Equality: The Quest for the Happy Marriage
Introduction:
The struggle within our negative relationships represents the most significant contributor to problems in our society today. Unhappy parents produce unhappy children. Common sense might tell you that books on relationships has been extensively and exhaustively covered. Unfortunately, the reverse is true. We still have a fifty-percent divorce rate.
Common sense might also say that the many psychologists, who should be in the best position to help couples in troubled relationships, have written the best books on relationships. The opposite is also the case here, as well.
As it turns out, psychologists who provide relationship therapy are in the worst possible position to understand how to have a happy relationship and what should simply be the common sense notion that positive relationships are those where the two involved behave together in an objective, healthy, harmonious, equal, moral, and fair manner. After all, therapists spend their entire professional careers mired in the complexities of so many negative relationships, many of which are on the brink of divorce.
“A fact that does not support the truth is merely a fiction.”
- Tim Kellis
In this direct, common sense book, the author provides a comprehensive look at the difference between the two types of relationships, the positive ones and the negative ones. What is key is that the difference is binary. The most significant innovations provided are first, the foundations for resolving differences between couples, secondly, an exhaustive look at the differences between disagreements and arguments, and finally, a detailed yet simple look at the psychology of the mind, a mind that is capable of thinking. The goal is a simple one. How do couples find the path to happiness?!
This is the first book ever written that uses depth logic to fully solve the relationship enigma. How? This book provides clarity for the reader by elaborating on both positive and the negative relationship, and identifying how, from a psychological perspective, to change the path of the negative relationship.
The ultimate conclusion is a simple one. There are two steps to a successful relationship. First individuals must be happy with themselves. Secondly the couples must be happy together. Individual happiness requires an understanding of the psyche. Happiness within the relationship requires understanding how to keep discontent on a logical level as a disagreement while preventing it from degrading into an emotional level as an argument. For this to happen an understanding of the fork in the road is needed between the disagreement and the argument and a platform is needed to resolve the disagreement, common sense.
Most significantly, the book describes in excruciating detail the working of the mind, the depth and simplicity of which is not found in any other book written about relationships. This sad fact is most astonishing because common sense would tell the reader that books written by psychologists would include the functioning of the mind. Unfortunately, the prejudices of the psychology industry actually include the belief that the mind is nonexistent.
Secondly, the book breaks down the aspects of disagreements versus arguments so that the reader can understand how to keep the different perspectives of the couple on the plane of disagreements. Again, disagreements are logical while arguments are emotional. In addition, the fundamental elements of the argument are discussed, what has been termed The Hierarchy of the Argument. Again, this concept is something not found in any other books written on relationships. In books written by marital therapists, arguments are an assumed part of every relationship.
And finally, the book provides a platform for resolving disagreements: common sense, something that was discovered by the greatest psychologist who ever lived, Dr. Carl Jung, as a most significant component of all of our minds. And yes, this concept is also not found in other relationship books.
The solution to our troubled relationships has not been discovered yet for one simple reason. Sigmund Freud hypothesized nearly one hundred years ago that our behavior is determined by our biology, by our brain. Today modern mainstream psychologists have translated this hypothesis into the study of feelings alone, leaving out one half of the working of the mind, the thinking half, as a cause of behavior. The other unfortunate translation of this hypothesis is that we are born with our brains and that there is nothing we can do to change it, significantly hindering the search for the truth.
“… a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises … a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
This quote, penned by Thomas Paine in 1776 on the verge of the American Revolution, in a pamphlet aptly named “Common Sense”, provides the basis of this look at relationships. The chasm between a wrong relationship being “not wrong ” and it being “right” is huge; and the purpose of this book is to close that gap. The concept behind this revolutionary pamphlet provides the very foundation that we have all been learning as the platform behind resolving the troubles within our relationships. Common sense provides the concept for solving the differences between two people because the objective of the solution is one from an outside, objective perspective.
In essence, the book details the difference between happiness and unhappiness, both with the individual, the “me”, and the couple, the “we”. Creating problem solving versus faultfinding is imperative in a couple’s manner of coping. Faultfinding is the cornerstone of a negative relationship. To develop and enhance a cohesive and positive relationship that thrives, a manner of equality and respectful conversation must be developed and maintained.
This incredibly important problem in our society has not been understood yet because it is much larger than a psychological problem. Philosophy actually gives us the solution, which includes psychology, but also, history, sociology, politics, religion, culture, education, capitalism, even anthropology, mythology, alchemy. Happiness is a philosophy, not a psychology. Happiness has been a part of civilization from the very beginning, thousands of years ago. Using the author’s love of history, the text enlightens the reader with societal issues from ancient civilizations to our modern world. From education to capitalism, from politics to religion, the book offers every conceivable reference upon which to draw the ultimate conclusion of just how to achieve a happy, lifelong relationship.
The book deals extensively with the use of analogies of what humanity has taught us, in order to extrapolate from the big picture to the little picture, into what is called the four walls of the relationship. This is simply accomplished by looking at the lessons of civilization throughout time, and extrapolating them into our culture today.
Analogous to the computer, the way to look at this book is as the operating system of the relationship. In other words, the book changes the common notion that relationships are illogical to that relationships are logical. The bottom line is that the objective of this project is to make a science of the relationship.
If you want to look at this book from a marketing perspective, it finishes what John Gray and other psychologists who have written relationship books have begun in their attempt at “solving” our negative relationships.
The author is able to solve this problem specifically because he has not been taught the prejudices of mainstream psychology, and by the fact that the influence of his upbringing has taught him that divorce is not an option in his own personal life. In fact, finding the truth about the right relationship has been a lifelong pursuit of his.
