Yes. I don't even understand why the fights and drama would even be a problem (in theory), especially if the overall relationship is 90% ecstatic. (Hell, if all my students got 90% on their exams, I'd feel like a god.) "90%" is an absurdly high ecstasy rate.
^^ I'm laughing because I pondered this question...not having seen the 90% figure haha.
I think this is great. I was raised by 9s, and no one ever argued. EVER....
My parents are both becoming old and ill. They're miserable without realizing it (my mom thinks she's happy, stepdad keeps playing martyr about "getting through life so that he can be reunited with Jesus", which he won't be, because of the psychological atrocities he wrought upon me), and their lives are loveless, empty, and pointless. Losers, just drifting pointlessly through life, unattached to themselves or anything else. They're the ones your mom warned you about. The marriage hasn't fallen apart, but their bonds more or less have. As my sister observes, "We were like 4 unrelated people with nothing in common living together in the same house."
It won't happen to me.
Sanjuro...I always get the best feeling from you. I know, when I read one of your posts, that I am reading something entirely pure. That nothing has been muddied or obscured by an image that wishes to be upheld or an unreasonably optimistic, socially appropriate or pessimistic slant. That you're not 'talkin' just because you like listening to the sound of your own voice...but rather there's purpose to everything you express.
So many times when I go to read a post... all I can see are jumbled words thrown-up on the screen and it will soon occur to me that it's the 'varnish' I can't find my way around. That it's not grammar or sentence structure or typos that cause me confusion but the level of impurity...and so it comes as no surprise that your posts are a breeze for me to read.
^^With all of that said... I am amazed in a way that you are who you are...having just read where you came from. I agree with you that the interpersonal/inter-relational style which commits itself to not sweeping issues under the rug for the sake of (false) harmony (leaving each individual subject to building resentments and acts of passive-aggression...all of which will eventually become impossible to address)...is the healthier of the two. But I'm still going to take this opportunity to acknowledge that this is not how things are done in the outside world. In other words, my family is forever bonded...and yet we've all experienced struggles navigating a society that ultimately looks and feels a lot like what you are describing of your family. As I've explained...I can't navigate 'varnish'...which is quite unfortunate when you consider this being the primary substance holding all of society-dom together.
I should also say that my parents were both unintentionally neglectful of my siblings and I...in spite of the fact we were always around them. It took me years to understand this but... because they were both raised in extended families...I believe they completely missed how much more involved parents must be if raising children in a single family unit in upwardly-mobile-white-suburbia. They were very much into each other...as were my grandparents before them. The only difference is my grandparents could afford to be completely enthralled with each other because there were 20 other relatives around raising my parents.
My father gave us the world materially and intellectually... My mother kept us on time and scheduled... My siblings...we all knew we were loved... but we were very much on our own emotionally...and left to try and make sense of the world (how to thrive.) Their energy went into each other...so they raised a brood of children that are book-learned, honest and feel comfortable in long-standing relationships...but struggle with everything else. All this to say that I super-suck at problem solving as well...I merely came by this a different way.
I'm thinking brainheart is getting it right though...