33 Comments

Just like my mother she love all her kids unconditionally. My dad don't give a damn about his kids he is conditionally after my mom died he begin to verbally abuse claim I am his late uncle or aunt and I don't think that he is the most ugly one and I resemble his late mother.

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Uh, women initiate 70% of divorces. It is fact.

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This is very sadly true for my father. He loves my mum unconditionally, but she only loves him conditionally. Therefore, he loves ME conditionally, yet her unconditionally. The saddest thing of all is, I love him unconditionally... if my mum left him, cheated on him, and said she never wanted to see him ever again, I would still love him, take care of him and make sure he was looking after himself. Why then Dad, can you not return it????

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Love is rarely unconditional.

For example: women generally search for status and financial comfort before they open themselves up for the possibility of love. Why do you think one of the first questions most of us ask you is what you do for a living? We are determining if you are worthy of allowing us to consider you for the possibility of love.

Many men don't realize that their income is mainly what keeps their "sacred bond" together. Sacred my tush.

Sorry ladies, but I feel as if most of us are living in denial. We say one thing and do another. We are ruthless, financial exploiters of the opposite sex. Men are completely in the right to call us gold diggers.

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For ex-sex to promote the species' survival (that is, be "better"), it would require the promotion of a trait which would make future generations more likely to survive. To speak on an evolutionary benefit, it isn't enough to look at a single act of reproduction. Are the children of single parent families more or less likely to reproduce at a younger age, more frequently and with healthier offspring than those of monogamous, two-parent families?

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On average women’s love for men seems more conditional that men’s love for women.

Ah, but then you are a man. Jane Austen, in Persuasion, famously hade her heroine Anne Elliot maintain that women's love for men is less conditional and lasts longer than that of men's.

As for mother-in-laws, in the interests of domestic peace I try to adopt my mother-in-law's side against my husband in most disputes. It seems to work.

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Perhaps there's a cost of sex issue with how people treat their exes. Old feelings die hard, and ex-sex is better (evo speaking) for the guy than the girl.

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I agree with Jay's comment (and I do still have some feelings for almost everyone I was ever involved with) -- so Robin, I wonder how you know the women do not reciprocate, unless they have told you explicitly.

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Hanson,

Between this and your pieces a few days ago on Unwed Moms and Unsexy Men, I suggest you get a makeover. Your personal experience is clouding your judgement of men, women, family and sex.

Are these posts for real or is this some experiment on how otherwise intelligent people will respond to drivel.

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I've followed the posts here for some months, and I think this site is increasingly in this vein. However, I think it's not necessarily less valuable for being so, because it loosely fits into Popper's "conjectures and refutations" style of knowledge building which is most appropriate in social sciences.

My frustration is mostly that the authors seemed to have stopped replying on the comments when they've said something wrong or highly contentious, seemingly except when it's easy for them to refute (i.e. "you've misunderstood my point") or when the comments come from fellow academics. I think this is a by-product of the sites popularity though.

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Apparently 80% of the divorces in Iran are initiated by women As far as inequality in divorce laws, I get mixed results searching online. Some say it's terrible for women, but there clearly has been some liberalization in the last twenty years (before that it looks like women would have been hard pressed to initiate any divorces). My guess is that overall it's weighted towards the husband's side, and certainly more so than in the US.

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For a site called "Overcoming Bias" there's a lot of biased and subjective statements here... "Women apparently initiate most divorces, and in my experience also most breakups."

Instead of speculating can we just stick to the facts?

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"I feel tender toward every woman I’ve ever been involved with, and would be happy to talk to any of them, but many of them do not reciprocate such feelings."

I don't think this is as universal at you imply Robin. I for one have do not want to see the women I was involved with in the past again, allthough I remember most with affection and have many pleasant memories I treasure. What would be the point? If physical or mental chemistry still exists in one or both directions, seeing my exes will result in awkwardness and emotional turmoil I could well do without. If the chemistry between us has completely died, I am faced with the prospect of a banal and probably superficial friendship which sort of tarnishes the memories of the intimacy we had in the past at least for me.

Meeting exes also has the potential to upset my current partner who I love very much.

No, on balance I want to steer clear of seeing these people again, much as I value the time I spent with them.

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I agree.

The English language has one word, "love", but it really has multiple meanings. If romantic love was called "x" and familial love was called "y", your blog post would read very differently.

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One of the problems would be that there is a severe shortage of people who are consistently tolerable in any relationship. There are plenty of fish in the sea, but most people will find them subtly poisonous.

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More empiricism, less speculation, please.

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