Sociopath Community

Aren't you divorced?

Really fucking vague. 

wtf is 'shame baggage'?

I am happily divorced. I just posted this for opinions and comments. It is interesting to me what the "experts" say on the matter.

1. We marry people because we like who they are. People change. Plan on it. Don't marry someone because of who they are, or who you want them tobecome. Marry them because of who they are determined to become. And then spend a lifetime joining them in their becoming, as they join you in yours.
People don't really "change", they adapt to the changes around them. The only thing that really changes is how you see them and how well you know them.

2. Marriage doesn't take away our loneliness. To be alive is to be lonely. It's the human condition. Marriage doesn't change the human condition. It can't make us completely unlonely. And when it doesn't, we blame our partner for doing something wrong, or we go searching for companionship elsewhere. Marriage is intended to be a place where two humans share the experience of loneliness and, in the sharing, create moments in which the loneliness dissipates. For a little while.
"We"?

"Little while"?

3. Shame baggage. Yes, we all carry it it. We spend most of our adolescence and early adulthood trying to pretend our shame doesn't exist so, when the person we love triggers it in us, we blame them for creating it. And then we demand they fix it. But the truth is, they didn't create it and they can't fix it. Sometimes the best marital therapy is individual therapy, in which we work to heal our own shame. So we can stop transferring it to the ones we love.
Seriously, who is this "we"?

4. Ego wins. We've all got one. We came by it honestly. Probably sometime around the fourth grade when kids started to be jerks to us. Maybe earlier if our family members were jerks first. The ego was a good thing. It kept us safe from the emotional slings and arrows. But now that we're grown and married, the ego is a wall that separates. It's time for it to come down. By practicing openness instead of defensiveness, forgiveness instead of vengeance, apology instead of blame, vulnerability instead of strength, and grace instead of power.
It's definitely before the fourth grade. Think about the general unwillingness to share, that's present even at an early age.

Ego is a healthy thing to have as long as you are aware that it's there and don't let it rule you entirely. A complete absence of ego is far less healthy. Two people married are still two people.

5. Life is messy and marriage is life. So marriage is messy, too. But when things stop working perfectly, we start blaming our partner for the snags. We add unnecessary mess to the already inescapable mess of life and love. We must stop pointing fingers and start intertwining them. And then we can we walk into, and through, the mess of life together. Blameless and shameless.
So. Much. "We".

At least using myself as a model, I'm more prone to blaming myself than those around me. Pointing fingers has it's time and place, it just shouldn't be all the time.

6. Empathy is hard. By its very nature, empathy cannot happen simultaneously between two people. One partner must always go first, and there's no guarantee of reciprocation. It takes risk. It's a sacrifice. So most of us wait for our partner to go first. A lifelong empathy standoff. And when one partner actually does take the empathy plunge, it's almost always a belly flop. The truth is, the people we love are fallible human beings and they will never be the perfect mirror we desire. Can we love them anyway, by taking the empathy plunge ourselves?
I thought empathy was supposed to be passive. Are you sure you don't mean "understanding"?

7. We care more about our children than about the one who helped us make them. Our kids should never be more important than our marriage, and they should never be less important. If they're more important, the little rascals will sense it and use it and drive wedges. If they're less important, they'll act out until they are given priority. Family is about the constant, on-going work of finding the balance.
What? Kids should be more important than the marriage, because those kids are their responsibility. If they chose to not abort, put it into adoption, or stop it before that point, it's their responsibility. There's more than enough ways to get out of it before it becomes too much of a problem. Sure they'll model off of the marriage they see in front of them, but that's why it's their responsibility to show a model that's worth modeling.

Kids are a larger responsibility, they can't just raise themselves (at least not well).

8. The hidden power struggle. Most conflict in marriage is at least in part a negotiation around the level of interconnectedness between lovers. Men usually want less. Women usually want more. Sometimes, those roles are reversed. Regardless, when you read between the lines of most fights, this is the question you find: Who gets to decide how much distance we keep between us? If we don't ask that question explicitly, we'll fight about it implicitly. Forever.
Compromise is indeed something of any relationship, but your attachment to gender is still sexist even with your attempt to use the word "usually" and "Sometimes reversed" as if gender were the reason despite exceptions existing. Ideally before rushing marriage they'd make sure they're on the same page about details that matter to them.

9. We don't know how to maintain interest in one thing or one person anymore. We live in a world pulling our attention in a million different directions. The practice of meditation--attending to one thing and then returning our attention to it when we become distracted, over and over and over again--is an essential art. When we are constantly encouraged to attend to the shiny surface of things and to move on when we get a little bored, making our life a meditation upon the person we love is a revolutionary act. And it is absolutely essential if any marriage is to survive and thrive.
"Anymore"? When do you think affairs were first invented?

People must own things. It is the nature of our society.

http://www.aboriginalculture.com.au/socialorganisation.shtml

Aboriginal custom all over Australia bans a person from talking directly to their mother in law. This rule applies to both men and women talking to their mother in law. Perhaps this rule was developed to overcome such a common cause of friction in families, when a husband or wife has to endure many years of disagreement or argument from their mother in law!

Lol...

A family group can be quite large, consisting of a man and his wives, the children from each wife, and sometimes his parents or in-laws. A man often has from two to four wives, ranging from one to more than ten. Nowadays, most men have just one wife.

Hey Reaper, you ever eye up your daughters boyfriends?

by Stayonhere
I am happily divorced. I just posted this for opinions and comments. It is interesting to me what the "experts" say on the matter.

So you feel more secure now. Way to go!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_cannibalism

Sexual cannibalism is when a female cannibalizes her male mate prior to, during, or after copulation.[1]

by Stayonhere

3. Shame baggage. Yes, we all carry it it. We spend most of our adolescence and early adulthood trying to pretend our shame doesn't exist so, when the person we love triggers it in us, we blame them for creating it. And then we demand they fix it.

!!!!

What is shame baggage? Is this a hidden emotional deficit criteria for psychopathy?

I have done very little in my life that i am ashamed of.

If I were to ever get married, it would have to be with a women who complimented my lifestyle and personality. 

Why are you posting that here?

I have heard the term "shame" used frequently when discussing narcissism. They have a lot of shame. Why? I am not sure.