Author: Shuimuran What is the essence of marriage? Why do many people do well when they are in love, but have problems once they get married? Because the essence of love is an exchange of "feelings", and the essence of marriage is an exchange of "value".

Author: Shui Muran

What is the essence of marriage?

Why do many people have a good time when they are in love, but have problems once they get married?

Because the essence of love is an exchange of " feelings ", and the essence of marriage is an exchange of " value ".

"Value" is a higher dimension than "emotion". When you are in love, you only need to rely on your feelings and make each other happy. But once you get married, whether the marriage will last in the long run depends on the ability of the two people. Whether each other can continue to provide "value" to each other.

For this reason, when you are in love, appearance, figure, charm, humor, and even music, chess, calligraphy and painting are the keys to attracting the other person, but when it comes to marriage, these will all fail and become boring, because there is only value exchange in marriage.

An anonymous respondent on Zhihu shared several examples:

The first example: A girl has learned piano since she was a child, and goes to practice for an hour after work every day. In the early days of dating, her boyfriend admires her skills very much.

After her relationship stabilized, she still maintained the habit of going to the piano store to practice piano for an hour after work. Therefore, she never cooked dinner. She always ate directly after returning home, which of course was cooked by her boyfriend.

At this time, the contradiction arises: she used to take up her own time to practice piano, but now her significant other also needs to bear this time.

At this time, his boyfriend is no longer excited about having a girlfriend who can play the piano (he is already used to it and has finished showing off). At this time, it is exciting for him to go home. Food is more important.

This is the transfer of " core benefit ". As we said at the beginning: the core interest in love is appreciation and emotional exchange; while the core interest in marriage is fulfillment and value exchange.

In other words: At this time, it is of little value to him that his girlfriend can play the piano.

Another example: A girl spends 20 minutes curling her hair every morning. In the early days of her relationship, her boyfriends liked her curly hair because it was pleasing to the eye. But after a long time, because she had to curl her hair every morning, her boyfriend would complain that it was too troublesome and too procrastinating.

The essence is: this is because she violated her boyfriend's interest in sleeping longer, or the value of their time.

I often say: All relationships are relationships of interest, and the same is true in marriage and family, but with an extra layer of love and family affection as a cover.

Indeed, in family and love, if you love someone, you will sacrifice for her unconditionally and be loyal to him unconditionally. However, everyone must remember one sentence: it does not matter, because as long as there is sacrifice, it means injustice. As long as there is unfairness in this world, it will be compensated in another place or in another form.

For example: When many boys are chasing girls, it is not enough to use all their strength, and they will overuse their own strength and do some foolish things.

Indeed, girls are easily moved. Many girls just see a man who can be good for them at all costs, and then choose this man who is best for them. However, the final result of this kind of love is often... It's a tragedy.

Because boys who make sacrifices will continue to pay for girls at first, but at a certain stage, they will ask the other party to compensate in disguise. Invisibly, there are many demands on girls. Girls are often held hostage by boys' so-called sacrifices, and even Some extreme boys will even threaten each other to death.

The more economically developed a society is, the more independent people will become. This is no longer an era where anyone can die for themselves, or who needs someone to die for themselves.

Those lovers who keep saying they love you at the beginning and say they are your good family will often ask you to do this or that at a certain stage, or they may not do anything. This is a disguised form of compensation.

We must see through a trend: the more developed the society, the stronger the independence of people. In the future, everyone will be an independent economy, and everyone’s value will be clearly visible.

In the future, all values ​​can be quantified by money, and everything can be traded, including human time and even human emotions, all of which are clearly priced. Therefore, if you want to get much value in return, you must first have equivalent value to pay.

In fact, whether it is love/marriage or entrepreneurship/social interaction, if you can see the problem from the perspective of value, everything will be easily solved. Because value is the highest dimension of this world. If you look at issues from a value perspective, there is nothing in this world that you cannot see through.

For example: Each of us has received gifts from others to a greater or lesser extent, but have you ever discovered a " gift-receiving law":

Everything that others give you is something you can afford. . Those things you can't afford, no one will ever give them to you! Why is this?

In fact, when others give you gifts, they will first measure your value. They will only give you things that are within your value.

can also be understood this way: when others pay for you, they will not pay more than you are worth. Therefore, if you want someone to give you something, you must first be able to afford it yourself. So we must keep this truth in mind: No one will pay for something other than your value!

In this world, no one is obligated to be loyal to another person. All human loyalty is evolving into loyalty to values.

In the future, don’t expect anyone to be unconditionally loyal and dedicated to you, unless you always have the value they want to gain. Once the value in you disappears, not only will the times abandon you, but the people around you will also abandon you. This is true for cooperation, love, and marriage.

In the future, whether two people can finally be together depends on whether each other can provide value to the other. How long two people can be together depends on how long this value can be provided through interaction. When one party breaks up, the other party will leave.

This is the value law .

It’s not that we are becoming more and more realistic, but that we live in an era where everything is efficiency-oriented. This society always requires people to be value-oriented and put efficiency/benefit first, so that you can survive better.

Some people complain that today’s society is becoming less and less impersonal and that people are too realistic. In fact, it is because everything has been valued/quantified/standardized. Money is the specific quantification of value. Once value is quantified, many problems will be simplified, and everything will be simplified. Traditional relationships have been torn to pieces, and new ethical relationships, interpersonal relationships, and business relationships are being torn down and rebuilt.

Some people say: Family marriage is about finding a balance between your interests and the interests of the other person. A strong marriage relationship means: a clear division of labor like comrades in arms; an even division of spoils like a gang. Otherwise, no matter how beautiful it looks, it will be difficult to get to the end.

This sounds cruel, but it is the truth of the world.I often say: 99% of people live in illusions. They would rather deceive themselves and others than face the truth of the world, because the truth is so cruel that a person without enough courage and wisdom cannot accept it.

But I still want to tell you the truth: the world is becoming more and more mechanized. In this cold and noisy machine voice, the only person who can really rely on you is yourself. Your happiness has nothing to do with anyone, including you. The so-called other half.

Finally Shui Muran summarizes three sentences:

1: Before you have no value, it is a virtue to be alone.

2: True love is not about supporting each other, but about helping each other;

3: Making ourselves always full of value is our lifelong event.

The most expensive tax in the world is called "cognition tax". People pay for cognition throughout their lives!

For more content, please purchase Shuimuran's new work "Awakening in the World"

or Shuimuran's Cognition Column