David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

David McElroy

Briefly: Study says kindness matters more than compatibility in relationships

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Humans go to a lot of trouble to find partners who are compatible with us in every possible way, but a new study of relationship happiness says that having a “conscientious and nice partner” matters more than the things we’re so eager to screen for. Dr. Bill Chopik of Michigan State University said the most striking finding of his study is that two people having similar personalities had almost no effect on how satisfied they felt, either with the relationship or with their lives. The bottom line seems to be that two people who are kind and decent — regardless of their personalities — should be happier together than two perfectly matched people who simply aren’t very kind to one another. Most of the criteria we use in real life for choosing partners produces unhappy relationships and miserable marriages. Maybe we ought to prioritize someone who’s going to treat us kindly and conscientiously instead.

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My mother was more impressive than my father led me to believe

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My father loved to make fun of my mother about things from their college years.

He always started such stories by telling me that he didn’t want to say anything bad about my mother — but then he would proceed to tell a story designed to make her look bad.

When I was a child, he seemed to see their children both as pawns of their arguments and also the prizes of the game. He was terrified of her winning custody of us, so he subtly poisoned our attitudes about Mother, all the while pretending to be sympathetic to her.

His stories about their college years centered around the narrative that she was incompetent and that everyone knew it. He implied that he was the respected one and that people laughed at her.

I grew up with their college yearbooks on our bookshelves, so I looked at them many times. But one of my sisters ended up with those books and I haven’t seen them for many years.

Last night, I discovered that Jacksonville State University has all of its yearbooks online, so I downloaded the books from the years both of my parents were there. I quickly found myself re-evaluating my narrative about my mother — once again.

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Fixing what’s broken inside often makes things worse until rebirth

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The world is full of abandoned and broken houses. Many of them are grand old buildings which were allowed to fall into ruin. Some still look beautiful on the outside. They’ve been left to fall apart on the inside, though, because someone decided they weren’t worth the trouble and expense to save — to repair and make whole again.

The world is also full of broken people. Many look normal from the outside, but on the inside, they’re dysfunctional and falling apart. Most don’t even understand how broken they are. They’re full of invisible damage from their past. They hurt others and they hurt themselves, because it’s all they know to do.

These broken people need repair. They need to be made whole. Even if they figure out how much change they need, they often drift aimlessly or thrash about in pain and confusion.

I know this so well because it’s been my own path for many years.

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