Interesting thread! I had a discussion recently where I asked a woman married for 40 years with two daughters how she rated living with men. She said, "I got married to a man who I saw as my dream person, he was some sort of projection of everything that I thought that I wanted I life. When I woke up to my own responsibility in idealising this human being, my husband accused me of emasculating him. We still have to work on our relationship all the time."

Perhaps men and women put their dreams onto potential partners, and the more distressed we all are the more frustrated dreams we project. I read recently a social survey that it takes 20 year old students on average 50 hours of interaction to form a new friendship, so why do we expect to find our mate in one evening?

There is something wrong, and we all need to stand up and work on our expectations?

PLUS.... I WOULD LIKE SOME SERIOUS FEEDBACK. Do you think that having suffered emotionally means that we deepen our understanding of ourselves, and we need to find a way to integrate that understanding into people's more superficial lives????

I get asked by women why I never had kids, and nowadays I cover by saying, "it's a long story". If I said, "well, I was tortured by my father as a child and it took me decades to come to terms with that suffering", people would feel "sad" for five minutes, and then they would start talking about shopping.

How do we make real life relationships that are gentler to ourselves and to other people?

Saidso!