Lifestyle Engineering

My oldest son in Norway is a popular man among the ladies. There's no lack of choice, and the result of this is that he's stumbling into one relationship after another. He's falling into the trap of always thinking that he can do better. No matter how nice and wonderful the girl he's with, there's some other girl out there that seems even better. But he's not so insensitive that he doesn't see the problem in this, so he has brought this up in conversations I've had with him lately.

I'm not one to give firm advice on anything, so I haven't prescribed any solution. It's his life after all. He needs to figure this out himself. However, I've shared some of my own experiences with him: How time changes a man's perception of things, how a good relationship is a win win proposition, and how life should be spent doing what we love to do.

In light of this, there's no cause for concern. My son has found his calling in film production. He has good reasons to be pleased with the fact that he has found work in this field as a business partner of an experienced film maker, ten years his senior. Things could hardly have panned out better for him in terms of work.

My son's worrying when it comes to the ladies and his inability to settle down is probably due more to impatience on the sides of the girls than anything wrong with him. He's too young to worry about this now. As a guy, he can afford to wait until he's in his mid-thirties, which is still several years into the future. Time will change his perspective. He'll find it easier to make a decision a few years from now.

Hopefully making things easier for my son, I've stressed the importance of the win win aspect of a relationship. This is much overlooked in popular culture, with its misplaced focus on passion and drama. I would hate to see any of my children ending up in such a relationship, so I've pointed out the many charms of my own relationship to my wife, many of which are purely practical in nature.

I love my wife for several reasons. She's cute, she's funny, intelligent and a good listener. She's wonderful to roll up to at night. Her warm presence is truly soothing. However, the charms of our relationship don't end there. There's much more.

My wife and I decided to hook up largely because we had private agendas that happened to match. I wanted to get out of the rat race, and so did she. She also wanted another child, and the opportunity to spend time at home with her baby. None of this was possible for any of us in the situation we were in. She had just bought an apartment, and would have to work to pay her debt. I lived in Norway, where living costs are so high I could only dream of living off of my modest capital income. Besides, I too had a house with debt I had to service. I also had three children to support for another few years.

The solution to this was for me to move to Portugal where most things are a lot cheaper than in Norway, and to sell my house in Norway as soon as my children were all out of the house. The profit from the sale could then be used to pay down debt. As luck would have it, I ended up with a generous profit which I put away in gold. With our fixed expenses much reduced, we now get by on my capital income, supplemented by some part time work that my wife does from home.

The importance of this to our relationship cannot be overstated. It's central to our lifestyle, without which we would have had an overhanging feeling of failure that would in turn have eroded our enthusiasm for our arrangement. Furthermore, it's abundantly clear to both of us that we are much better off together than we would be living separately. There's not only the physical pleasure of sleeping together, there's the practical reality of success.

This is in turn sustained through little improvements to my wife's apartment. We've installed new windows, we've bought some furniture, and we've put in place dehumidifiers and heaters for the winter. There are other little things too, every one of them adding convenience and comfort to our lives.

Then there's the routines of everyday life. I'm turning into a bit of a housewife, taking care of things in the house while my wife makes a few euros from her home office. It all balances out to a win win situation. It also illustrates to my children how good life can be, and that there's no reason they shouldn't be able to do something similar themselves.

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