Morgan Spurlock had that show 30 Days. I only saw a few episodes from the first season, but I loved the concept. Take people firmly embedded in one lifestyle and completely reboot their trip for a month–probably the minimum amount of time required for such an experiment. I haven’t been keeping careful track, but I know I sent the landlord his second check yesterday, so it’s the general vicinity.
After reading a few of these posts, it should be pretty clear I’m no Pollyanna and let me assure you, that’s no recent development. I’ve been asking myself if I’m happier now that I’ve moved out, and I suspect that the honest answer is “No.” Something interesting happened when I asked the same question a different way. Am I sadder now? “Hell no.”
I read something a few months back about failed relationships–they did a study in which people were asked to tally the positive and negative interactions they had per day, week, month, etc. I’m not sure the exact details of what counted as an “interaction” or whether the positive/negative-ness was binary or a weighted scale. The point was that there appeared to be a universal ratio of 5:1, good-to-bad interactions. That was the threshold at which people seemed to report being happy with their relationship vs being unhappy.
Am I having fewer positive interactions with my wife? Sure. But, we are simultaneously having nearly zero negative interactions. Better ratio, happier me–happier us if I guess correctly. Ironically, this is the point at which it starts becoming possible (likely?) to overlook our bad history and selectively remember the “good times.” Possible, but not (yet) probable.
I thought it was telling that I don’t really feel much lonelier now, living by myself, than I did living with my wife. At least what loneliness I feel now makes some kind of sense. It’s a cruel distinction–an it-could-be-worse thought experiment that does little to massage the present-tense ache. What hurts the most is truly what’s hurting right now.