As a sole breadwinner,married to a woman who belittles me in front of our children, who, despite having full-time domestic help, grudgingly provides me with meals, who swings between extreme emotional neediness and rejection for weeks at a time and who occasionally physically attacks me in rages (she was diagnosed with a psychological disorder, but treatment is blocked by her family), I wish I could produce a list like that.
I don't know if Einstein's marriage was similar to mine. Maybe he was a demanding jerk, but the possibility does exist that he was reacting to the circumstances he found himself in.
Assuming you truly have the desire to change things and that you actually want help, here is some unsolicited advice: go into individual therapy for yourself and if possible try to start couple's therapy too. Look for long-term once-a-week therapy and don't be afraid to shop around for therapists because it's important that you like the person.
If that seems too daunting, order The Emotionally Abusive Relationship by Beverly Engel or get it out of the library. It's a good starting point and in general books written by therapists are a great complement to therapy.
If not for yourself, do this for your children, who suffer as much as you - if only because you and your wife are so important to them - but are helpless to change the situation.
If mental illness is involved, you'll need more than just therapy. Treatment, patience, and...luck? Anyways, this isn't the place for relationship advice, and we are hardly qualified to give it.
When someone makes what I perceive as a thinly-veiled cry for help, I tend to ignore whatever rules there may be and do what I can to point them in the right direction towards getting some. The guy registered the account to write that.
You don't need to be qualified as a mental health professional to recommend psychotherapy. If a man here complained of symptoms that made it sound like he was having a heart attack, we'd all tell him to go see a doctor, and to me this is no different.
And although the wife may need a psychiatrist and medication (I assume this is what "treatment" means), I was writing to the husband here who in my non-professional opinion needs help of his own, simply by virtue of being in the relationship with her. And for this talk therapy may be enough. (Obviously patience and luck are nice.)
Yet your advice is very typical. Its like telling a guy whose talking about the heart attack he had last week to go see a doctor. The guy has probably already done that!
As someone who has some experience here (on the past kid side), results from professional help come slowly if at all, and especially if there are kids involved, drastic hard choices need to be made that we shouldn't talk about here.
The best advice I would give here is preventative: carefully evaluate the mental health of your potential partner, including their family history, you really don't want any surprises later even if you are OK with it. This is in addition to checking for lifestyle compatibility; e.g. if you are a scientist obsessed with your work, make sure your potential partner is really really OK with that. And do you require extreme order in your life to function effectively (e.g. some autism)? Ya, that is something you also need to take up with your partner.
she was diagnosed with a psychological disorder, but treatment is blocked by her family
Sounds familiar. I wonder if her family would rethink their position when they had to suffer her.
Just a little fact: unless you divorce soon, you'll develop some mental symptons yourself, if you hadn't already. And don't be fooled: you're not making any favor to your children staying.
If I can be of any help, my email is in my profile.
I understand the pain (I have been in a similar position, less harsh than yours though, now things have turned out OK). There is one thing that has helped me through: showing unconditional kindness, regardless of the situation. I also read Buddha (I am not religious, Buddha was an exceptional man who understood much and took the time to show how to do relationships well).
If you're the breadwinner, why don't you hire the domestic help to make meals for you and the kids, and incidentally help your wife if there's time left over?
Being the breadwinner does not mean his income is necessarily high enough to hire the domestic helpers.
And if the emotional issue involves, providing the domestic service will not guarantee that she will satisfy with what you did for her. She may complain about other things.
Some people, not necessary has mental issue, will never appreciate what they already have because they always desire to what they do not have right now. They never feel satisfaction.
no appreciation no satisfaction in those people's heart
> Just goes to show that there is usually a huge difference between what we think of historical figures and how they actually were.
It shows that people are complicated and multifaceted. While we have a tendency to either laud or vilify figures (with nothing in between), in reality, historical figures can be both "good" and "bad" in different aspects of their lives... just like the rest of us.
My favorite example of this is Helen Keller[1]. Almost nobody these days knows anything about Helen Keller beyond the age of 18 - they know that learned to communicate despite being deaf and blind, but the nearly 70 years of her life after that are almost buried in history.
Which is a shame, because Helen Keller would have been a notable figure in her own right even if it weren't for her disability[2].
But because she was a member of the official Socialist party, we can't use her story as an inspirational lesson and mention that she held political beliefs that we may or may not agree with. Instead have to make a judgement call as to whether her "good" or her "bad[3]" side is more important to teach, and then forget about the rest.
Worse, this principle is applied in reverse to dehumanize people whom history has classified as villains. The result is that our history is filled with monochromatic caricatures, and we forget that, were we to see the complete picture, our modern-day "villains" may not look so different (for better or for worse!)
[2] Naturally, this presumes that you either disagree with socialist politics or think that history lessons should be politically neutral, which is the predominant belief in the USA.
It is more complicated I think even in the case of Einstein. The period of strained relationship mentioned coincides with the period during which he was building up General Relativity (which he published in 1916). Given the intensity of work that would've been needed for that (all that gorgeous new math and physical insights!) with wrong turns to avoid in every move, it is well conceivable that his marriage was placed at risk. This list might even have been his way of expressing that his life priority is finding a unified theory of everything.
Now when I write that, does our welcoming of his great contributions need to make us guilty of also endorsing morals we perceive behind this "list of demands" he made of his wife?
I'm glad I searched before posting something similar. General Relatively is one of the greatest individual efforts in the history of science. I do think there is something noble about the self-isolation and dedication to his work that Einstein is reported to have had. While the list demonstrates somewhat anti-social behavior, espessially by today's standards, its unfortunate that the context is missing from the article.
Whether it is an individual effort or joint effort that Einstein took all the credits fro later, it is still not 100% sure. See the page[1] about Mileva Marić.
It wouldn't be the first time in the history of science that one man was recognized for something just because he was louder in self promotion (see Tesla vs Edison).
I don't claim that Mileva Marić is of Tesla caliber, but treating woman that is as educated as her husband, and who also participated and contributed highly in his early work as a mere home service says a lot about person doing it.
I agree that his Special Relativity work was probably worked on with some contribution of Marić, but I think his later work was more individual. Others may deserve credit for some of it though http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute
History has a way of attributing contributions to the foremost scientist of the era. For example, "Newtonian" physics implies and is often taught to have all been first discribed by Newton, when in reality it was a joint effort of him, Galileo, Kepler, Descarte, Hooke, Leibniz, and others.
I like to think of it backwards; If I knew that I had a contribution to make to humanity as great as Einstein's, would I willingly sacrifice my relationship with my family to make it?
That's an extremely difficult moral problem. It's akin to asking yourself if you would rather rescue the child on the left or the 3 people on the right when given the choice.
And then with various permutations for the child being yours or a stranger and/or the people on the right being your parents and / or strangers.
It is a tough moral problem, but one that societies of old have recognized and formalized. For example, most all religions have some formal structure where a person with a "higher calling" can take up a monkhood of some sort. Formal induction into monkhood made their severance from family ties public and contractual, much as the formal wedding ceremony publicizes a man-woman relationship.
We just don't have a socially accepted notion of "scientific monkhood" yet I suppose.
Well, the stereotype of the absent minded professor has existed for a long time now, as well as the hermit inventor/philosopher.
Perhaps not monkhood, but as an eccentric removing himself from society is a common occurrence.
And for sufficiently levels of ability and talent, people are willing to forgo social convention.
I forget who it was, but one of the great ones long gone was extremely uncomfortable around people. To the extent that people were told that they should casually walk up to him, and without addressing him directly, talk to the air about the problem they were facing or had come up with.
Why do you automatically assume he is a jerk? Do you know more about his personal life than what was mentioned here? How do we know she wasn't a horrible person and this is actually a gracious response?
I really have no idea, but I think it's pretty unfair to make character judgements from a single note out of context. Human relationships are complex.
The OP is making a judgement based on the evidence he has, not on the evidence he doesn't. You on the other hand are attempting to counter his argument with no evidence at all.
If you want to counter the argument, present contrary evidence.
He wanted to remain together just for the children. It's pretty safe to conclude he would not have done so if he had no children and that her presence is detrimental to him in some fashion. The terms listed are harsh, but they reflect his priorities quite well. Calling him a jerk is a bit out of line when he's prioritizing his children highly enough to try being a father when that isn't his most important goal.
What a horrible way to argue. So the thought "the evidence might not be sufficient" never comes to your mind? Uncritical thinking like this ("knee jerk reactions") are one of the banes of humanity.
I have to say, I didn't really come away with the "demanding jerk" impression at all.
She wanted him to stay for the kids and continue to provide for the family. In return, he wanted some help around the house and to ensure emotional disconnect from the relationship that was already dead by this point. I expect couples today would form similar arrangements in the same situation.
So he was doing her a favour? Isn't he a father as well who should think for the best of his children too?
So in other case he would just leave her with the children?
Demanding 3 meals every day served or else is kind of disrespectful to someone you used to love.
3 meals a day might benefit the children, too. Not fighting in front of them is probably also a good idea. What does he propose that is bad for children?
Well, poster above me was implying that his demands were reasonable, as he is staying with her and children. If she wouldn't agree to him, he would leave and left her with children, that is not exactly unconditional love for his children and also sexist/macho.
You are right from today's perspective. But you have to keep in mind that was early 19th century, maybe seperation than was harder for wife and children.
EDIT: I meant early 20th centory...
That is how it reads. I certainly wasn't there to know what really went on, though I think we can assume these are the issues that caused the relationship breakdown in the first place. It wouldn't be very fair for her to live in the lap of luxury while he solely provides for the home and does all the housework on top, even if they had a prior love for each other.
Keep in mind that this was in 1919, when the accepted roles of men and women in marriages were very different. It's important, when reading historical documents, not to judge those discussed within by modern standards.
The position of women in society in 1914 is in no way comparable to today. We have come a long long way since then, and we still have a long long way to go.
Cultivated men are still jerks today, as a general rule. It's just that we are too blind to see (just like Einstein was in his day) that. Give it until 2110 to tell you just how much.
In 1914 it was totally normal for women not to have the vote, not to have a say in the family finances and to be given consideration only after the sons in the family (but before the daughters). They were not considered capable of higher education (exceptions allowed, sometimes these dressed as men to get around the limitations) and so on.
Cultivated men made those rules and whole pile of others, and decades of erosion by activists and others have restored the balance. Partially. Einstein was - as far as I can see here - not much different than what I know about how life was back then in general. Plenty of his peers would have done much worse than this, and only an extremely small (vanishingly small maybe) portion of society would have done much better.
The fact that we have Einstein on a pedestal today does not mean that (a) he wasn't human and hence bound to make mistakes and (b) that he wasn't a product of his time.
> Cultivated men are still jerks today, as a general rule. It's just that we are too blind to see (just like Einstein was in his day) that. Give it until 2110 to tell you just how much.
Same with women, and we'll have to wait just as long to see it.
IIRC, he cheated on his wife with his cousin. I don't have web reference. I went to an Einstein exhibit (at the OMSI) that had a bunch of hand-written letters and such by him (in addition to attempting to make his theories more accessible). Though 'cheated' might be a little relative. I think that he may have just been spending a lot of time with her and writing her love-letters rather than just sleeping with her.
Here are some quick links I turned up on the exhibit:
The Flickr link has a bunch of photos of the documents, but I don't none of them are labelled, so it may be a bit time-consuming to search for anything specific.
Well this was also a different time. You can hardly expect the early 1900s relationships between men and women to be on the same ground as the early 2000s ones. The world has (culturally) changed a lot since then. Do not judge people from the past with today's eyes.
The man was highly intelligent. Often intelligence and social skills seesaw (obviously not always.) What he did was wrong by what we know now, but I don't think it came from malice.
I agree that this isn't enough to judge Einsteins morality, but it is interesting the tendency to want our heroes to be noble people. James Thurber wrote a wonderful short story about this -- The Greatest Man in the World.
Just goes to show that there is usually a huge difference between what we think of historical figures and how they actually were.
It's interesting how much we want our heroes to be pure and spotless -- unlike any other humans we encounter.