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Cyan comments on Open Thread: June 2009 - Less Wrong
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I need relationship advice and I trust the wisdom and honesty of this community more than most of my friends. I created a new account to ask this question.
I'm with an incredibly compassionate, creative woman. She excels at her job, which is a "helping profession," and one which I believe improves social welfare far more than most. The sex is outstanding.
But she loves magical thinking, she is somewhat averse to expected-utility calculations, my atheism, etc. She is, by her own admission, subject to strong swings of emotion and at greater than average risk of longer-lasting depression. We love each other but are scared that our differences may be too great.
How would you personally feel about a relationship like this? How should I go about deciding whether to continue this?
Added: We have been together more than 6 months. She has learned a decent amount about my way of thinking, but I have not pushed it on her. I frequently mention how great rationality is (but also mock myself to make sure we're all having fun).
I wish I had confidence that trying to convert her to my way of thinking would have net-benefits for her and for the world long-term, but I don't. Not that I'm convinced trying to convert her is a bad idea on utilitarian grounds either, it just seems risky.
With science!
Specifically, the science of John Gottman. Short version: irreconcilable differences of viewpoint are not an intrinsic bar to a long-lasting relationship. The most potent relationship poison is contempt.
I was pretty amazed the first time I saw this, and even though I'm pretty confident in my relationship, it seems like this test would still be worth quite a bit.
Does anybody still run these microexpression tests or would you have to convince the researchers to get back into it for a one off thing?
When I looked, I couldn't find anyone offering to run this test. I hadn't gone far enough as to contact the original researchers and see if they'd be willing to do it, but if there are other people interested, it might be worth a shot.
I assume you're talking about the test where the researchers infer the likely fate of the marriage by tracking the "trajectory" of a 20-minute-or-so conversation. My impression is that proper interpretation of the test requires training.
Gottman has written popular relationship advice guides based on his research; I'd recommend that anyone interested in maintaining the health of their current relationship have a look. His advice makes the assumption that certain correlations he's observed are causative, but that assumption seems reasonable for the most part. Research into the actual causal effect of his suggested interventions is ongoing.
Yes, that is what I was talking about. Proper interpretation may require training, but we know those people exist, at least.
Thanks for the link Cyan.