Do you compare?

Your marriage or relationship to others? If so how? Comparing with friends, other couples people from the forums etc.

I put a poll so most could feel comfortable answering the question honestly.

Re: Do you compare?

i chose rarely

i think comparing your relationship to others is normal.... as long as you dont let it effect you or your relationship

i will sometimes listen to whatever is going on with my friends and their DH's and think to myself "oh i wouldnt have done it that way, i wonder if that makes me a bad person" but then i also think about how different my DH is to all of my friends and what works for them, would NEVER work for my DH and our relationship

Re: Do you compare?

Re: Do you compare?

I chose rarely bc I feel my relationship id different then other married friends, and many of our friends aren't married. I feel very lucky to have the marriage I have though and do hope my friends are/will be as happy in their marriages.

Re: Do you compare?

Rarely.
Every marriage is unique.

I've got friends that have been married 35 years, and friends that are close to NW like us. Friends that got married young, friends that got married older. Friends without children, friends with children, friends with grandchildren.

If I compared my marriage to others, I'd never be satisfied with what I have, what was worth waiting for such a long time.

Re: Do you compare?

I have to admit that i do this quite often but then i stop myself. I tell myself that no one truly knows about someone else's marriage and what goes on inside their home. We only see people when they are on the outside. Dh always tells me he doesnt care about everybody else, all that matters is that we are happy with how our relationship works and hes right.

Re: Do you compare?

I choose rarely because i know that every relationship is unique & has its ups & downs. If i begin to compare what i think im comparing to mine could be a falsity as you never know what is happening behind doors of others. So basically I dont want to do that. I would just rather work on mine & be happy with what we have together. But i dont think its weird to do that. I think everyone is human & sometimes it happens.

Re: Do you compare?

I put sometimes...I think it's very normal to see what others are doing and compare it to yours...for example so and so's husband cooks and mine doesn't...or so and so's husband cleans...I feel like it's natural to do that. I mean when I talk to my girlfriends we compare stories and its just part of the gossip. I know in my head all relationships are different but I always look at the good and and the bad of others relationships too...

Re: Do you compare?

I really don't compare my marriage to anyone else's. Through the years I've seen how different all my friends marriage's are and they really can't be compared...each one functions in it own way between my friend's and their spouses. I feel the same way about my marriage with DH, we function as our own unit and what works for us works for us.

Re: Do you compare?

Never ever. I think of our relationship as truly unique and cannot even begin to compare it to any of our friend's relationships for so many reasons. We are all in different spots in our careers, relationships, family lives....some of us own homes, live with parents or rent. So it wouldn't even make sense to compare to our friends when we are all so different and have such different relationships. I wouldn't find the point in comparing even if we did...I am generally like this with everything including my friends though. I was never a person to compare to find better or worse "things".

Re: Do you compare?

I do compare, but it's a comparison against the people who's relationships are unstable or whose marriages have failed. Maybe it's not a comparison at all lol. It's more analyzing than anything. I look at why these relationships are the way they are and look at DH and I and see we don't do the things that make it fail.

Re: Do you compare?

I think sometimes it is easy to look at the POSITIVES in other relationships and think "Oh I wish we had that" but with that couples positives, comes negatives that we (DH and I) would not want...so really comparing is silly IMO (not that we don't do it sometimes anyway )

Message edited 3/31/2009 10:58:06 AM.

Re: Do you compare?

compare no

do i question how other couples manage to stay together - sometimes

Re: Do you compare?

I chose rarely.

But, I admit that sometimes I do compare what my other married friends have (material posessions) as opposed to us and vice versa. I know totally off the subject and sooo wrong. I'm tired of keeping up with the Jones'.

Message edited 3/31/2009 11:27:55 AM.

Re: Do you compare?

Posted by Nik211

compare no

do i question how other couples manage to stay together - sometimes

Re: Do you compare?

I chose rarely each marriage/couple is completely different but it can be hard sometimes not to do it in certain scenarios

Re: Do you compare?

I chose rarely. Each of us is unique as an individual and therefore each relationship will be unique.

Re: Do you compare?

I put never because I just don't compare ourselves to others. I don't even compare myself to other women.

I just don't have the mental capacity to fill my brain with that. I'm usually too busy worrying about work to even think about other things.

Re: Do you compare?

Posted by Nik211

compare no

do i question how other couples manage to stay together - sometimes

Re: Do you compare?

rarely. i'm really the only married couple out of my friends. but I do see that my friends compare MY relationship to theirs...because we seem like the perfect couple (please no one is perfect!) and because we're both mature...I feel like I'm always giving out a lot of advice about relationships meanwhile I feel like who the heck am I to give advice?

Message edited 3/31/2009 4:19:58 PM.

Re: Do you compare?

I married older (31) so ive been in and seen enough relationships that i KNOW each relationship is different and all come with pro's and con's. I don't really compare the good/bad, b/c i know that the only people who truly know whats going on in that relationship, are the two people in it. Like anything else, i try to enjoy and focus on what i DO have.

That being said i am a lil jelly of my gf's that have handy husbands !!

Re: Do you compare?

it's rare - but yes, I've done it. I mean, I don't sit around focusing on what so&so did compared to what WE do. The different personalities certainly make it difficult to truthfully "compare".

But an example of when I've done it is - like DH's really good friend got engaged a while back (but only because his 10 yr girlfriend was PISSSED when she found out that me & DH were engaged after only ONE year). So they settled on September, but now he's stalling, and sometimes makes comments on whether or not he really wants the stay with her. W.T.F??? Stop wasting her time then!! So, yeah, I do compare us to them and think about how LUCKY I am to be with a real man who doesn't just get 'pressured' into something, but then is too much of a coward to actually talk things out. Jeez.

Other than things like that, I don't compare often.

Message edited 3/31/2009 5:41:21 PM.

Re: Do you compare?

Once in awhile, we will. But IMO not all comparisions are bad. Sometimes comparisons can work like lessons - we learn how to handle situations better after comparing our reactions to others.