A thread to discuss all matters of marital arts including, but not limited to, words of wisdom, experiences, questions to peers, legal matters.
WARNING: Anyone discussing unnecessary violence will be shown the nearest exit.
Printable View
A thread to discuss all matters of marital arts including, but not limited to, words of wisdom, experiences, questions to peers, legal matters.
WARNING: Anyone discussing unnecessary violence will be shown the nearest exit.
Marital arts... so, the art of being married. I certainly hope that there would be no violence as that's just criminal! :o (say no to domestic violence!)
If you meant martial arts then there's already a thread for that here. :)
Anyway, I'm not an expert, but here are my marital tips after being married for 11 years now:
* Relationships are about compromise. You can't always have things your way or vice versa. You can make things that work out for both parties.
* Mutual respect. And respect doesn't mean that you have to agree on everything, but understand and respect your differences.
One issue that I sometimes see crop up with collectors is the issue of toy collecting and how their spouses feel about it - particularly those that aren't so tolerant. In one extreme case, I heard a guy whose wife just cannot stand his TF collecting and he has to keep all of his toys hidden away in storage and she makes him feel bad about it every day and constantly pressures him to get rid of his collection. I don't think that this is mutual respect!
And there are also stories of people who say that they feel the need to hide recent acquisitions in order to avoid arguments. Again... yeah... and this gets me to my next point...
I would think that the two main causes of arguments over a toy collection would be over:
* Money
* Space
Financial Sustainability
Granted this isn't just an issue for married couples, but single people don't have to answer to a spouse, and also you have greater financial responsibility when you're married and especially when you become a parent. I never hide my acquisitions. I display all of my toys openly and I actively play with my toys and take them with me when we go out. So it's all rather open. But I don't get into arguments with my wife over these purchases either. How? Because I ensure that my TF collecting never affects anyone else financially. No matter how many toys I buy, I always ensure that my family has enough money for everything. Just last week we had something unexpectedly come up and we had to suddenly spend a lot of money. But because we have enough money in our savings for emergencies like these, so although there was a lot of stress over the incident itself, we were never stressed over money.
And as many of you know, I have rather shrewd spending habits; i.e. I avoid paying above RRP. Some people are even more shrewd than myself and refuse to pay RRP and aim to pay below RRP - and that's obviously good too (although for me I balance up time vs money - I will pay full RRP if it saves me time and also fuel in terms of travelling around looking for a toy). Different methods may work for different collectors, but obviously you can all find your own way to save money. Toy collecting is by no means a cheap habit. ;)
Space: The Final Frontier
As many of you know, I have my own dedicated collection room. It means that I put all of my Transformers in there and they're out of the way for anyone else. The toys aren't in anyone's faces unless they enter the room (then they're swamped :p). Some of you have been to my place and seen it for yourself. :D
Basically, I try to minimise any detrimental impact that my hobby may have on my family. Thus they have no real reason to complain about it... and so they just don't. :) Everyone's a winner. :D
(deleted -- oops wrong thread)
Sign reads WRONG WAY. GO BACK.
Proceed to the nearest exit.
Gok is right. Marriage is compromise. But what is compromise? Well, Google defines compromise as
An agreement or settlement of dispute that is reached by each side making concessions
So to break it down into its simplest forms, compromise is where neither side gets the entirety of what they want and therefore, neither party is entirely satisfied.
So in conclusion if marriage is compromise, then being married is, by definition, being unsatisfied.
:p