Valentine’s Day with Fallible Humans

This may seem paradoxical but each partner in a marriage or love relationship would be better off if they expected incompatibility, emotional disturbance, moodiness, counterproductive behavior, and general irrationality. After all each partner is a highly fallible human. If you expect irrationality and misbehavior you will be in a much better frame of mind than if you expect sane behavior and go onto demand rationality and ideal behavior from your partner.  After all you married a fallible human not a super human, as did your partner. I am sorry to inform you but you married a human not a god. If we expect fallible humans to act fallibly it is easier to avoid demanding and blaming them when they inevitably display what we expect. Keep your preference that your partner be pleasant to live with and do well by you in most areas of life. Keep your preferences but adopt the realism of REBT. See that since your partner is an error prone human therefore bad moods, acts of inconsideration and the like are going to occur. This is too bad and sadly is part of the human condition. Your partner is a highly imperfect being and therefore it is statistically likely that your partner will have their share of bad moods, self-defeating behaviors, and dislikable habits and traits. Too bad the planet is inhabited by fallible humans. See that there is no law of the universe that says your partner absolutely must not be so fallible. Their fallibility is a great inconvenience (okay maybe a royal pain in the neck or other part of the body at times) but avoid turning it into an unbearable horror and feeling sorry for yourself. Avoid disturbing yourself about your partner’s fallibility and then sanely and sensibly use your displeasure, disappointment or concern to fuel appropriate and constructive reactions to their “nutty” behavior. If you assume responsibility for your emotions and stay in control when your partner displays their fallibility you will be much more likely to respond in a constructive way to their error prone tendencies. Think about the elegance of this philosophy and the creative strategies that flow from it.

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