girls. There have been many studies conducted on it too, and they did find for GIRLS, it's possible to be just friends with a guy, but for guys, it wasn't.
Speaking of ego...
So what ground rules did your wife train you to accept?
Husband and I have lots of friends of various genders, and it's not a problem. Many of them are hot. Given our lifestyle, sometimes there's nudity. And yet, fidelity is not an issue. Not even difficult. Now you could assume on a night that I dress to kill, that I am a prostitute, but you can assume lots of things...it doesn't make you right.
I might be assuming things about you right now.
As for men and women being just friends... Why not? Because the men will want more if they are attracted? So what? I want a million dollars. It doesn't mean that they shouldn't let me into the bank. I don't really care what their motives are. If not getting any nookie is a problem for my male friends, they are free to opt out of the friendship whenever they like.
My husband and I have mutually negotiated our boundaries, and trust one another to uphold them. But you seem to have more of a power dynamic, that your wife has apparently consented to if she hasn't left and isn't being held there at gunpoint, than what we've got going on here.
So many seem to believe that they "deserve" a certain amount of 'happiness', and that "happiness" is to be supplied by others. From the man who believes that he "deserves" sex-for-dinner, to the woman who believes that 'he' should buy her a 3-week Tahitian vacation, simply because she "looks good"...after dating for 3 weeks.
This nonsense thinking does not happen in countries where women and men are true equals and therefore both parties pay for themselves on dates and so on.
However, I do understand the gist of your post, which is that people enter dating with a certain sense of entitlement and a lot of expectations. I have found that so many people cross a line between healthy self-esteem ("I expect my partner to treat me with respect") and ego ("I expect my partner to make me happy/please me/pay for me/take care of me").
Humility is a beautiful thing and I absolutely relate to your appreciation of it. Unfortunately it is rather hard to come by, which is a major reason why I do not have the stomach for dating at this point in time and may never have it again as long as I live in the USA.
If a relationship doesn't meet my needs, why should I be in it? Am I expected to be in a relationship as a form of charity? No I'd rather be single than in a relationship that doesn't meet my needs. But a relationship that does meet my needs is great.
Of course compromise happens and that is fine, as long as both parties are willing to compromise and meet in the middle. But if I'm with someone who wants me to fulfil their needs, but is not willing to fulfil my needs or even make compromises? Goodbye!
And yes it is selfish and that is fine - relationships are not an act of charity. Expecting me to stay in a relationship that doesn't meet my needs is selfish of the other party.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork
Yes! In addition to this, does anyone actually want a partner to continue being with them, despite the relationship not meeting THEIR needs, just silently dealing with it? I don't.
I think it depends on how people define "needs." We all need love (of some sort, not necessarily romantic) and to feel secure in our relationships, whatever kinds of relationships those may be. We all need to be treated with respect and kindness if and when we enter into romantic relationships.
Where people lose me is talking about things at the bottom two levels of Maslow's hierarchy--food, shelter, clothing at the bottom and things like employment, property, health at the second-to-bottom level--as needs in terms of what they expect a partner to provide for them. I am also not there for the top two levels of the hierarchy: status, self-esteem, recognition on the second level and then self-actualization at the top. Those are things we must achieve for ourselves, both within ourselves and in our communities through our own actions. Really, the only "needs" I see as relevant to a romantic relationship is the middle level, love and belonging. However, we don't necessarily need partners for that, either.
Truly, "needs" is a terrible word for describing romantic relationships, in my opinion. "Wants" is more my style because in my own personal world, it is far, FAR better to be wanted than needed.
I think it depends on how people define "needs." We all need love (of some sort, not necessarily romantic) and to feel secure in our relationships, whatever kinds of relationships those may be. We all need to be treated with respect and kindness if and when we enter into romantic relationships.
Where people lose me is talking about things at the bottom two levels of Maslow's hierarchy--food, shelter, clothing at the bottom and things like employment, property, health at the second-to-bottom level--as needs in terms of what they expect a partner to provide for them. I am also not there for the top two levels of the hierarchy: status, self-esteem, recognition on the second level and then self-actualization at the top. Those are things we must achieve for ourselves, both within ourselves and in our communities through our own actions. Really, the only "needs" I see as relevant to a romantic relationship is the middle level, love and belonging. However, we don't necessarily need partners for that, either.
Truly, "needs" is a terrible word for describing romantic relationships, in my opinion. "Wants" is more my style because in my own personal world, it is far, FAR better to be wanted than needed.
Agree, and I know I said something similar in a post today, either elsewhere in this thread or in another one. I think that want-based relationships are probably better off than need-based ones.
I use the word "needs" a bit casually, and I had a close friend ask me what I meant by that in a relationship context once. At the time, as I was poly, I told her that what I meant by that was if there is something that matters to me enough that I'm going to keep myself available and looking, until I find it in a partner. Honestly, at the time, I was referring to a point of kink/sexual compatibility that I'd recently discovered changed sex in general from "whatever" to "OMG" for me. Getting real...that's what I was talking about, then.
But...in deciding that I really wanted to be happy in this area, I also happened to find someone who changed my mind about not wanting to get serious, or exclusive, or marry, ever again. I had never encountered real, mutual, reciprocal love. Always in other relationships, there had been more investment on the part of one person than the other, and it created imbalances in enthusiasm and power in the relationship and all sorts of mess. I didn't expect to find what I found, but I did. And looking for sexual compatibility happened to be the start of that. Which, I guess, is...interesting. ?
Agree, and I know I said something similar in a post today, either elsewhere in this thread or in another one. I think that want-based relationships are probably better off than need-based ones.
I use the word "needs" a bit casually, and I had a close friend ask me what I meant by that in a relationship context once. At the time, as I was poly, I told her that what I meant by that was if there is something that matters to me enough that I'm going to keep myself available and looking, until I find it in a partner. Honestly, at the time, I was referring to a point of kink/sexual compatibility that I'd recently discovered changed sex in general from "whatever" to "OMG" for me. Getting real...that's what I was talking about, then.
But...in deciding that I really wanted to be happy in this area, I also happened to find someone who changed my mind about not wanting to get serious, or exclusive, or marry, ever again. I had never encountered real, mutual, reciprocal love. Always in other relationships, there had been more investment on the part of one person than the other, and it created imbalances in enthusiasm and power in the relationship and all sorts of mess. I didn't expect to find what I found, but I did. And looking for sexual compatibility happened to be the start of that. Which, I guess, is...interesting. ?
It makes sense, though. Like great relationships, great sex is a matter of balance and equality, with both people putting in mutual effort and getting mutual satisfaction. Happy you found someone to share that with!
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