[HN Gopher] A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem
___________________________________________________________________
A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem
Author : wiihack
Score : 361 points
Date : 2022-04-12 10:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| zcw100 wrote:
| My wife gave me a huge ration of shit the first year of our
| marriage for leaving a coffee mug in the sink and not putting it
| in the dishwasher then spent the next 10 years leaving dishes all
| over the house. It still pisses me off every single f-ing time I
| see one.
| incomingpain wrote:
| >My wife gave me a huge ration of shit the first year of our
| marriage for leaving a coffee mug in the sink and not putting
| it in the dishwasher then spent the next 10 years leaving
| dishes all over the house. It still pisses me off every single
| f-ing time I see one.
|
| My wife in our last home the day we moved in. I threw a shirt
| on top of our bed. 100% it was on the bed. Some point after it
| managed to hit the ground. Totally wasn't me. She brings me to
| the shirt on the ground and says that since I didn't care I
| cant ever complain if she does it. You can expect that my side
| of the bedroom is neat and orderly and well...
|
| So in the process of buying our current home. She explains that
| she needs a new start. That our previous home didnt feel like a
| home and so keeping things clean will be done at the new house.
| Do you expect there was any change?
|
| Flipside, I never ever criticized or anything along those
| lines. Never said a word. I'm not perfect and I don't expect
| flawed me will ever get a perfect spouse. Shit will go wrong.
| No reason to ever get pissed off or even criticize.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I'd suppose the thing I'd warn here: Remember that, by
| definition, this article was written by a failure -- meaning that
| the likelihood that they fully understand the situation even now
| is still pretty low; especially since they're still likely in a
| sense seeking validation by writing the article.
|
| Ideally, you'd like to hear from a success. And at the risk being
| the horn-tooter, (married for 15+ years), when I read this I'm
| like "sigh, okay, where to begin..."
|
| (As in, I can't even respond to it directly; I'd have to be like,
| "no, ask me a precise question and I'll see if I can answer it to
| the best of my ability.)
| captaincaveman wrote:
| hmmm marriages fail after 15 years too, at what point do you
| declare success?
| axilmar wrote:
| The problem in the case mentioned in the article was not with the
| writer that left the glass by the sink, it's with the other
| person that was bothered with something so minor...usually these
| minor things are excuses that cover deeper problems.
|
| Above all, marriage is a series of compromises: you give up
| something for something else. You can't have it all.
|
| Personally, I put up with my wife's problematic-for-me but not-
| for-her small habits, because we have a family and the well being
| of us and our children is priority. Loving the other person
| includes giving them room to breath, and chasing them after their
| small habits is suffocating...
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Yeah, if he had put his glass away, she would have found
| something else to be "upset" about.
| jugg1es wrote:
| Isn't that what the author is saying? The deeper problem was
| that the wife felt that the authors' inability to do something
| so simple for her sake was indicative of disrespect. Not
| acknowledging that your partner is worth a couple seconds of
| consideration is a pretty deep problem. The author probably
| demonstrated this disrespect in multiple ways, but the glass by
| the sink is a succinct way of summarizing the whole problem.
| thisNeeds2BeSad wrote:
| There are examples though, were this death by a thousand pin-
| pricks is a attempt at "takeover" aka expecting to be in
| control of everything your partner does and using emotional
| blackmail should he not retreat at once.
|
| At the end of this, you become a stranger in your own life,
| programmed into the small details by somebody else, who then
| leaves you because you are "boring and predictable".
| mistrial9 wrote:
| for some relationships, this is a signal of animal dominance
| basically.. "do it my way, because I say so" happens every
| day
| bachmeier wrote:
| To be completely honest, I got the point, but I don't think
| this is good writing. Did anyone learn anything from the
| article? Probably not. Did anyone do any deeper thinking
| because of the article? Probably not.
| igetspam wrote:
| I did some reflection. I agree it's not a great article but
| I read it and did a self assessment. I don't ever want my
| marriage to end and people sharing their failures gives me
| another thing to consider, in hopes that I can avoid a
| similar outcome.
| igetspam wrote:
| It seems as though people are focusing on the hook and not
| the core argument. The author clearly states his marriage
| failed from "death by a thousand papercuts" and this glass-
| by-the-sink is an example of not understanding their spouse.
| bena wrote:
| It's because the hook is a real bad example. He's not
| entirely in the wrong on that one. While I will trust his
| judgment that there were other problems and that he was in
| the wrong in those, the glass was one where she should have
| given in.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Friend, the point of it being a "small" issue is that no
| one will ever be entirely wrong or right. Any issue that
| someone brings up will be viewed as trivial by many ppl,
| the point is to respect your partner enough to find a way
| to compromise.
|
| Sometimes compromising requires thinking far outside the
| box. For example, buy this guy a in-home water bottle
| that he alone is responsible for cleaning. Give it a
| permanent place in a cupboard. Boom boom everyone
| compromised and showed the other one "I care about your
| needs"
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > the glass was one where she should have given in
|
| Why is that the case?
| bena wrote:
| It's mostly an aesthetic choice. The only benefit of the
| glass being in the dishwasher instead of by the sink is
| that "it looks nicer to her". There's no real harm being
| done and it does not affect her in the slightest. And
| there's a real deep, dark, ugly rabbit hole to go down if
| one wants to suggest that it affects and harms her by
| "being unsightly".
|
| The more I think about it, the more I think the author is
| trying to be deep by being shallow. Taking something we
| consider mundane and transforming it into a grand life
| lesson. Creating a parable. The problem is that he chose
| something that doesn't work. I, for one, will not be
| buying his book.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I'm shocked by how many people in this thread have been
| completely derailed thinking the literal glass is the issue
| rather than being _symbolic_ of the issue. I always hated
| how much teachers would drill symbolism and literary device
| analysis into you in school but then I come across threads
| like this I wonder whether we aren't focusing on it enough.
| zarzavat wrote:
| That depends whether you think leaving a glass by the
| sink is a cut at all.
|
| In that case there's two options:
|
| 1. The author is not mentioning more consequential
| problems that happened in their marriage, or doesn't know
| the real reason their marriage ended.
|
| 2. There _were_ no more consequential problems and the
| author is blaming themselves for what seems like an
| unreasonable spouse.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| The water cup example isn't symbolic, it is prototypical.
| That is to say, it is meant to be a representative
| example of the a metaphorical paper cut.
|
| People in this thread are latching on to it for the same
| reason the author used it; it is not clear how else to
| talk about the larger issue.
|
| Different interepratations of the prototypical example
| leads to different interperatations of the larger issue.
|
| If you must use examples to communicate your point, the
| normal solution to this is to use many different
| examples.
| trgn wrote:
| We were replying at the same time and crossposted. You
| said it better. As a reader, I would have loved to have
| more examples.
| igetspam wrote:
| Agreed but the point is made more than once and in plain
| terms that the glass was not the problem it was an
| indication of a behavioral issue that went unrecognized
| until it was too late for self reflection to make a
| difference.
|
| It's not a great article in the surface but the message
| has merit.
| elliekelly wrote:
| > The water cup example isn't symbolic, it is
| prototypical.
|
| Thank you! I knew there had to be a better word to
| describe it but all I could think of was "exemplary" and
| that didn't feel quite right.
| trgn wrote:
| Great comment.
|
| > I always hated how much teachers would drill symbolism
| and literary device analysis into you in school but then
| I come across threads like this I wonder whether we
| aren't focusing on it enough.
|
| I feel, the inability to treat the glass solely as a
| symbol, is more related to the form of writing.
|
| This sort of confessional writing, it does not tolerate
| symbolism well because the author is also the
| protagonist. The symbolism of the glass, in this article,
| it's more of a protective screen. The author explicitly
| writes the glass wasn't really the issue, but then we
| never actually learn about all these other things that
| were the real issue. Like, dedicate some paragraphs to it
| dude, don't leave us hanging! In the writing, he's a
| kindly, oblivious man. We get hints that he wasn't.
| Disrespect, what's that exactly, that can be downright
| cruel, where on the spectrum are we here? Beyond the
| glass, honestly, there's nothing. Like, was he rolling
| his eyes when she was talking to her. "communication
| issues", what's that, did they share meals in silence, or
| where they fighting like cats and dogs, but then making
| tender love to make up, what's going on?!?! Tell me. The
| glass really is the thing here. (Maybe his book has more,
| I don't know). For all intents and purposes, yeah, it was
| the glass. The reader can only understand their divorce
| in vague generalities, and since we get nothing more than
| the glass, it feels more like a distraction. Also, like
| come on, we need to hear from his ex-wife!
|
| Symbolism in fiction, functions more like an anchor,
| around which the mind can wander, which invites us to
| contemplate. And we can, because, honestly, right or
| wrong, it doesn't matter. There's less of this need to
| get it right, make sense of it. The motives of the author
| are just less important, a reader has less of this
| curiosity or nosyness, in the sense, that we're tickled
| to take a peek behind the curtain.
|
| I think, if the article were written as fiction, say a
| short-story, that glass would be great symbolism, and
| there would be less this need to come up with solutions,
| or try to pinpoint who was right and wrong, ... But in
| that article, I don't know, it feels more like a dodge.
| didgeoridoo wrote:
| Exactly. I am on the other side of this in my marriage -- my
| wife leaves her water glass out (sometimes for days) because
| she "might want to use it again". It bothered me, so I put it
| in the dishwasher. She didn't like that, so I stopped doing it.
| And I got over the fact that there are sometimes six or seven
| half-full glasses around the house at any time, because I am
| not a petty psychotic who would take something so trivial to be
| representative of how my wife does or doesn't respect me. Good
| lord.
| giantg2 wrote:
| My wife put some water in the microwave for tea and left the
| room. When it was done, I put the tea ball in it and set the
| timer for her. Thinking that she would be back in the room in
| a few minutes and the timer would let her know it was ready.
|
| Instead of thank you for starting her tea, I was told I was
| "too controlling". Ok... I guess I won't do nice random
| things like start your tea from now on.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Don't take this the wrong way but after reading several of
| your comments in this thread, it does seem that you should
| be leaving her.
|
| That, or start communicating about what makes her get angry
| over stuff like this; what makes her feel ignored or under-
| appreciated that she bursts when you make a nice and very
| cute gesture for her.
|
| My wife kisses me when she forgets about her tea and I do
| it for her. EVERY TIME, no exceptions, she kisses me and
| thanks me.
|
| IMO either start chatting with her to pinpoint the issue
| and work on it, or move on. You don't deserve such an
| atmosphere, man. You deserve happiness.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| That is lovely...very healthy. The most important words
| in a relationship are: 'thank you' and 'sorry'...and they
| should be heartfelt and mentioned appropriately.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Agreed with every word. Being genuinely appreciative and
| expressing it -- "thank you" -- and recognizing if you're
| being petty or stubborn and expressing it -- "sorry" --
| really did wonders for my relationship. Somewhere at the
| ~7 year mark it started getting even better than it was
| before that.
| xorcist wrote:
| Acting as if the tea was the core of the problem here is a
| sure way to get nowhere.
| giantg2 wrote:
| What do you mean?
| NateEag wrote:
| It sounds to me like your wife's reaction was not
| actually about the tea.
|
| If she described that as "too controlling", that likely
| indicates she perceives you as too controlling overall.
|
| Regardless of the truth of her perceptions, they're all
| she has to go on in life, so it's her _perceptions_ that
| matter, _not_ the "objective truth" of whether you're
| controlling.
|
| I don't know you or your wife at all - my analysis could
| be way off in a lot of ways.
|
| Whatever the issue here is, though, it's not the tea
| itself. There is some negative perception or idea she has
| that you triggered when you helped make her tea. I
| strongly recommend you try to figure out what's beneath
| the surface there. It could be rooted in your behaviors,
| or it might go back to how other people in her life have
| treated her, or some combination. It could be that she's
| a flaming control freak who can't stand anyone doing
| anything that seems to her like a threat to her agency. I
| don't have enough context to have much of a clue.
|
| Writing it off with "Okay, not gonna do that again"
| internally was a dangerous pattern for me - it led me to
| ignore issues for years instead of trying to deal with
| them head-on.
|
| Warning: For me, dealing with these issues head-on was a
| painful, difficult road littered with ugly realizations
| about both myself and my spouse. Dealing with the pain
| and issues now beats waiting until they're worse down the
| road, though.
|
| I found Marshall Rosenberg's _Nonviolent Communication_
| extremely helpful in learning to dig into what 's under
| the surface of incidents like this one:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication
| nvusuvu wrote:
| I have the book open on my desk right now. I really wish
| I could have read it sooner in my marriage, like before
| my marriage. Would have made for a lot less bumpy road.
| But we are in a better place now, almost 20 years later!
| :)
| nvusuvu wrote:
| Its not just the tea. She's got needs that aren't being
| met. Best advice is to reflect back what she has said to
| try to understand what needs of hers aren't being met."
| Perhaps to your wife you could say the following 'Are you
| feeling angry because you have the need for more say in
| our relationship?
| xorcist wrote:
| A nice person making tea for you is never a problem for
| anyone.
| giantg2 wrote:
| That was my impression too
| nvusuvu wrote:
| Marshall Rosenberg said ' Anger is the tragic expression
| of an unmet need.'
| atq2119 wrote:
| Just brainstorming here, but perhaps it was tea that she
| wanted to prepare herself, and the problem may have been
| that you "muscled your way into" a course of action that
| she wanted to be hers.
|
| Your analysis of the situation is problematic when you
| write: "I guess I won't do nice random things _like start
| your tea from now on_. " It was _your wife_ who started the
| tea-making process, not you. To somebody who already feels
| sore about this kind of thing, it may feel as if you 're
| taking credit for her action.
|
| Of course, normal people in a normal situation don't react
| in the way that your wife did. As others pointed out, there
| are almost certainly more issues in your relationship and
| your wife likely reacted this way because your behavior fit
| into a larger pattern that she is unhappy with.
|
| Also please note, you absolutely cannot draw the conclusion
| that she doesn't want you to do nice things for her in
| general.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I asked her for more info, but she couldn't elaborate. I
| don't think it was about her wanting to put the tea ball
| in (the tea was already in the ball from my cup, and she
| could put in how much honey or sugar she wanted when it
| was ready).
|
| The conclusion was mistated. I meant I just won't make
| her tea unless she asks. If it make her made and she
| can't tell me why, then I'm just going to avoid that
| situation.
| metadat wrote:
| I'm not going to give you specific advice, as that would be
| controlling (tongue in cheek / bad joke, sorry), and you
| also haven't specifically requested any. However I do feel
| compelled to share some of my own experience.
|
| In my last LT relationship, I was accused being controlling
| and the relationship was totally, impossibly screwed. This
| is a very serious accusation, and they were interpreting
| attempts to be genuinely nice as "controlling". I am
| actually pretty flexible and easy going, but no matter what
| I did or changed, there was always some other new way in
| which I was "being emotionally abusive".
|
| I'm now in a new relationship, and a few times I've pre-
| emptively apologized to my partner about similar actions,
| because I was concerned about them being interpreted as
| controlling. I was floored when she responded with
| indifference, saying she always appreciates my efforts and
| that I don't need to worry.
|
| Having a partner who "gets you" and appreciates what you
| try to do for them has been earth shatteringly beautiful in
| my life. Empathy unlocks the best parts of life and the
| human experience. I know I'm extremely fortunate to have
| eventually gotten to where I am, and couldn't be happier
| with her. Soon I should probably ask if she'll marry me,
| advice on this would be welcome :) we are 9 months in, see
| each other every day and never fight, it's always
| collaborative.
|
| Anyhow, the conclusion is:
|
| It's always a good idea to ask many questions if you're
| being told you are wrong a lot, in any relationship
| (private life as well as work life). Sometimes the real
| issue may turn out to have nothing to do with you, after
| all.
| em-bee wrote:
| did you talk about it afterwards? being "too controlling"
| is a very serious accusation and points to something
| deeper. don't just dismiss her complaint but try to
| understand it. also try to explain to her in what spirit
| you made the tee for her.
|
| you think you were doing a random nice thing, she felt you
| are controlling, so clearly she didn't feel you did
| something nice to her.
|
| this makes me think about the book "the five love
| languages".
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Love_Languages
|
| the idea is that we each have different ways in which we
| express and perceive love. so for you random acts of
| kindness are one way, but your wife may not be aware of
| that. i'd talk to her about that. maybe read the book
| together or at least talk about the different ways to show
| love and what you each prefer.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "did you talk about it afterwards?"
|
| I tried. She simply said it was controlling and couldn't
| explain it further.
| all2 wrote:
| Take the signal from this thread, there are deeper issues
| at play.
| The-Bus wrote:
| Plus, they protect you in the eventuality of an alien attack.
| Make sure you keep a bat around too.
| NhanH wrote:
| I missed the joke. Which movie is this?
| [deleted]
| BoppreH wrote:
| Signs (2002).
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I still want an explanation as to how the aliens in that
| movie managed to miss that 70% of the planet is covered by
| a deadly poison, and that it literally falls from the sky
| in most places.
| [deleted]
| Jiro wrote:
| There's the theory that the aliens are really demons and
| it's not water they're vulnerable to, but _holy water_.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| A kid is filling cups with tap water to drink.
|
| At what point is a priest blessing them all?
| BoppreH wrote:
| The main character is a former priest. I don't remember
| any explicit blessings, but maybe being in a (ex-)priests
| house is enough. Or they were blessed when the
| protagonist found his faith again.
|
| Or it was the daughter, who was constantly referred to as
| "angel".
| brewdad wrote:
| My in-laws had their house blessed by their priest
| shortly after moving in. They do the same with their
| cars. Perhaps a house, properly blessed, provides the
| necessary protection?
| snapcaster wrote:
| Because it was _holy_ water that damaged them because
| they are demons not aliens in the movie. There is
| actually no scene in that movie of a spaceship or
| anything that indicates it's aliens
| ceejayoz wrote:
| There's no scene of a priest blessing cups of a kid's
| drinking water, either.
| scoutt wrote:
| I'm pretty sure there was lights above in the sky at some
| point. And there is also the bird that hit an (allegedly)
| invisible alien ship.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > Plus, they protect you in the eventuality of an alien
| attack.
|
| Except when the aliens are ransacking Earth for its water.
| See the documentaries V [0] and Battle: Los Angeles [1] for
| more on this.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_(1983_miniseries)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle:_Los_Angeles
| kingcharles wrote:
| And Oblivion:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblivion_(2013_film)
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Sounds like a dream...
| [deleted]
| xtracto wrote:
| I am not so sure. In my case, my wife is the "messy" one: Opens
| a can and leaves the lid in the kitchen table, leaves used
| clothes all around the bedroom and bathroom, etc. We've been
| married for 14 years, and the first years it was a constant
| struggle for me to _try_ to change her behaviour. We even have
| gotten to the point of raising the divorce card in discussions
| related to this.
|
| But, fast forward to today, I learned not to care. I learned
| that the decision is easy: Either I accept that she is like
| that, or I get out of the door. I am free to go whenever I want
| (as we don't have kids), and after meditating over that choice
| I've realized that those "bad" things don't really matter.
| After accepting that, I became happier and less "confrontative"
| with her.
| globular-toast wrote:
| That's because you love her. The author's wife did not love
| him.
| 88913527 wrote:
| Sorry to be solutioning here, and I'd imagine you've already
| tried this after 14 years, but sometimes changing habits can
| be solved with things like buying an extra laundry basket.
| It's seems like a small thing, but these adjustments can
| provide the accessibility that make it simpler to meet in the
| middle. In the kitchen, we keep a mini-waste bin on our
| countertop for used coffee grinds. It works for us.
| hallway_monitor wrote:
| Exactly. Although GP's solution of learning to live with
| this particular habit is great and necessary, changing the
| environment is almost always necessary to change behavior.
| Always look so see what simple change will encourage the
| behavior you want.
| brimble wrote:
| 1000% this, it's my default solution for most things. I
| always make sure "change the environment" can't work before
| I go to "change behavior" (mine or others')
|
| Trash accumulating somewhere? That spot needs a trash can.
|
| Clothes? That spot needs a hamper/basket.
|
| Spot in the yard keeps getting messed up due to walking or
| cars going off the driveway there? Put down some stone.
|
| Behavior modification (for some sorts of things, anyway)
| should be a last resort because it probably won't work, and
| requires ongoing effort. Fix the environment, and it's
| done.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Mostly agree, although:
|
| > it's with the other person that was bothered with something
| so minor...usually these minor things are excuses that cover
| deeper problems.
|
| seems to point the blame at the other person. Really the
| marriage was probably screwed for nebulous confusing reasons,
| they both could feel it without really being able to express it
| coherently, so they fought proxy battles over dishes and other
| chores.
| trelane wrote:
| It's interesting to contrast this divorce story in The Atlantic
| with another:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/12/divorce-p...
| weakfish wrote:
| That story felt... obnoxious. It seemed like the woman in the
| story destroyed her life and her kids for a sense of novelty,
| instead of working with her husband to fix the problems she
| felt in her own emotional space.
| fareesh wrote:
| Dishwashers have not really caught on in India. I wash my plate
| or glass in the sink immediately when I'm done. I've done this
| for my entire life and I find it strange that people postpone it
| for later. Why would you?
| frontman1988 wrote:
| Maids are cheaper than dishwashers in India.
| acuozzo wrote:
| 1. It's far easier to populate a dishwasher after feeding e.g.
| a family of four than it is to immediately wash all of the
| utensils, dishes, bowls, pots, and pans. This task is usually
| delegated to one member of a household in the US.
|
| 2. "Contrary to popular belief, the dishwasher is designed to
| be more efficient than the way most of us handwash dishes.
| According to Energy Star, certified dishwashers use less than
| four gallons per cycle. The sink uses four gallons of water
| every two minutes. But just how many dishes do you need to make
| the dishwasher a more water efficient choice? In a recent
| study, Cascade found that the average person spends 15 seconds
| handwashing a dish. In that time, the sink uses half a gallon
| of water. That's why running your dishwasher with as few as
| eight dishes is all it takes to save water."
| charles_f wrote:
| Laterally relevant, I once left a company for this exact reason.
| Tons of little things making life impossible - no way to push for
| your ideas, admin BS for no good reason, CEO wanting to be Steve
| J a bit too much, meetings at 8:30AM (with multiple kids, it's a
| challenge), a few bad apples, pixel-perfectness, etc. All stuff
| that, one by one wouldn't matter, but overall made my grind my
| teeth sufficiently for me to leave. It was very hard for me to
| explain well _why_ I didn 't enjoy work, as all these seemed
| trivial and unimportant and made me feel like a dick for leaving.
| Overall I think the underlying reason was that things were a
| certain way and there was no way of influencing them whatsoever.
|
| Looking back I think the problem was also partially with me not
| accepting smaller things ; but there is such a thing as death by
| a 1000 paper cuts.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| After reading the comments, I have come to the conclusion that
| either HN commenters are bad readers, or the author is a bad
| writer. Perhaps we can also fault the Atlantic headline writer
| (though I should point out that the <title> tag is different from
| the headline in the article itself, and using that instead of the
| <title> tag for the HN post might have reduced confusion).
|
| It seems something like 1/3 of the comments are coming up with
| reasons why "it's not about the dirty dish" when the author
| repeatedly makes this same point in the sub-headline and
| throughout the article. In at least one point where a comment
| reply violated HN guidelines by stating that the commenter
| clearly hadn't read the article, the original commenter stated
| that they had, so it seems unlikely to me that it's just people
| commenting on the headline itself.
|
| Given that the author blames his divorce on poor communication,
| perhaps this shouldn't surprise me?
| [deleted]
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| I would walk away too. It is not about the glass. It is about
| 'not being heard'. It is highly disrespectful. It is about his
| upbringing and a peek into his entire attitude towards others. It
| is also about his parents marriage or other marriages he has
| witnessed..and how he is trying to mimic it..because that's what
| children do..internalize and imprint what they witness. I am
| reminded of Philip Larkin's "This Be The Verse".
|
| I don't give marriage advice to young girls, but if I were to..I
| would tell them to run..not walk away..if the potential mate
| cannot clean up after themselves.
|
| To me, it's a ginormous red flag if a full grown adult is
| messy..can't make the bed..doesn't pick up after themselves,
| leaves dirty dishes all around.
|
| There is also a cultural caveat to this. I am Indian and boys are
| coddled more than girls(in my generation). A man who cannot take
| care of his mess screams mommy issues. There are other cultures
| too where boys are more prized than girls. I suspect it is not so
| much in the west. It seems like all kids here are raised by the
| state in public schools. I have some other thoughts but it's best
| I keep them to myself.
|
| My first thought was to suggest that no one should be taking
| marriage lessons from someone whose marriage has failed. The
| author includes himself as well when he says 'this is how well
| intentioned people fall apart'. That is laughable to me. This is
| a passive aggressive dude who shouldn't be married in the first
| place. She was honest in expressing her expectation and he
| wasn't.
|
| My second thought is that all marriages are short lived. When
| children are born, couples become child rearing partners. These
| partnerships last as long as the children are alive and mostly
| children outlive the parents.
|
| Many marriages fray when parents become empty nesters or when
| tragedy strikes. And this is absolutely natural and necessary for
| sanity of human beings. The expectation of long perpetual
| marriages until death do them apart is macabre and the seed for
| future co dependency issues.
|
| Renegotiating marriage terms every 3-5 years is the one of the
| ways to maintain healthy marriage partnerships. Marriages(long
| partnerships) and monogamy are not compatible with human nature.
| If that's the desired outcome, there has to be an external force
| acting upon it continually to maintain integrity.
|
| As far as 'the little things' are concerned, it is no different
| from what one may experience with room mates. I would recommend
| putting everything in writing and if possible, have separate
| rooms and/or bathrooms plus a shared bedroom. But that doesn't
| make marriages natural either. Long successful marriages are not
| one long partnership..it is a series of multiple short term
| contracts negotiated between partners.
| js2 wrote:
| A lot of folks are misinterpreting this article, or just using it
| as a jumping off point to get something off their chest.
|
| This article is not literally about the dirty dish. It's not even
| about compromise. Rather, the article is really about having
| healthy communication with your partner.
|
| The author's wife was trying to communicate to him: "when you do
| X, I feel like Y, and it hurts me."
|
| But he wasn't _hearing_ it. Not really. Now maybe his wife wasn
| 't communicating as effectively as she could. But the author
| seems to indicate that she was and that he could have done more
| to recognize what she was saying and to empathize with her. He
| didn't get it, and now he clearly regrets it. It's too bad a
| healthy relationship didn't come out of that, but sometimes
| there's just too much damage.
|
| My wife and I have been together for 33 years, married for 26 of
| those (we met in HS). I'm extremely fortunate that she's
| empathetic, compassionate, and has the patience of Job. Because
| it turns out that for a large portion of our marriage, I behaved
| like an asshole. She's not confrontational, while I thrive on it.
| We had a rule never to let a day end angry at each other, but
| mostly due to faults on my side she wasn't always heard because I
| wasn't open to listening to her. This built a lot of resentment.
| It came to a head years ago, but we worked through it and our
| relationship is healthier than it's ever been.
|
| "You're not wrong Walter; you're just an asshole."
|
| The hard work in a relationship isn't compromise. That's table
| stakes. The hard work is communication.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| We are always told "Accept your significant other - do not try
| to change them." Why does not that apply here?
| twh270 wrote:
| It's more "don't try to force change on them". If you think
| you're going to 'make' your SO stop smoking, watch movies
| with you, or wash the dishes, you're approaching it the wrong
| way.
|
| Communicate. Express what is happening and how it is
| affecting you, in a way that doesn't place the blame on them.
| (Also, they have to be mature enough not to hear it as blame.
| Both can be difficult, and just about impossible when your
| emotions are worked up.)
|
| Then you talk about how to solve the problem. Not in a "your
| behavior is a problem, how do we change it" fashion, but in a
| "it's us against this problem" fashion.
|
| In the article, he says "the existence of love, trust,
| respect, and safety in our marriage was dependent on these
| moments I was writing off as petty disagreements". Instead of
| recognizing and respecting her complaints as legitimate -- no
| matter how minor -- he dismissed them, and thus told her
| "Your needs aren't important to me".
|
| As he also learned, petty disagreements become major problems
| when not dealt with. You either take care of them early, when
| they're still easily tractable, or you wait until they've
| festered and become a Major Problem. And then they're really
| difficult to fix.
| usefulcat wrote:
| There's an enormous difference between asking a person to
| change _who they are_ versus _how they behave_.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| True. But as child wrote, 'If I just sit around and say
| everything is "important", does that mean I get to have it
| my way all the time?'
| usefulcat wrote:
| If being asked to put a glass in the dishwasher is an
| assault on one's identity, then so be it. But such a
| person is probably also ill-suited to marriage or any
| similar relationship.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| You're missing the point. That's one instance. Marriages
| are made up of thousands of these instances. Are you
| going to change your behaviors for all of those? Because
| I have, and it is tiring. Resentment builds on both
| sides.
| brewdad wrote:
| Exactly. You continue to change until finally you reach a
| breaking point and the relationship is destroyed.
| Alternatively, you change on some things, push back on
| others, and try to reach compromises when you can. If
| your partner refuses to accept anything other than
| "victory" in every conflict, hopefully at least you learn
| this before you've sunk 20 years into the marriage.
| antiterra wrote:
| > The author's wife was trying to communicate to him: "when you
| do X, I feel like Y, and it hurts me."
|
| Too often for me, I have tried to figure out a solution to a
| problem, when someone was just trying to let me know how they
| feel.
|
| I think there's some sort of an analogy around a leaky canoe.
|
| Like: Is the person hoping for a friendly wave, some hints on
| stopping the leak or for you to get into the canoe and help
| bail the water out?
| js2 wrote:
| > Too often for me, I have tried to figure out a solution to
| a problem, when someone was just trying to let me know how
| they feel.
|
| That's likely not uncommon among the readers here, and
| something I do as well. But I think just realizing that I do
| it has helped me to stop doing it so much.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| communication and compromise and all that stuff is a two way
| street. I mean this in romantic relationship, society, work
| relationships, just...everything.
|
| We've come to accept the one who professes "hurt" must always
| be bowed to. And at first this makes sense. We SHOULD be
| empathetic to other's pain, suffering, annoyances and
| irritations and we should try our best to smooth out relations
| and get along. But this dynamic creates a power imbalance. The
| one who complains, the one who is slighted is now given control
| over those they claim slight them. And this power is often
| abused.
|
| This is the "two way street" part. It's trying not to offend
| when you speak..but being CHARITABLE when you listen; meaning
| you interpret the words/actions of someone in the best possible
| manner, give them the benefit of the doubt.
|
| Maybe he worked hard, had moments of stress and liked the dish
| by the sink? Shouldn't she just let the little stuff go? The
| point is... if it's always one sided, always one person not
| letting it go, or always one person not being empathetic to the
| condition of others.. it's bound to fail.
|
| The whole "you're not wrong but you're an asshole" can go for
| the one slighted as much as the one not-intending-to-but-doing-
| so-anyway slighter.
|
| My biggest problem about the author isn't even the content -
| but the whole thing is phrased the way it is for clickbait bc
| he's trying to sell a book.
|
| My point is... relationships are about mutual-ism Mutual-ism
| that exists without having to keep score.
| js2 wrote:
| > My biggest problem about the author isn't even the content
| - but the whole thing is phrased the way it is for clickbait
| bc he's trying to sell a book.
|
| I choose to take the author in good faith: his relationship
| fell apart, he learned something from it, and he's sharing it
| as a way to help others avoid the same mistake. He's owning
| his part of the failure. Maybe his wife made mistakes she
| regrets too. That's a different article for her to write.
|
| I mean, sure, capitalism, everyone wants to make a buck. But
| I just don't seen any value in interpreting and commenting on
| this article cynically like that. The article only contains
| value if read in good faith. $0.02.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I can pretty much guarantee that the wife did not say "When you
| leave a dirty dish by the sink, I feel like you won't do a
| simple thing that you know will make me happier, and that hurts
| me and causes me to doubt that you would do anyhing for me that
| required more effort." Instead, she just griped about the dish.
| Men are not that perceptive unless they've already been
| educated about this. Women need to be explicit about how they
| are feeling if they want to be sure that the men are getting
| the message.
|
| Edit: I'll add, after a moment of reflection, that it's
| possible that the wife herself did not really understand the
| reason why the dirty dish irritated her so much. So all that
| occurred to her to do was complain about it and dig in her
| heels. The real reason might be that she feels doubts about her
| husband's commitment to her, and that manifests in being angry
| about dirty dishes.
|
| So often we are taught that men and women are not different,
| but they are. This could be taught in high school in a personal
| relationship unit in health class. But it isn't. To the extent
| it's discussed, it is mostly focused on physical abuse. Mothers
| can also teach it to their sons, but I'm not sure many do. Mine
| certainly did not, and I had to learn it the hard way.
| Twounwhe wrote:
| I will not venture a guess as to whether the author's wife
| articulated her feelings and needs clearly because I do not
| know either of them.
|
| However, I can say that in my own life, I have been quite
| explicit about how I was feeling multiple times. In my own
| words: " _When you {seemingly insignificant thing} that I 've
| mentioned bothers me, it makes me feel like you don't care
| about my concerns, and only care about yourself. That hurts
| me, and because I've already mentioned this, it makes me
| doubt that you have any concern for my feelings._" (Somewhere
| around the dozenth time, append " _or my wellbeing._ ")
|
| Even so, it usually took repeating half a dozen times or more
| before my significant other exhibited any reaction beyond
| dismissal (i.e. moving past "It's just a cup. It shouldn't
| bother you."). This happened in three separate LTRs.
|
| Obviously my anecdote doesn't prove anything... except that
| "women need to be explicit about how they are feeling" is
| insufficient (though necessary) in at least a non-zero % of
| communication.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Even so, it usually took repeating half a dozen times or
| more before my significant other exhibited any reaction
| beyond dismissal (i.e. moving past "It's just a cup. It
| shouldn't bother you.").
|
| At least you actually repeated yourself half a dozen times.
| Many people would throw a fit about "you're not listening"
| before then.
| op00to wrote:
| Each person must be responsible for understanding, taming,
| and ultimately mastering communicating their needs and
| feelings to be a part of a constructive marriage. It's not a
| male/female thing - that's a distraction. It's a personal
| responsibility thing. Be responsible for your own happiness
| by advocating for yourself in a clear way.
|
| Or you'll end up divorced over glasses by the sink.
| felipesoc wrote:
| He dismissed her feelings, she did communicate that it annoyed
| her but he thought "it shouldn't annoy her, it's really not a
| big deal". He tried to reason about her feelings from his own
| and came to the conclusion that he was right and she shouldn't
| feel the way she did. And that kind of thinking surely doesn't
| stop with dishes. He must have done that on all aspects of
| their relationship
| vlunkr wrote:
| > She knew that something was wrong. I insisted that everything
| was fine. This is how my marriage ended. It could be how yours
| ends too.
|
| I think this is the important piece of the article. It
| highlights the lack of good communication.
| parentheses wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this. I feel like what you're describing
| could be my family 20+ years from now. I applaud you for
| changing for your spouse and hope I can be so wise to listen in
| these moments.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Thanks for writing this. I have a question for you, since my
| marriage ended for reasons similar to this author's. Why is the
| wife's desire more important than his? In other words, why must
| the husband live the way the wife wants and compromise is not
| acceptable (especially if they share cleaning responsibilities)
| -- compromise could look like "sometimes I do it her way,
| sometimes I do it my way." Why can't a partner let go of the
| little things and accept that living with another person
| (spouse or roommate) means you don't get to set all the rules
| on how both of you live?
|
| We are always told "Accept your significant other rather than
| trying to change them." Why does not that apply here?
| rout39574 wrote:
| Translated into a slightly different venue: if partner A's
| sense of order is jarred by laundry near, and not in, hamper,
| but partner B just doesn't care, then the steady state is A
| always cleaning up after B.
|
| A's happiness depends on a certain degree of order in the
| shared space, and B is oblivious to that degree of order. Or
| more likely, it requires a conscious exercise of effort to
| perceive the degree of order.
|
| If B is unwilling to make that effort, they are discovering
| that they care less about A's happiness than the relative
| effort required. Eventually, A figures out how low their
| value is, and takes their relationship elsewhere.
| [deleted]
| op00to wrote:
| My partner tends to "ruminate" on making phone calls -
| setting up appointments, customer service stuff, etc. I am
| on the phone all day for work, so it's no big deal for me
| to deal with the calls.
|
| Sometimes, I ask my partner to make a call. Most times, she
| doesn't do it within the agreed upon time period. I either
| do it myself, she gets to it E V E N T U A L L Y, or it
| doesn't get done. I used to fight about this because it
| really isn't "fair" for her to not get this stuff done when
| she said she'd do it. However, I realized it just wasn't a
| big deal for me to make the phone calls and deal with this
| stuff. I'm the one getting pissed over my partner's
| inaction, not my partner.
|
| Since I just stopped sweating it, making the calls when I
| felt it was important, and leaving my partner be when the
| calls are not important, I'm a lot less pissed off about
| calls. I'm sure my partner appreciates not being bugged
| over this.
|
| I guess another solution to this could be getting divorced,
| but that really says to me that the husband wasn't really
| the problem here and the regret he feels shouldn't be
| lodged against his own actions.
| robohoe wrote:
| Could be your partner's inaction on making phone calls
| mean some sort of lack of confidence?
| msrenee wrote:
| I think you've got it backwards. Whether the glass ended
| up in the dishwasher or not didn't matter much to him. It
| mattered a lot to her and instead of putting in the bit
| of effort, he tried to justify to himself why he
| shouldn't have to.
|
| My husband has a thing about making phone calls. I've got
| other crap I put off for similar reasons, but phone calls
| are not an issue for me. So when a call needs made and I
| have the information needed, I'll do it and save him the
| stress. Not a big deal for me at all, but it takes
| something off his plate that he doesn't like to do.
| gedy wrote:
| > A always cleaning up after B.
|
| (Married 20 years) there definitely needs to be awareness
| that A might just prioritize something before B gets to it.
| It's not that B would never do it or doesn't care.
| Everything is priorities. (I'm talking within the same day
| or two, not leaving for weeks on end of course.)
| dre85 wrote:
| I'm in a marriage and I struggle with this same question. I
| sometimes feel like the things my wife cares about are
| essentially endless. Like if I bend to "her way" and put
| effort into consistently placing the dirty cup in the
| dishwasher, next week something new comes up. Then it's the
| clothes on the floor of my side of the bed or not hanging my
| jacket or not putting my shoes away perfectly in the closet.
| At times I get the sensation that it just becomes like waking
| on eggshells to constantly mitigate somebody's upsetness of
| irrelevant (to me) things.
|
| I found the article really well written and I think a lot of
| people will be able to relate to it. Consideration for our
| partners and compromise is a tricky and interesting domain.
| I'm realizing more and more that there can be a lot of
| complexity behind benign everyday situations like a dirty cup
| beside the sink. Like how can a dirty dish even perturb
| somebody so much in the first place? Is it related to some
| trauma or childhood conditioning? Can it be addressed
| somehow?
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >Like if I bend to "her way" and put effort into
| consistently placing the dirty cup in the dishwasher, next
| week something new comes up. Then it's the clothes on the
| floor of my side of the bed or not hanging my jacket or not
| putting my shoes away perfectly in the closet. At times I
| get the sensation that it just becomes like waking on
| eggshells to constantly mitigate somebody's upsetness of
| irrelevant (to me) things.
|
| I don't understand the complaint here. It sounds like your
| wife is trying to get you, incrementally, to act like a
| responsible adult. This is what a good partner does.
|
| The more interesting question is why you want to remain
| living like a slob in a messy environment?
| [deleted]
| zrail wrote:
| When you're hurting someone it's on you to stop before they
| decide they've had enough. After that you can work with them
| to get what you want in a way that makes sense for you both.
| Compromise always comes after harm reduction.
| op00to wrote:
| When someone is getting hurt by their life partner, they
| need to speak clearly and explicitly about what is going on
| and what they want. Expecting your partner to read your
| mind will end in resentment. Can't reduce harm if you don't
| speak up.
| msrenee wrote:
| The author makes it clear that these things were
| communicated to him. No one needed to read anyone's mind.
| He just felt like it wasn't a big deal, so he chose not
| to change his habits.
| eximius wrote:
| First, there are no absolutes here.
|
| Second, its can often be about preference weights. If A cares
| heavily about something, and B doesnt have a strong
| preference, then perhaps B should take A's preference into
| account.
|
| Now, should A have a strong preference for a trivial thing?
| Maybe not. But that doesnt change anyone's preferences and
| only breeds resentment.
| js2 wrote:
| I'm sorry that your marriage ended.
|
| > Why is the wife's desire more important than his? In other
| words, why must the husband live the way the wife wants and
| compromise is not acceptable (especially if they share
| cleaning responsibilities) -- compromise could look like
| "sometimes I do it her way, sometimes I do it my way." Why
| can't a partner let go of the little things and accept that
| living with another person (spouse or roommate) means you
| don't get to set all the rules on how both of you live?
|
| I don't think the author's relationship failed due to lack of
| compromise or at least that's not communicated by the
| article. I take the key line in the article to be this one:
| "My wife communicated pain and frustration over the frequent
| reminders she encountered that told her over and over and
| over again just how little she was considered when I made
| decisions."
|
| We don't know anything else about their marriage. We don't
| know who cleaned, shopped, did the finances, budgeted, had a
| job. All we know is that the author treated his wife in such
| a way that she didn't feel respected or heard.
|
| I also infer that his wife didn't effectively communicate to
| him what was really bothering her based on this: "If I had
| known that this drinking-glass situation and similar
| arguments would actually end my marriage--that the existence
| of love, trust, respect, and safety in our marriage was
| dependent on these moments I was writing off as petty
| disagreements, I would have made different choices."
|
| Without more detail about the disagreements, we just don't
| know whether she told him why these things were bothering her
| and he ignored her, or if she just didn't surface the reasons
| for her upset.
|
| We also don't know whether they saw a marriage counselor.
| That would be an interesting detail.
|
| One other point I'd add, with apologies to Tolstoy: "All
| happy marriages are alike; each unhappy marriage is unhappy
| in its own way."
|
| Marriages fail for all sorts of reasons. This article is just
| one example. The author just wants to warn us: this thing
| that seems trivial to you but annoys your partner may be a
| metaphor for a larger issue.
| yojo wrote:
| If it is unimportant to you, and important to her, then
| splitting the difference doesn't mean doing it your way half
| the time.
|
| If it instead is important to both of you, then you have a
| fundamental problem that you need to sit down and work
| through.
|
| Maybe there is a compromise that will leave both of you
| happy. Maybe one of you is willing to try changing. Or maybe
| you have an irreconcilable difference and need to split up.
|
| Honestly if you are both ready to consider divorce before you
| change your dishwashing behavior, that's a pretty big warning
| sign that things aren't on the right track.
|
| An example: I don't give a shit about clothes on the bedroom
| floor. No one but me and my wife ever sees them. But it
| bothers her. It costs me very little to dump the clothes in a
| hamper, and makes her much happier. So I put my clothes in
| the hamper as much as I can remember to, and she gives me
| grace the times I forget. Happily together for 20 years so
| far.
| gleenn wrote:
| He did mention that he would never care to change his
| behavior and had two reasons to continue doing it. I guess
| that doesn't mean it's the hill he would go to die on. I do
| struggle with the same thing, at what point is it something
| that's no longer a conversation, you should just change
| because the other person decided they cared enough about
| it. Having the wife end a marriage over it also seems
| ridiculous. If people can't come to realize they are asking
| for something silly but it's a big deal to them, that seems
| like that partner's problem. If I just sit around and say
| everything is "important", does that mean I get to have it
| my way all the time?
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > If I just sit around and say everything is "important",
| does that mean I get to have it my way all the time?
|
| This is my question, and i would like to hear from OP,
| married 33+ years, on his attitude about this.
| yojo wrote:
| I entered into my marriage assuming my partner was
| negotiating in good faith. If she says something bugs
| her, it bugs her. Collectively we can either spring for
| Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for her, or I can pick up my
| pants after I shower.
|
| If your partner needs to have their way in all things,
| then there may be a deeper trust issue to resolve and/or
| they might not be ready for a committed relationship.
|
| Edit: rereading above I can see it coming off as a little
| flippant. At the core I believe we all have things we do
| and feel that are not rational. I don't think you can
| reason your way out of them. You can't rationally argue
| away a feeling. You can do therapy to try to change it,
| or you can remove the negative stimulus.
| zaroth wrote:
| Right, you do this small act of service because _you are in
| love_ with your partner. Ideally not even because it makes
| her happy, but because it makes _you_ happy to make her
| happy.
|
| The upshot of the article, IMO, is that they were no longer
| in love.
|
| And that lack of love became most apparent by observing all
| the tiny _acts of service_ that people in love do for each
| other, and people who are merely co-habitating and perhaps
| also co-parenting, do not give a flying fuck about and use
| as a safe thing to argue about instead of admitting the
| truth.
| jachee wrote:
| When you really, truly _love_ someone, their desires are more
| important than your own, _in your own mind, too_.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| At the same time, the argument could easily be flipped: if one
| person truly loves another, the let things like putting a glass
| besides the sink _slide_. It is accepting the other person, with
| their flaws. If you want to change another person, it's selfish.
| Furthest away from love as can be.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| The glass near the sink instead of in the dishwasher thing I kind
| of get - it's like going halfway to solving the problem. If you
| want to use a dish again, don't put it into the gray zone near
| the sink. Leave it on your desk or the kitchen table or whatever
| you were using it or might use it again. If you are done, wash it
| or put it in the dishwasher to be washed. Leaving dirty stuff
| near the sink is ambiguous - easy to get mixed in with the clean
| dishes while you are emptying dishwasher to put them away.
|
| Mostly it reeks of asking the other partner to finish the job.
| I'd wager this guy didn't do the dishes more of than not either.
| A lot of men genuinely don't help out around the house and don't
| understand why it upsets their wife so much.
|
| From a gender roles inversion perspective this would be like if
| your wife bagged up the trash from the bin and then just left it
| next to the bin instead of taking it out. So now you have a dirty
| bag of garbage on the floor until someone decides to take it out.
| Almost a worse situation than just leaving the bin full.
|
| Regardless of whether an issue is petty or not, if a spouse
| indicates it bothers them for whatever reason, and the other
| spouse just basically ignores it, this is a recipe for disaster.
| Diesel555 wrote:
| I'll just put this here, there is a book which describes exactly
| what the author realized too late. It's better to learn these
| things things via reading than in retrospect. I realized I have
| "Difficult Conversations" many times a day. I wish I had read it
| years ago, it's a relationship changer.
|
| Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
| achikin wrote:
| It seems from the article that the real reason is that the guy is
| extremely dull. I don't think I could live with a person who
| makes bullet-point list of reasons why he has left a glass near a
| sink.
| StillBored wrote:
| Woah, so, its his fault his wife was finding things he does, and
| trying to change his mostly thoughtless behaviors all the time?
|
| Well granted I couldn't see what was going on, but just from the
| article its hard to find him at fault if like many relationships
| one of the partners is constantly finding faults in his basic
| unthinking trivial behaviors. I'm pretty sure that two people
| living together can find things about the other person that
| irritates them. That is not really a problem unless its willful
| (aka he is creating a real problem for the other person, or
| intentionally subverting them, etc). The much larger problem is
| the person who cannot control their emotions enough to recognize
| that the other person isn't doing it willfully and deal with it,
| without constantly trying to reprogram the other person. Sure
| maybe in a loving relationship both people try to avoid the
| behaviors that irritate the other person, but at the end of the
| day it seems this is a never ending road. A person can teach
| themselves to put the dishes in the washer, or turn off the
| light, but frequently this takes time, and sometimes old habits
| die hard. And then there needs to be an endpoint, and an
| understanding environment in place to succeed.
|
| So, the constant nagging, complaining and taking it personally
| when the other person fails? That isn't the fault of the person
| who fails to live up to an artificial and constantly changing set
| of requirements.
|
| The long term result of living like this and trying to constantly
| improve yourself to some standard being set by your partner? Its
| just going to be intense hatred when ten, twenty, thirty years
| later you wake up and realize that you have changed everything
| about yourself and they are still not satisfied.
|
| So, no, unless it was willful, he isn't the one at fault here,
| she is for inventing things that bother her, and then getting
| upset when he doesn't agree that dishes need to be prewashed, or
| placed in the dishwasher individually rather than as a batch,
| etc. Because when he lived alone or with his parents it was
| perfectly ok to put them next to the sink and reuse them, and
| then run the washer when the sink got full, and now its suddenly
| not.
|
| So, frankly he sounds like the lucky one. Lucky she moved on so
| he can focus on what he thinks matters rather than trying to meet
| this other persons standards and being punished for failing.
| aantix wrote:
| Those arguing for/against whether the dishes are trivial are
| missing the point.
|
| You always ultimately make the choice whether these demands,
| whether too many or not, are worth it. You decide.
|
| Dan Savage does a brief talk about this titled the Price of
| Admission. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1tCAXVsClw
| petermcneeley wrote:
| I thought the marriage vows were "till death do us part".
| smegsicle wrote:
| it's a vow before god not an eula people
| PortiaBerries wrote:
| brewdad wrote:
| When the next time a glass is left out you can see yourself
| murdering your partner, it's ok to get out before that event
| actually occurs.
| hogrider wrote:
| This reads really pathetic to me. If that's really why she left
| and not simply that she found a higher value male or something
| that's just plain crazy and she's doing him a favor.
| NortySpock wrote:
| "Is this hill worth dieing on?" is a question I occasionally ask
| myself.
|
| Other ways to put it: "Would taking 10 seconds to do this now
| make my wife 1% less stressed?" (If so, do the thing to make her
| less stressed.)
|
| "Is it worth starting a fight vs spending the same time just
| fixing the problem?"
|
| "Would spending $COST_OF_THING make my wife happy for a day /
| make a fond memory of us together?" (Hence why I encourage my
| thrifty wife to spend a bit of money on semiprecious jewelry or
| clothes for herself that she enjoys)
|
| "If I cheap out on $COMMMONLY_USED_ITEM, will my wife and I be
| annoyed by its limitations / bad user experience for years?"
|
| Granted, I am fortunate to be able to pay the bills and have a
| little extra for the occasional splurge for my wife. And my wife
| is kind and understanding and I love her dearly. But I learned
| long ago that doing a little bit extra / spending a bit more for
| a quality item pays dividends in reducing friction and annoyances
| daily.
|
| Those daily annoyances add up over time, and not in a good way.
| Make yourself aware of them, and then fix them. Cut down on
| stressors so you can spend more mental bandwidth on your wife and
| kids.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Buy flowers. They are pretty.
| LegitShady wrote:
| > "Would taking 10 seconds to do this now make my wife 1% less
| stressed?"
|
| An addition to this unrelated to marriage - if it takes 10
| seconds, why isn't it already done instead of considering
| whether to do it or not?
|
| I have a personal rule that unless I have another issue that
| requires attention right now (like working from home being work
| time, etc) If it take 5 minutes or less to do it I just do it
| right away and never let myself say 'I'll do it later' because
| 1/2 the time you don't do it later, and its easier to just
| finish it right away and never worry about it again.
|
| Dishwasher finish? It takes 3 minutes to put away the dishes.
| Now your dishwasher is empty so it takes 5 seconds to put away
| dirty dishes. Dishwasher full? take 20 seconds to put in some
| detergent and get it started. 3 minutes + 10 seconds means you
| never have to deal with dirty dishes on the counter or in the
| sink.
| op00to wrote:
| That works for you. I prefer to plan and psych myself up for
| this stuff. Don't expect everyone to want to handle household
| tasks exactly on your schedule.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I have 1000 things I'd like done that take less than 30
| seconds. I don't have 4 hours to do them all.
| LegitShady wrote:
| You probably don't.
| kaybe wrote:
| When you start out, it might be a lot of items. The
| question is how often they renew.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| The other day my wife said, "Ugh, I hate it when you run the
| dishwasher during the day, because then I have to empty it
| before filling it."
|
| Sometimes you cannot win. But it's still a game worth
| playing: being married is the best thing that ever happened
| to me.
| LegitShady wrote:
| if the dishwasher is full I don't really understand the
| point of waiting for night to run the dishwasher...there's
| no more room for dishes in it and someone is going to have
| to empty it either way, and wouldn't it be better to have
| the dishes inside clean? Do you not empty the dishwasher at
| all when you start it during the day, and that's the actual
| issue?
| op00to wrote:
| Dishwashers running overnight have been implicated in house
| fires. Best not to run the dishwasher unattended! :)
| brimble wrote:
| > An addition to this unrelated to marriage - if it takes 10
| seconds, why isn't it already done instead of considering
| whether to do it or not?
|
| "I might re-use it" is in the article. It's a matter of
| preference, and who's more willing to make A Thing out of it,
| not objective right and wrong. I, for one, think dishes-in-
| sink (if they can't fit in the dishwasher but it's also not
| full enough to run yet, or if it's running, or if it's clean
| and you're in too big a rush to empty it right that second)
| is worse for a whole list of reasons, unless you have very
| limited counter space, but we do it anyway, because I don't
| care enough to insist on doing it my way, and my wife does.
| Whatevs.
|
| I do wonder how many quietly-very-slightly-suffering spouses
| there are out there, over this exact issue.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| This is the cause of the same fight over and over. One side
| is annoyed by something that is small and takes little time
| to do. The other side says why are you annoyed by something
| that is so insignificant? The other side says if its
| insignificant to you why cant you do it?
|
| I've had some version of this argument 1000's of times and
| its ended a lot of relationships I had pre marriage.
| mswen wrote:
| Your comment reminds me of the following. My wife and I have
| been married over 30 years now. Our total household is 7
| persons.
|
| A couple years ago, my wife was complaining once again about
| someone using scissors and not bringing them back to their
| proper storage place. "How can we have 3 pair of scissors and
| none of them are here when I need to use one?" This didn't
| bother me but hearing her complain about it did bother me.
| After a couple attempts to reason, "it isn't that big of deal
| to track a pair down" or "how often do we really use them?", I
| decided that abundance was a better solution. I found a 4 pack
| of decent scissors for about $12.
|
| So for $12 dollars I have never heard that complaint again
| because even if someone walks off with one and doesn't get it
| back right away there are several more. So my wife doesn't
| doesn't experience that frustration and it keeps her from
| getting fixated on something as insignificant as the location
| of pair of scissors. And, I have already decided that if it
| happens again I will buy another pack. They are surprisingly
| good scissors for $3 each.
|
| I think my broader point was that we as humans are sometimes
| irrational about certain annoyances in life. And, if I can find
| a way to spend some money and just solve the issue that is
| probably a good use of money.
| greedo wrote:
| Yet the solution to many relationship problems isn't finding
| a solution!
|
| I'm a sysadmin. When I see a problem, I try to fix it, and
| prevent it from happening again. But relationships aren't
| servers. Sometimes we see (or are told about) a problem, and
| immediately go to fix it. Yet often the problem isn't what we
| see. Usually (maybe 99% of the time) problems in
| relationships are about communication. Listening.
| Commiserating.
|
| My partner hates it when she tells me about her day at work
| and I try to offer solutions to the problems she faces. It's
| dumb on my part, she's a grown woman, a professional, and I
| have a solution? This behavior on my part is very unhealthy
| to a relationship, and I have to fight my natural
| inclinations to fix things.
|
| Instead, I have to listen. Let her talk, let her explain how
| it makes her feel, let her talk through how she might solve
| it, or let her not think about a solution. Just be there for
| her.
|
| Not easy at all for someone on the spectrum who has a hard
| time reading social/emotional cues. Nor for someone who has a
| career as a fixer...
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I had exactly the same discussion with my wife and I am
| gonna strongly disagree here.
|
| It's a two way street, yes I need to be open to the
| possibility of this being a 'venting' conversation where
| she is looking only for support. However, she also needs to
| be aware that it is my natural inclination to look for
| 'solutions' and that social cues are not my forte.
|
| So it is also part of the meet me half-way that she clearly
| _says_ (not hints) at the start that she is not looking for
| solutions but is just sharing/venting.
|
| I think one of biggest breakthroughs in our relationship
| was watching the play "Defending the Caveman" together. It
| suddenly put into words everything I was somehow unable to
| express in how differently we perceive/process reality.
| mswen wrote:
| Oh, I totally agree with you. And, there are times when it
| is not useful to try to come up with a solution because the
| other person just needs to be heard. It is not really about
| problem X. The real issue is not feeling heard, respected,
| loved.
| Aloha wrote:
| This is the varying communications styles between men and
| women. There was a reddit post from years ago that really
| went into great detail about this, it was some of the most
| brilliant writing about this topic that I'd ever seen.
|
| Women want to talk about feelings, and dont necessarily
| want help with their problems.
|
| Men tend to communicate more 'functionally' we tend to talk
| about problems we want a solution for - unless we
| specifically talk about feelings we're generally looking
| for inputs on solving those issues.
| khalilravanna wrote:
| This is really smart. You're right we often fixate on "the
| principle of the matter" instead of just stepping back and
| looking for an easy solution and then moving on with our
| lives.
| Arrath wrote:
| I find myself in situations like this myself, but on the
| observer's side. Often I swallow the impulse to ask "Well
| the problem was solved in 10 seconds, and you've now spent
| minutes venting about it, how is this at all constructive?"
| to my girlfriend. I've come to understand it is her makeup
| to need to vent about things like that rather than solve
| the problem and move on.
| clarkevans wrote:
| Yet, with the easy solution, they got right to the
| principle -- "I hear you. You matter to me".
| UncleMeat wrote:
| My parents did this and it was a great lesson.
|
| Scissors and cordless phones (prior to cell phones) got left
| all over the place. The solution was to buy like 20 pairs of
| scissors and have a cordless phone in damn near every room.
| Boom.
| twfree_ wrote:
| phnofive wrote:
| The lesson:
|
| "There is only one reason I will ever stop leaving that glass by
| the sink, and it's a lesson I learned much too late: because I
| love and respect my partner, and it really matters to them."
|
| Others have pointed out the corollary - that you can choose to
| accept behavior as well as modify your own - but this too seems
| fairly indispensable for a long term partnership.
| kstenerud wrote:
| I've been through a shitty marriage that ended badly. I divorced
| her, vowing to never get married again.
|
| Many many years later, I married a woman who had been through
| decades of horrible long term relationships (including one where
| he pointed a shotgun at her), and vowed to never ever get
| married.
|
| We both decided to take another chance at it, agreeing that in
| our marriage we would communicate everything as soon as possible.
| In the years since, we've had two cases of harsh words: One where
| she repeatedly did something that upset me and I said nothing
| about it, until finally I blew up at her one day. Another, where
| she'd been under extreme stress and blew up at me (yeah, we can
| be embarrassingly dumb, but hey, we're human). And besides that,
| not so much as a disparaging remark. We're together 24/7, never
| spending more than an hour or two apart (we're both home all
| day). We'll probably end up becoming one of those cute old
| couples who still hold hands at 80.
|
| We make a point of never communicating in a blame-like way. I.E.
| "Please can you find a way to avoid doing X? I know it might not
| make sense why but it drives me nuts." or "When you do X, it
| makes me feel like Y. Can we find something else that works for
| both of us?" These turn into discussions to drill down into
| exactly where the problem lies, and then figuring out what
| changes we can make (one, the other, or usually both) to make
| things work better. It's a constant process.
|
| We're all human, and we all have our quirks. They're not logical,
| but yet they exist and we can't change them. Being in a
| relationship is about empathy and communication. You're a team,
| so you really need to figure out how you can maximize your
| collective power.
|
| When people say "It's about sacrifice", they're half-right. It's
| not about pushing yourself into smaller and smaller boxes to
| accommodate their large footprint. It's about making some
| sacrifices or changes to work around the quirks that the other
| person can't change (CAN'T, not won't). You support your partner
| where they have weaknesses, and you build up their strengths.
| Even if you look at it from a purely mercenary point-of-view,
| this makes sense.
|
| Morale is vitally important. People have their down days, and you
| really need to be attentive to that. It's on you to see them
| through the down times and make sure they come out the other side
| okay. Note: I'm not talking about "cheering them up" (although
| that is sometimes a valid strategy); I'm talking about validation
| of their feelings. I'm talking about being there, in solidarity
| with them in their dark times, even if there's nothing else you
| can do to help. It's also important to celebrate their triumphs,
| and in general just let them know how much you appreciate them.
|
| Being in a team (I mean REALLY in a team) is about being
| attentive to each others' needs, strengths, fears, and
| demonstrating to them that you have their back, no matter what.
| If you can't trust your teammates implicitly, you're not a real
| team.
| [deleted]
| BeetleB wrote:
| If this couple went to a marriage counselor, the counselor is not
| going to say "You're going to lose your marriage because you
| continue to leave dishes by the sink". Instead, (s)he will say
| "You're going to lose your marriage because of poor communication
| - she can't communicate what is bothering her, and he doesn't
| have the communication skills to make it easy for her to
| communicate it."
|
| If you've read pretty much _any_ book on communications (not
| limited to relationships), they 'll have an example similar to
| this. And they never suggest "compromise" as a solution (at least
| not until you break through the communication problem).
|
| This is literally a "textbook" communication problem.
| watwut wrote:
| I understood the article as saying that she was communicating
| her issues, but he considered them minor, nagging and
| unimportant difference of opinion. Therefore, he never treated
| them seriously, whether by actually changing or by actually
| arguing back. Basically, he dismissed it instead of taking it
| as issue.
|
| Here is quote from the article: "Hundreds, maybe thousands of
| times, my wife tried to communicate that something was wrong."
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I understood the article as saying that she was
| communicating her issues
|
| She wasn't. She was at best hinting - again, something pretty
| much every communications book says not to do.
|
| > "Hundreds, maybe thousands of times, my wife tried to
| communicate that something was wrong."
|
| He doesn't go into details, but it's usually one of two
| things:
|
| 1. Nagging over what seems to be minor issues, and he is
| supposed to realize that there are deeper issues underlying.
|
| 2. Saying explicitly that something was wrong, but not saying
| what.
|
| In both cases, she is lacking the communication skills to say
| what is wrong, and he is lacking the communication skills to
| make the path easier for her to say it.
|
| He says this:
|
| > The reason my marriage fell apart seems absurd when I
| describe it: My wife left me because sometimes I leave dishes
| by the sink.
|
| The question is, how does _she_ describe it to her friends? I
| doubt she says "I left my husband because he sometimes
| leaves dishes by the sink." And did she articulate that to
| him before it was too late?
| watwut wrote:
| It sounds like you make up the thing about hinting. This
| article does not talk about her hinting and him not getting
| hint. And in author other blog post he elaborates that
| further about her pretty clear complains - childcare,
| chores split and similar.
|
| > Nagging over what seems to be minor issues, and he is
| supposed to realize that there are deeper issues
| underlying.
|
| The deeper issue is that he dismisses her complains as
| unimportant nagging. That is not her failure to
| communicate, it is his failure to listen.
|
| > The question is, how does she describe it to her friends?
| I doubt she says "I left my husband because he sometimes
| leaves dishes by the sink." And did she articulate that to
| him before it was too late?
|
| Yes she did, but he called it nagging and ignored it. I
| have no idea what she says to her friends. We have only his
| self reflection to go on. Possibly she says something like
| "it did not worked out".
| BeetleB wrote:
| I think at this stage we're stuck with information that's
| not clearly provided, and only he can address them.
| However:
|
| > Hundreds, maybe thousands of times, my wife tried to
| communicate that something was wrong. That something
| hurt. But that doesn't make sense, I thought. I'm not
| trying to hurt her; therefore, she shouldn't feel hurt.
|
| "Feeling hurt" is vague. Feeling hurt is different from
| being upset that he dismisses her complaints as
| unimportant nagging. Saying that she does not think he
| respects her as a result of his dismissals and that it is
| causing angst is much better. It's not clear from his
| essay if she ever said something like this. She likely
| didn't, because:
|
| > What I know for sure is that I had never connected
| putting a dish in the dishwasher with earning my wife's
| respect.
|
| Had she said it, there would be no connection for him to
| make.
|
| > Yes she did, but he called it nagging and ignored it.
|
| This is not at all clear from the article. He's quite
| vague about the specifics of what she said.
| locallost wrote:
| Heh, I told my wife today that our first big fight was because
| she couldn't for two years throw away lemons instead of leaving
| them on the counter to collect fruit flies. As with the glass, it
| wasn't about the lemons, but something deeper. What that is, is
| really dependant on the person and even the relationship. In my /
| our case it was about me being very laid back and if somebody
| asked me to do something, and it was no big deal, I'd just do it.
| And the ratio of things she asked me vs vice versa was about
| 10:1. So when she couldn't do that one thing I asked her, and I
| really hate those flies, it eventually blew up.
| saturdaysaint wrote:
| I see the relationship coaches of this stripe all over all sorts
| of social media, and I just rarely if ever see insights that
| couldn't have been imparted by your average friendly stranger at
| a bar. What I mostly see are slightly-to-moderately damaged
| people who are articulate and engaging enough to find an audience
| of similarly damaged people who their experiences resonate with.
| This guy seems fairly innocuous (although this kind of rumination
| can also be unproductive!) but you see a lot of people fomenting
| bitterness. I would advise anyone I cared about to seek a
| credentialed therapist before turning to one of these self-
| appointed coaches.
| bena wrote:
| I get the point of the article and I agree with the overall
| conclusion, but I don't agree that it applies in the example he
| provided.
|
| If you are going to go to war over something, make sure it is
| worthy of doing so.
|
| In his example: what is the harm in the drinking glass being
| there? Is it occupying space of others? Is it preventing others
| from doing something? Is it a burden on anyone? Or is it an
| aesthetic choice?
|
| If it's an aesthetic choice, you need to get over it.
|
| We have a fairly open house plan. There aren't many choke points.
| Except one. There's a corner of a wall that is about 5 to 7 feet
| from the corner of a kitchen island. If you are coming in from
| the side door, it is the one place you have to cross to get to
| the rest of the house. Almost every day, my wife will park her
| rolling bookcase right there.
|
| Conversely, she's pretty lax on where she leaves her dirty
| laundry. But it's confined to the area beside her side of the bed
| and it doesn't encroach beyond that. I can't really stand having
| all that about. My clothes go straight into a hamper. But we both
| mostly do our own laundry, her getting her clothes off the floor
| is mostly an aesthetic choice. I let her live her life in that
| regard.
|
| "Leaving the glass on the counter is disrespectful to me" is kind
| of a toxic mindset. It kind of says "You must conform to my ideas
| of acceptable behavior". It's a bit controlling.
| em-bee wrote:
| the example is irrelevant, what matters is how he reacted to
| it. instead of working with her on a solution he preferred to
| _agree to disagree_
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Interesting. I remember reading this piece years ago about dirty
| dishes and divorce as well.
|
| https://www.huffpost.com/entry/she-divorced-me-i-left-dishes...
|
| Same concept more or less. Not saying the Atlantic lifted this,
| just funny to see "doing the dishes" at the core of another
| marriage discussion.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| My relationship just ended for mostly similar reasons (it wasn't
| _just_ glasses in the sink, it was a few other things I did that
| she considered disrespectful that seemed minor to me)
|
| I was the only one working and paying for the apartment, her
| hobbies, and school, but things like the above would escalate
| into long arguments that I would ask to defer. The problem was, I
| would sometimes forget details that were important to her if we
| postponed an argument for a few days, so she wanted to have them
| _now_ and that was disruptive of my work (I WFH, she studies from
| home). I might miss an entire day of work because of some minor
| thing that exploded into a 6 hour argument, while I was trying to
| disengage the whole time, but couldn 't.
|
| A couple weeks ago I had enough, and decided I needed more
| autonomy, and moved out. I didn't want that to be the end of
| relationship, but for her it was the end.
|
| Not sure what my point is, I just wanted to get it off my chest.
| Sometimes these seemingly minor things may just be a sign of
| deeper incompatibilities.
| csa wrote:
| If I read this right:
|
| - lots of arguments about things you considered small
|
| - issues focused on "disrespect", which is a perception thing
| that she had 100% control over
|
| - needed to resolve issues immediately
|
| - "resolution", if it happened, took up to six hours with no
| option to end on your side
|
| It sounds like she has some major issues that probably warrant
| professional help.
|
| To be fair, you may have issues as well (e.g., things that are
| "minor" to you may be a big deal to most people).
|
| If you want to resolve this internally, I recommend going to a
| relationship counselor/psychologist alone and just doing a
| reality check. Make sure you present her side to the counselor
| as reasonably as possible.
|
| You will probably find a few things you could do better, but
| you will probably also find that you were being controlled by
| someone with major issues.
|
| Fwiw, I think ending this relationship was a good idea.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| She's getting professional help. I have issues also, which
| I've been working on. But the things I would think were minor
| were maybe not "leaving a water glass next to the sink"
| minor, but maybe "forgetting to wash the dishes sometimes"
| minor (when the sink wasn't full... also the dishes were my
| chore)
|
| It's not about whether those things are only an issue for her
| though, the fact that they are an issue for her still causes
| conflict, and was important to me, I just couldn't keep up
| with the things she needed in addition to the inability to
| resolve conflict quickly, and my work.
| eslaught wrote:
| In case it helps you in the future, or for other readers here,
| let me just add: the symptoms you describe are well past the
| point where you probably need to see a therapist to make the
| relationship work.
|
| There are things you can do to fix this. They require work on
| both sides, obviously, but it can be done. But unless you have
| way more self-awareness than I do, it's not likely that you're
| just going to pick them up out of thin air. The good news is,
| this is stuff you can learn.
|
| If you prefer to read a book on this topic, the one I'd
| recommend is:
|
| The New Rules of Marriage
|
| by Terrence Real
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NJL7RS
|
| But I really do strongly recommend therapy in these situations.
| This is the sort of thing where the therapist can help you
| figure out whether you both have fault or if one person is
| really over the line. And then you're not responsible for
| convincing your parter that X thing they're doing is
| unreasonable.
| kapral18 wrote:
| When you are the only one paying for apartment, hobbies and
| school, since those "minor" things are out of her mind she has
| all the time and energy to ngaf about it and bloat her ego,
| manipulate and gaslight you into thinking you are not good
| enough boyfriend... husband... father...
|
| These are classic manipulation tricks of narcissists.
|
| And the fact that she allows herself to engage in a 6 hour
| argument during workdays knowing or not caring that it will
| absolutely fuck up your entire focus and ability to concentrate
| for days and bring you closer and closer to burnout and not
| being able to actually work speaks volumes on how much she
| cares about you and what she is after in these relationships in
| general.
|
| She doesn't want an equal she wants a servant. She wants a
| slave. Both physically and emotionally. Every second... She
| defines the rules of the game and you obey and play. It's a
| given. Your whole life with her is her play...
|
| Ugh... I say F that life.
|
| You need to celebrate the day you dodged that bullet. Not
| everyone has a mental courage to throw those human-sized
| parasites out of their lives.
|
| People can live 40 years blaming themselves for not satisfying
| narcissists enough, they reshape their whole identities and
| morale in the process trying to shove themselves into a shape
| that will hopefully satisfy ever evolving demands of a narc and
| never getting satisfied with their lives in the process or
| becoming self-enclosed philosophers but in most cases just
| plain miserable...
|
| They finally divorce, while the narcissist will happily jump
| onto the next victim berating and destroying the personality of
| the previous victim ignoring the fact that that person's whole
| life and identity was a sacrifice on the altar of the "wants"
| of a literal demon.
|
| It's a vicious cycle.
|
| Narcissists should be pariahs in any social circle. Their
| ability to deliver huge amounts of damage and mess somebody up
| mentally for years is so underrated that I believe whoever
| comes in contact with such a person has an obligation to not
| only immediately jump out of that relationship but also warn
| others about that person.
|
| Just like coming in contact with COVID you tell others around
| you about the danger, you should do exactly the same about
| narcissists.
|
| I wish you all the best and hope now you are more than well
| equipped to spot these creatures.
|
| And don't forget to transfer the knowledge to your children to
| break the circle.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >When you are the only one paying for apartment, hobbies and
| school, since those "minor" things are out of her mind she
| has all the time and energy to ngaf about it and bloat her
| ego, manipulate and gaslight you into thinking you are not
| good enough boyfriend... husband... father...
|
| And even "normal" people can slip into this if left with
| little responsibility in the household.
| ww520 wrote:
| Well said.
| jb3689 wrote:
| > When you are the only one paying for apartment, hobbies and
| school
|
| There are two sides to every story. I could say that this is
| what my wife and I do (because it is what we do), but it is
| out of convenience and the fact that I'm privileged enough to
| be able support both of us. It would be technically correct
| for me to say "I pay for your housing", but doing so would be
| weaponizing it unnecessarily. In our case we could split
| everything 50:50 too, we just explicitly choose not to
| because it's burdensome. I can't now use that against her
| whenever I want to.
|
| I'm not saying this is OP's situation, but that it is an
| alternative possible read of the situation given the tiny
| fraction of detail we've been given.
| strwbarie wrote:
| Y'all... While I agree that narcissists are extraordinarily
| harmful, it's possible OP and his ex partner's communication
| dynamic is not indicative of her being a full blown
| narcissist. It could be that she felt her partner was simply
| non-responsive and a brick wall about her problems, which
| extended the argument to six hours, in what was hopefully an
| one-time occurrence. Open to being wrong, however.
| ww520 wrote:
| Argument forced on you for hours of time during work hours
| because your partner wanted it now sounds horrible. She is an
| entitled narcissist who has no respect for you, your time, and
| your work. Congrats on dodging a bullet by moving out.
| watwut wrote:
| > I might miss an entire day of work because of some minor
| thing that exploded into a 6 hour argument, while I was trying
| to disengage the whole time, but couldn't.
|
| In this case, I would congratulate you for dodging the bullet.
| It seem to me, you was not _the_ problem in that relationship.
|
| I am even close to guess she was verbally abusive. And if not,
| then actually damaging to you.
| planck01 wrote:
| If your point of view is how it was then that was an unhealthy
| and unequal relationship. Of course it hurts, but you did the
| right thing and you will be happier in the long run.
|
| I've learned for myself to evaluate things as honestly for
| myself as possible. If she is any way right, I will immediately
| apologise and end the fight. But if I feel I'm right I will say
| how it is, even if it is hard to express and not give in. I
| will not escalate beyond necessary, but never give in. I will
| reevaluate arguments she gives, but only when I'm alone and at
| ease. I'm willing to deescalate, without giving in. This works
| for me (now).
|
| If she does not contribute on an somewhat equivalent level to
| the relationship in your own measure...run. Relationships
| should be mutually beneficial. Don't let others take advantage
| of you.
| op00to wrote:
| I'm sorry you went through that, ending of relationships can be
| very difficult. I hope you can find some peace. From how you
| describe it, your ex sounds like she doesn't respect implicit
| boundaries like "don't argue when someone's working".
|
| You're very right that what you see is a sign of
| incompatibilities.
| belval wrote:
| Honestly from the description you give, I wouldn't assign blame
| but it was probably the right call to break it off.
|
| 6 hours arguments that _need_ to happen _right now_ are a
| pretty big red flag...
| em-bee wrote:
| an unresolved argument (if it's a serious one) makes it
| difficult for me to focus on work. (as a programmer and
| sysadmin, being distracted can be dangerous) if it happens in
| the evening i also can't sleep. so either way the day is
| ruined.
|
| the solution then is obviously to learn to resolve arguments
| in a short time. actually, resolving the argument itself is
| not even the issue, but knowing that we still love each other
| is what matters.
|
| so what needs to happen right now is to find a way for both
| of us to calm down, maybe hug and kiss and then get back to
| work until you have time to discuss the issue later.
| belval wrote:
| I am very much the same on that part, it's hard to do great
| work when you are emotionally all over the place.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Other people are able to compartmentalize and put it off
| until later while going about their day. Having one of
| each in a disagreement is like adding fuel to the fire as
| both people get angrier that of the other is not
| accommodating their approach,and it becomes a _much_
| bigger thing. "Let's fix this now so I can do work" vs
| "Let's fix it later, so I can do my work".
| watwut wrote:
| When this sentiment leads to 6 hour long argument and
| partner missing work because of it, then it is beyond
| healthy need to finish argument.
| scarby2 wrote:
| > actually, resolving the argument itself is not even the
| issue, but knowing that we still love each other is what
| matters.
|
| So much this. Having been taking classes and reading up on
| intentional/effective communication strategies for
| relationships one of the key aspects is having a way to say
| "i love you and acknowledge your grievance however i do not
| have the time, energy or emotional strength to discuss this
| now" this can be distilled down to a phrase, maybe just
| "pause" or a gesture followed by some kind of display of
| affection.
|
| It's also critical that the other partner respects it.
| There's very little that's more damaging and less
| productive than continuing to argue with someone who has
| mentally checked out.
|
| My ex would yell at me (red flag) until i just couldn't
| anymore, not listen to any requests for breaks (another red
| flag) then physically prevent anyone from leaving the room
| until she was satisfied (huge red flag) - even if you had
| to go to work.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Non-violent communication[1] is fantastic when both
| parties utilize it during disagreements as it helps
| prevent escalations. _How_ you resolve differences is
| more important than the differences themselves and is
| foundational to any relationship.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication
| willcipriano wrote:
| It wouldn't be a six hour argument if he just said "You are
| right, I'll clean up after myself".
| lazide wrote:
| In my experience? It's never about that, and if there was
| nothing to criticize, THAT would be criticized. It's
| usually about some fundamental disconnect or unmet need by
| one of the parties, and without concerted honest effort by
| both to face it, it's going to explode sooner or later.
|
| The problem being, if they were already prone to spending
| concerted, honest effort in facing and talking about their
| problems, they would be a lot less likely to be in that
| place.
| willcipriano wrote:
| In my experience it's always about what I'm talking
| about. My wife often refuses to clean up after herself, I
| tell her "Please pick up the iced tea bottles you left on
| the floor" and she goes into a rant about one time 5
| years ago when I didn't pick up a something and engages
| in lots of deflection. Then she says stuff like you said
| "Your just upset that you have a meeting at work", when
| really it's I'd like to not pick up after her.
|
| Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
|
| If your behavior is outside of the social norms (eg. you
| leave dishes out for others to clean) then admit fault
| and move on. If they bring something else up maybe you
| are correct in your thesis but why are you defending
| yourself when you are being a slob?
| lazide wrote:
| Uh, pretty clear her behavior is exactly what I'm
| referring to, and yours may be too?
|
| If you think the behavior you described is just about a
| couple iced tea bottles, that is... not likely to go well
| long term in my experience. I hope I'm wrong for you
| though!
|
| And the statement you're making there seems to have a
| tone of resentment towards her which, unfortunately, is
| going to likely be a problem too.
| [deleted]
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| I worked from home for many years (before it was popular) and
| I had a family too. This kind of things happened to me and my
| wife a lot, hours of arguing while I should have been
| working.
|
| You can work through it, you just have to care enough. We no
| longer have arguments longer than maybe 20 minutes now. It
| can just be personality types and where you are in life.
|
| But a valuable person in your life? You work through that
| stuff to keep them, even if it's hard.
| castlecrasher2 wrote:
| >You can work through it, you just have to care enough. We
| no longer have arguments longer than maybe 20 minutes now.
|
| We went through the same. A few years of me getting my head
| on straight and not escalating fights so I could
| effectively communicate "I don't want to fight about this"
| and either "this isn't a criticism, this is something
| that's important to me" or "you're right, I'll start doing
| that" has made our fighting dry up almost entirely.
| lazide wrote:
| There are also folks that are suffering from real severe
| mental health crisises, and will continue to escalate and
| dysregulate over and over again - to their own and others
| detriment.
|
| Having been on the receiving end of this - don't keep
| trying to make it work if it gets to this point. Work on
| being a grey rock to them (non reactive) until you can
| get yourself and others to safety.
|
| Also don't tell them you're leaving until you have a
| viable plan B that they can't find. Kids make it much
| much harder, and unfortunately around 2 yrs old is often
| when it gets the toughest and this can happen.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would start billing my own children if arguments lasted
| hours.
| exolymph wrote:
| Or maybe you and your wife don't funge with every other
| pair of individuals in the whole world? Some people truly
| aren't compatible and make each other miserable.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| I think more people give up and quit on compatible people
| than we care to admit. Getting along is hard for everyone
| under stressful situations. (combined with our own
| personal flaws)
| AlanYx wrote:
| You can't always work through emotional dysregulation
| issues (inability to return to baseline after six hours of
| argument being one indicator of such issues) by just
| talking it out. Sometimes you can, sometimes it's
| associated with something more fundamental like a
| personality disorder where professional help needs to be
| involved.
| [deleted]
| thewebcount wrote:
| I just want to point out that it's not just personality
| disorders that can cause this. There are very real
| physiological problems that can surface this way, too.
| For example, some people have adrenaline issues where
| seemingly minor, or even pleasant things (like running
| into an old friend at the grocery store), cause a much
| larger than normal spike of adrenaline. If the person it
| happens to isn't aware of what's going on, they can react
| the way their body is telling them to (fight, flight, or
| freeze). Sometimes if they're aware of it, they can have
| enough sense to take a pause, but it is often very
| difficult because the biological response your body has
| is so overwhelming. It's as unpleasant for them as it is
| for the person who has to deal with their overreaction to
| the situation.
| zBard wrote:
| Wouldn't personality disorders be inseparable from
| physiological problems ? Is there any particular
| literature/reference you are basing this on, curious.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| I have a theory I use that helps me with this, the
| "million dollar gun to the head" theory.
|
| Would either of them stop fighting instantly if there as
| a gun to their heads or offered a million dollars?
|
| If the answer is "yes", then it's entirely within their
| control to solve the problem.
|
| The only people I think that fail this are psychopaths,
| and I think those are rare.
| AlanYx wrote:
| If you don't have experience with people prone to
| emotional dysregulation, it's hard to appreciate how it
| works, but you don't need to resort to such an artificial
| scenario like your gun scenario. People with some
| personality disorders can be triggered by seemingly
| little things into anger/rage states for 4-6 hours that
| cannot be resolved by talking them out, but if someone
| outside the household (i.e., someone who is not their
| partner or not their kids) shows up unexpectedly, they
| can often immediately control themselves. But the
| underlying dynamic doesn't get resolved, and generally
| won't be without professional tools that go beyond
| conventional talk therapy, like DBT.
| lazide wrote:
| Yup. Having been on the receiving end of it - she
| literally said afterwards she couldn't stop herself.
|
| Luckily, she was just stabbing the counter and not me.
|
| My mistake for asking her how she was doing, apparently.
| toss1 wrote:
| To quantify "rare" it seems there are about 1% of the
| population are psychopaths [0]. A quick search came
| across a number of refs to that number, but IDK if it is
| multiple studies, or just one a long time ago that is
| amplified through time.
|
| [0] https://psichologyanswers.com/library/lecture/read/60
| 1609-wh...
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > need to happen right now
|
| This is usually the result of the argument never happening
| otherwise.
|
| I've been on the other end, trying to bring a subject for 10,
| 20 times. But it's a big enough issue that when it's brought
| up the other party feels they "need more head space", "not
| ready now", "need to get rid of some other stuff first".
|
| This probably means I'm not reading the room well enough, but
| thing is, the other party doesn't come back to the discussion
| table when they're ready to talk it out.
|
| So at some point you come to the conclusion that timing
| doesn't really matter, and except if their parents are
| literally on their dying bed, you'll have to plow through
| their circumstances if you ever want that discussion to
| happen. So we ended up with a 3h hour cry and sob discussion
| in a parking lot after buying toilet paper.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I'm the opposite of the OP, I really hate to not resolve
| problems straight away. My partner is the opposite she needs
| to avoid the immediate conflict. I think there is a balance
| to be had, the issue with just walking away from the
| discussion is that it feels to the partner like they are
| being stonewalled. The other thing I noticed is that I needed
| to get over the attitude that I pay for things so I can have
| higher expectations.
|
| We went to couples therapy and the communication strategies
| we learned really and while we still have arguments they tend
| to be much more productive, but it requires work.
| jahewson wrote:
| Good for you! Arguments measured in hours are a sure sign to
| GTFO.
| zwkrt wrote:
| It's never really about the dishes. The dishes are just a thing
| in physical space. That isn't to say that you can't be
| Disrespectful with dishes or that one or both people's behavior
| and expectations regarding the minutia of the kitchen isn't
| unreasonable. But fighting about dishes is really good
| indication that there are more fundamental underlying schisms
| in the relationship that should be addressed.
|
| In my personal experience both in my own relationships and
| viewing the relationships of others, I feel like the domestic
| partner can often feel trapped and/or unfulfilled. It's easy
| for the breadwinner to say "I bust my ass all day and I make
| all the money so that we can have this life", but the other
| partner in this arrangement becomes totally at the will of the
| breadwinner. The breadwinner could change jobs or decide to
| move or divorce and continue working, but the domestic partner
| is totally effed. It isn't an equal partnership unless the
| domestic partner truly feels agency. And until that point this
| underlying resentment will come bursting up like new islands in
| an archipelago, until the situation is resolved or dissolved.
|
| Edit: the sibling comment regarding narcissism is also worth
| reading! I don't know your situation. Labeling someone as a
| narcissist is a nuclear option because it means you don't
| really see them as fully human anymore, but it can be
| appropriate if you have a large body of evidence.
| munk-a wrote:
| > It's never really about the dishes. The dishes are just a
| thing in physical space.
|
| I'd clarify that sometimes it is actually about the dishes.
| As someone with ADHD being in a living space with clutter
| slows me down and perpetuates more clutter. My solution to
| that is to never generate that sort of clutter - it leads to
| a destructive cycle I've identified in myself.
|
| If the person I'm sharing space with starts that cycle, I
| suffer from it and can't escape it without external
| intervention - hence, yea, sometimes the dishes literally are
| the focus (I mean - this pattern can be repeated with other
| household tasks, a laundry basket full of clean un-put-away
| laundry will grow over time until it's falling over the sides
| and periodic tasks like taking out the garbage require
| extreme vigilance to stay on top of, corners can not be cut).
|
| But the physical space does effect our mental space, and
| looking around your sanctum sanctorum and seeing nothing but
| todo lists will erode mental health.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| When you agree to live with another person, you agree
| (whether you realize it not) to also live with each other's
| habits, cleanliness norms, organizational norms,
| waking/sleeping schedule, and many other details. Being a
| dictator, trying to change the other person, is not going
| to end well. Accept the person you are living with rather
| than trying to change them.
| op00to wrote:
| If dirty dishes trigger you, then you need to make sure the
| dishes get done. You are the principal person responsible
| for your own well being. You shouldn't force someone to do
| your bidding simply because you're triggered. I say this as
| someone who suffers from severe anxiety, and has to work
| very hard to not bully my family around to accommodate my
| anxiety.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If dirty dishes trigger you, then you need to make sure
| the dishes get done.
|
| Eliminating a net source of dirty dishes is an efficient
| way of doing that.
|
| If you want to be in a relationship with someone, and
| they are triggered by dirty dishes, you might need to
| consider _their_ needs in order to realize _yours_.
| munk-a wrote:
| A healthy relationship involves giving and taking - it
| isn't bullying to have certain occasional needs. Nobody
| on earth is perfect, we all come with some quirks -
| because we only have one pass through life it can be
| difficult to tell what's reasonable and what's unfairly
| demanding, those making demands a third party would call
| unreasonable are often blind to it themselves... that
| said most relationships will compromise on arrangements
| either partner needs to operate healthily. My SO happens
| to suffer from absolutely atrocious migraines that can
| take them out for weeks at a time - I am flexible for
| accommodations on this point and they're flexible on my
| own needs, even if the exchange is uneven it may still be
| desirable to stay in a relationship that adds a lot to
| your life in other ways. Each individual needs to make
| the decision that's right for them.
|
| On the topic of your anxiety, if you discuss it with your
| partner there is a good chance that through communication
| you'll become better at functioning as a unit then you
| could on your own.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Be glad you are free from this abuse.
| erik_landerholm wrote:
| Been married for 20 years almost...we never fight. We both do
| things that aren't optimal, but we give each other the benefit of
| the doubt, we talk about everything, we don't step on each
| other's areas of responsibility, we don't speak harshly to each
| other and we are best friends. I can't ever imagine being in a
| the situation described above. I mean all the individual things
| happen to us leaving dishes, muddy whatever (we have 5 kids...so
| the noise alone), but so what? It's all in how you both handle
| everything. We've never found it hard to exist together.
|
| I think the biggest thing is we never speak harshly to each
| other. If we aren't exactly kind we apologize, but we never speak
| to each other or our children in ways I hear others do all the
| time. That is the love killer.
| Ishmaeli wrote:
| Same. 23 years and I don't mention it often because it feels
| like bragging, and we certainly didn't do anything to "earn"
| our relationship. I think it was just dumb luck that we fell
| into it and happen to be so compatible along so many lines.
|
| But it always baffles us whenever we spend time with another
| couple (including our own parents) and they are so short with
| each other. As you say, harsh.
|
| We come away from those gatherings wondering, is this really
| how people live? Seems to be.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| 7 years here ( we lived together for a few more ). We do fight,
| but it appears to be on a semi-annual basis since we do talk
| about what bugs us about the other person fairly openly ( there
| is a fine line being truthful and hurtful ).
|
| The simple reality is that I genuinely have a hard time
| accepting existence without her around. Since that is the case,
| some things have to be ignored for the sake of 'peace at home'.
| It goes both ways. I myself am not perfect.
| xtracto wrote:
| I love seeing elderly couples. If you get into the house of old
| folks couples that have been married for 30 or 40 years the
| "peacefulness" you perceive in their relationship is great.
| They have learned that nothing really matters. A broken glass?
| some mud in the house? a stack of books/magazines in the floor?
| Who freaking cares? They have each other and they have had each
| other for 30+ years and they have each other until they die.
| Arubis wrote:
| It's never about the dish, or the coffee mug, or whatever. It's
| all about what raw spots that dish rubs up against, probably from
| long before your marriage began. If you or someone you love is
| finding themselves disproportionally hurt or irritated by small
| behaviors and habits--yes, of course, find ways to shift that
| behavior, but please also consider counseling or therapy. There
| may be far greater depths of healing available than merely
| changing a single behavior.
| waferthin wrote:
| When I flatted back in the day, it became apparent that different
| people have different 'cleanliness thresholds' and that too high
| or too low compared to everyone else was going to be bad news.
| Luckily my wife and I have similar levels, and neither of us
| would see a glass by the dishwasher as some morbid sign of a lack
| of love. But lots of people would and do apparently, and I'm not
| surprised.
| gotaquestion wrote:
| ITT: armchair therapists whom I suspect have never cohabitated
| with a partner for multiple years.
|
| Sincerely,
|
| Armchair HN therapist
| snakeoil wrote:
| If you took care the dishes she would find sth else to complain
| about. It is usually a deeper issue that is expressed in whatever
| minor plausible thing it finds around. You don't need clean
| dishes to expresses your love in a relationship that is built on
| mutual undertanding, respect and eventually love.
| blunte wrote:
| There's really a lot in this essay, and I'll forget or get before
| before I provide all the commentary I might want to.
|
| > But she never did. She never agreed.
|
| Your rights end where mine begin. And by that, I mean "my
| intolerance trumps whatever your opinion is".
|
| That means the most flexible people, often the most rational,
| have to accept the intolerance and lack of flexibility of others
| to coexist.
|
| I don't like my kitchen counter cleaned with a rag that becomes
| dirty upon first use and then adds bacteria on multiple following
| uses. I would rather the counter keep only the germs it currently
| has. Or better yet, I would prefer it be cleaned with a fresh
| towel or even light detergent and very hot water.
|
| I don't like the toothpaste bottle to be buried in a basket under
| my wife's nightly consumables, such that when I go to bed later I
| have to dig through a lot of stuff to find the toothpaste. I
| would rather the bottle be left on the counter where both people
| can find it. But that bottle on the counter is a no-no. So I
| bend, but it pushes me a little more away every night.
|
| > It was about consideration
|
| I do not believe that consideration was the issue with TFA's
| wife. TFA had valid reasons for leaving a glass on the counter.
| Wife lacked consideration and pragmatism.
|
| As an alien to earth, I realize my perspective may be warped. But
| it makes sense to me.
|
| And as such, I think the problem with most relationships is
| ignorance and lack of ability to reason.
|
| Reasons people feel how they feel:
|
| - there is a practical time/money/pain cost between the
| alternatives
|
| - there is a habit which is hard to change
|
| - there is a behavior with no forethought and no post-evaluation
|
| Some things have assessable costs. I could come up with any
| number of examples, but one very silly example would be parking.
| If I choose to park behind someone on a driveway instead of
| beside or on the street, it will take the starting and moving of
| my car (time, fuel, and minor wear and tear cost) to move my car
| out of the way so they can leave. Now in the larger
| consideration, perhaps there is no side-by-side room, and the
| street option is risky. Then it's a matter of risk balancing and
| personal time cost.
|
| Some things are just habits, often learned from our upbringing.
| Someone who grows up with a particular scarcity will be extra
| sensitive to waste on that resource. Even when the resource is no
| longer restricted (what's the right word I'm looking for?), the
| habit remains. "Don't use so much water!". "Yes, but it takes 60
| seconds for the hot water to reach the faucet, and proper washing
| requires (debatable) water temperature." Or "nothing should be
| left on the counter", so the toothpaste goes into a bin beneath
| many other things. So whomever comes next to brush must dig for
| the toothpaste. Amusingly (passively-aggressively) my solution to
| the toothpaste problem was to buy a freaking lot of them and get
| a new one each night, allowing them to pile up.
|
| Finally, there are just behaviors we learned as kids before we
| had reason. Some things must be done a very specific way, and
| other things can be done any way. Unfortunately, two people from
| different families will have different combinations of specific
| and any. Then it comes down to realization of the behavior and
| rational analysis of the pros and cons, and perhaps then the
| alternatives.
| ay wrote:
| It's very simple. If something is minor for you but your partner
| prompts you extensively that it triggers them - change yourself.
|
| The willingness to listen and change yourself is what signals
| your love. Because everything else is much easier.
| [deleted]
| raldi wrote:
| "I like leaving my glass by the sink, but I know you really
| hate it. Tell you what, I'll stop doing it (which is not a
| concession that it's wrong) as an act of love for you."
|
| Then they express gratitude, and before you know it, you'll get
| a favor like that back on something you really care about.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| This. It's like small withdrawals/deposits into a savings
| account. Take out $1 at a time a whole bunch of times without
| topping it up and the account winds up empty, even if there
| weren't any massive withdrawals.
| Biologist123 wrote:
| Niiice.
| trelane wrote:
| > before you know it, you'll get a favor like that back on
| something you really care about.
|
| That is not at all guaranteed. Personally, I'd by surprised
| if it were commonly correct.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| This is easy to get wrong. She says "X bugs me". But to me, X
| should not have been a big deal, so it doesn't register with
| me. Maybe she says it again, and I still think it's no big
| deal. Finally we reach the point where she's crying, and she
| tells me " _X really bothers me_ ". And I realize: "Oh, yeah,
| she's told me that before..."
|
| So, you know, be smarter than I've been. When she says that
| something bugs her, don't filter her statement through what
| bugs you or through what you expect to bug people. Instead,
| _listen_.
| ay wrote:
| If a person says something bugs them and you don't react it
| is a reflection of you not caring about what they are
| feeling. Repeated non-reaction: mightily so.
|
| Saying "i love you" is easy. Making these little sacrifices
| on your ego that show the other person you care about them
| can be much harder, but shows your feelings much more.
|
| However: there must always remain a perception of fairness in
| the relationship. I am very intentionally not saying "the
| equal amount of sacrifice" because the dynamics are different
| for everyone.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| What if you are being triggered by the incessent whining over
| something trivial? That's emotional abuse. I wouldn't put up
| with that, this kind of stuff needs perspective.
|
| The only thing I got out of the article was that he was married
| to a control freak who liked to keep them off balance all the
| time.
| ay wrote:
| If you are triggered by anything it is something you need to
| ask yourself why. And why you are with that person then, if
| they are triggering you.
|
| With some (minor) exceptions, what people are getting in
| their relationships is at least 50% result of their own
| choices, and not owning that only prolongs the effects.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I cant think of worse relationship advise than be with
| someone who never triggers a negative response in you.
| ay wrote:
| Some people are into shibari. And some aren't. And both
| are okay.
|
| Edit-add: also, I think "being with a person who never
| triggers a negative response in you" is just plain
| impossible. On some days I trigger a negative response
| with myself :-)
|
| But based on my limited experience of two 10+ years
| relationships, I can say life is so much easier and fun
| when you have less things to disagree about.
|
| But I also acknowledge that this is how I am wired - for
| some, fights are stimulating. Hence my initial reply with
| shibari. There exist rather interesting pathways to
| happiness.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Something that is trivial to one may be very large to
| another. There is a whole slew of reasons why but just
| because one partner deems something trivial the other may not
| agree. Some things may objectively be trivial but we are a
| complex species. The flip side of this argument is that if
| its so trivial for one, why don't they change the behavior
| for the other who deems it non trivial?
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Because this kind of behaviour is endemic in emotional
| abusers. There will always be something else that annoys
| them. Emotional abusers look for weaknesses and exploit
| them mercilessly. They don't really care about the issue
| and will move on to something else, ad infinitum.
|
| This is the very reason why you _never_ give a bully or a
| narcissist a single inch. What they are trying to do is
| keep you off balance, make you walk on eggshells and create
| a bubble of control.
|
| If it's genuinely something that is causing a problem that
| is completely different from the typical
| needling/whining/unnecessary argument escalation over
| trivial bullshit that an emotional abuser will mete out.
| notacoward wrote:
| > If something is minor for you ... change yourself.
|
| On the one hand, I think this can lead to ruin in its own way.
| It cedes all ground to the most neurotic or controlling
| partner. It breeds resentment in the one who has to make all
| the concessions. Instead, I would suggest that these conflicts
| should be resolved explicitly and deliberately. Sometimes that
| will lead to one person reminding themselves to put the glass
| in the dishwasher. Sometimes it will lead to the other person
| reminding themselves that it doesn't matter. Either way, as
| long as it's a resolution that is mutually agreed and balanced
| with all of the other minor concessions that each is making, I
| think it's OK.
|
| On the other hand, a variant of this is a good rule even in
| non-intimate relationships. If something takes you trivial time
| or effort, and means a lot to someone else, DO IT. Even for a
| total stranger. It increases the total "good karma" (but
| without the moral weight) in the system. Sooner or later, if
| enough people keep doing it, some of that will come back to
| you. Something that might have seemed onerous becomes less so
| because of someone else's minor generosity. IMO the fact that
| this isn't a common habit, that it's even discouraged by the
| dominant "everything should be strictly transactional" dogma
| (ignoring actual results from game and complexity theory),
| degrades life a bit for everyone.
|
| P.S. Lest anyone claim I'm being inconsistent, _changing
| yourself_ is hard. It 's not a minor effort, like taking one
| moment to do someone a small favor. They're very different
| scenarios.
| ay wrote:
| Absolutely agree with your caveats! I forgot to mention the
| "perception of fairness" that is another useful component to
| a long term balance. And - communication, communication,
| communication. Unfortunately the latter is often suppressed
| by the everyday pressures until it's too late.
| captaincaveman wrote:
| 'Change yourself', 'just be yourself', no one can decide what
| the duck to do!
|
| Do you keep changing yourself to meet their every whim, maybe
| they should just let it go, it's just a glass?
| ay wrote:
| Why would you be with a person you aren't willing to change
| yourself for ?
| captaincaveman wrote:
| I'm not saying there shouldn't be flexibility, it's give
| and take, but there clearly should be some limits. So
| blanket advice of change what your doing to satisfy all
| minor complaints isn't great advice in my opinion.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| On the opposite side, if you don't like something that your
| partner does, and they don't seem to think it's a big deal,
| maybe take a step back and re-evaluate if it's really something
| that you need to be bothered by.
|
| If it is actually a problem, then yes, insist on it being
| fixed. If it is actually minor, maybe adjust your expectations
| and get over it.
|
| After all, that's also a form of listening and adjusting
| yourself. It's important to know that in relationships you
| can't expect to get your way all of the time, and that you
| don't automatically get your way just because you're the one
| with a grievance.
| ay wrote:
| My biggest takeaway is you can never really "insist on
| getting it fixed" without the damage to the relationship. You
| can state how it is important to you, explain why, and hope
| that the partner initiates the change to themselves. There is
| a subtle difference between the two; "push" vs "pull", if you
| will.
| justin_oaks wrote:
| I've heard it said as "Love requests; it never demands"
| em-bee wrote:
| what needs to be fixed is the disagreement itself. it
| doesn't matter how the issue in question gets fixed, but
| you need to come to an amicable solution.
|
| this is only possible if both partners respect and care for
| each other and are willing to listen and support each
| others needs.
|
| in the article when the author says that he'd want to agree
| to disagree he was not respecting his wife. he was
| basically saying: you are wrong, but i don't want to fight
| over this. that doesn't help. you need to work it out until
| there is an actual solution that both can agree with.
|
| once you have solved one problem like this, it opens the
| door to approach more problems. i think it helps to start
| with smaller problems where the actual outcome doesn't
| matter. like it doesn't matter who gets their way with
| putting away the dishes. what matters is that each partner
| gets to share their feelings about the issue and that those
| feelings are being respected.
| ay wrote:
| I frame it as "the perception of fairness in the
| relationship".
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| "My wife left me because she's either ridiculous and unwilling to
| compromise on trivial shit, or incomprehensibly dense" is a much
| shorter and more succinct than an entire book, but I guess they
| don't pay people for that. His articles all read as pathetic
| blame-porn aimed at satisfying the egos of women, while
| pretending to be advice aimed at men, and even though his only
| skills are apparently being someone who got divorced and wrote a
| book about what he believes to be his failings, somehow that
| qualifies him for paid counseling sessions?
|
| "I blew my hand off with a firecracker and that makes me an
| explosives expert, buy my book" is a suitable parallel here.
|
| Yes, I know, it wasn't "just" the dishes. Neither of them
| actually wanted to be married to each other, they just wanted a
| live-in sex partner.
| greenonions wrote:
| Maybe this is too personal, but is your relationship with your
| partner strong? Frankly, my guess, just by your attitude
| towards this innocuous article, is no.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| It's not an innocuous article. He's literally tried to build
| a career out of being divorced.
|
| Know why my relationship with my SO is better than yours?
| Because we talk like actual human beings, compromise, don't
| fight over trivial bullshit, respect each other and their
| spaces, and don't always have to be right because it's a
| partnership not a dictatorship.
|
| Maybe try that out, see how basic common sense works for you.
| em-bee wrote:
| the problem wasn't the dishes or any other issue. the problem
| was that he preferred to agree to disagree instead of coming to
| a compromise. that's pretty dismissive.
|
| that doesn't mean it's all his fault, but we don't know what
| her attempts to resolve the issue were.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| This might come as a shock, but compromise isn't simply
| "doing what she wants you to do, when she wants you to do
| it." That's not a relationship.
|
| This wasn't a pile of dirty dishes. It was a drinking glass
| that was going to be reused. Maybe she comes from an upper-
| middle to upper class household where everything got put away
| at all times, but where I come from, you don't waste
| dishwater on something you're going to reuse anyway.
|
| It's one thing if they pile up. It's quite another if there's
| a cup or two on the counter that you are using.
| em-bee wrote:
| you are still missing the real problem. it does not matter
| that it's just one cup. what matters is that you are
| refusing to accept that this is bothering her. you need to
| find out why it bothers her and work out a compromise that
| you both can live with.
|
| * compromise isn't simply "doing what she wants you to do,
| when she wants you to do it.*
|
| right, but neither is ignoring the problem.
|
| with small things like these sometimes the only way is that
| for some issue you defer to your partner, and for other
| issues your partner defers to you.
|
| if one partner is always getting their way then there is a
| problem with the relationship. and you'll need to work that
| out. stop arguing about the cup and start listening to each
| other.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| No, I'm not missing anything. It's a ridiculous and
| childish thing to get upset over. Of all the other
| possible things that they could have disagreements about,
| THIS is something that SHE should have let be, because it
| does no harm to her and he has a rational explanation for
| it.
|
| It is literally picking shit to be upset over for the
| sake of having something to hold over your partner's
| head, and an indication that one or both of them was too
| emotionally immature to be married in the first place.
| [deleted]
| mihaic wrote:
| One big issue I rarely see mentioned is how much worse modern
| society is for long-term couples, in many ways. While this
| doesn't give us any direct actionable advice, accepting it
| reframes the struggle of the couple against the world instead of
| just the classic "work on yourself", and that can lead to better
| cooperation.
|
| Some other things being harder before ironically maybe us better
| at accepting that sometimes situations end with nobody getting
| what they want, and learning how to reach "good enough".
| perpetuummobile wrote:
| I struggle with this myself. At the risk of sounding
| misogynistic: How come it's always women who can't deal with
| these "minor irritations"? I've never heard from any of my male
| friends complaining in this tack.
| grumple wrote:
| You're really just wrong. If this is your lived experience, you
| need to understand that the majority of the world has minor
| conflicts like this all the time. Get out, make friends, go to
| college and see the circus that is random roommates. When I
| lived with roommates, there were constant complaints about this
| or that. X never does the dishes, Y never changes the toilet
| paper roll. All the time. All men. I've had a lot of friends
| and seen them have similar issues with roommates or partners.
|
| In my current relationship, I used to complain about my partner
| never doing the dishes. I eventually stopped giving a shit
| because I realized I created most of them and it really wasn't
| much more effort to do a few more. And generally just realized
| the way to fix most problems is to just fix them.
| perpetuummobile wrote:
| Feel free to downvote but please tell me why I am wrong. I
| legitimately struggle with this as is obviously clear from my
| tone.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| 1. It is not 'always women'. Men are also rankled by such
| things.
|
| 2. Women have to deal with the pressure of feminism. For
| example: I like to cook. I love feeding people and don't
| think of it as chore that oppressed women, but I have friends
| who will not cook(and I know they don't hate cooking) because
| they have to make a feminist point.
|
| 3. I grew up in India and there is a very vibrant food
| culture. To be able to cook well is a feather in the cap. It
| is not so in the states and after I moved here, I was amazed
| that even those who absolutely loved cooking back home were
| acting like kitchen work was slavery.
|
| 4. Again from an Indian immigrant perspective: There is a
| weird resistance to obtaining hired help in America. Even
| middle class homes have hired help in India. These days, even
| in the states, Indian households will pay someone to help
| with laundry or cutting vegetables for cooking or just
| household help.
|
| After apps like Nextdoor etc have come up, it's easier to
| find help. Interestingly, the house help is often other women
| in the same neighborhood who want to make a few extra bucks.
| But I don't think it's about the money as everyone is usually
| in the same social strata in any neighbour hood. It's about
| company.
|
| 5. Women need female company. We are just slightly different
| looking female apes. Women need to be social with those they
| don't compete with..and girlfriends are always competing.
| It's hideous living 24/7 with men. In nuclear families, there
| are no other female figures. I grew up with a large extended
| joint family. We had 3-4 generations of women under one roof.
| There is an age based hierarchy.
|
| 6. Contrast that to modern nuclear families with only one
| adult head female. For working women, it's worse because they
| have to go to work and compete with both men and women. There
| was clear division of labour and enough people to carry out
| the tasks in my large joint family.
|
| 7. Speaking for myself and specifically about kitchens: The
| kitchen is my domain in my house. It is a matter of control
| because it is a matter of pride. Because I am the one who is
| cooking, if I don't have a kitchen that is organized, I can't
| do my job properly. I expect the knives, glasses and cutlery,
| spice jars and plates to be where I expect them to be...when
| I cook I am not thinking, I am 'reaching' for that familiar
| nook where I expect to find the salt or the spoon. Cooking is
| fast and involves heat. I don't have time to scuttle about
| looking for things or dinner would be burnt.
|
| It is the same with a chef in any professional kitchen. My
| 2c.
| em-bee wrote:
| the problem with hired help is that is severely reduces the
| privacy of your home because you always have someone around
| who is not family. depending on your culture this can be a
| serious dampener on things like intimacy in your
| relationship.
|
| my understanding is that in india you don't even show
| intimacy in front of your children, so this part is very
| much limited to your bedroom. which means the hired help is
| rarely going to be a problem. in western culture intimacy
| is more open, and any stranger around becomes a disruption.
|
| it is also a cost issue. i don't know about the US but
| hired help in europe is a lot more expensive. in germany
| for example you'd even have to pay for their insurance so
| the average middle income family simply can't afford it.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| I have never heard display of intimacy being connected to
| the decision to employ hired house help before. I am
| revisiting this just to register my marvel at the
| perception dreamed up about india in the rest of the
| world. East and west, they will never meet. I am going
| with the assumption that you were sincere, but this gross
| generalization can be construed as a little odd. I never
| imagine how the westerners are intimate or conflate that
| to regular way of life even though I have lived in both
| sides of the cultural world. Thanks once again for
| opening up my mind to acknowledge the differences between
| the east and the west.
| em-bee wrote:
| you are right about the generalization. i should have
| worded that more carefully. it just seemed to fit as a
| good explanation for the difference.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Define 'intimacy'.
| em-bee wrote:
| intimacy is very different culturally. but generally it
| is any physical interaction with your partner.
|
| to give you an example, i have heard from an indian
| friend that they would not touch their husband in front
| of their kids. no holding hands, hugging or kissing of
| any kind. i don't know if that is common in indian
| culture. i am not trying to generalize.
|
| the point that matters is that i feel very restrained in
| how i act when our housekeeper is present.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| It seems like a generalization. India has 1.4 billion
| people.
|
| House help isn't around 24 hours/day. Just like you
| wouldn't be intimate with your partner in front of your
| boss, I guess it's the same with someone you employ?
| olyjohn wrote:
| I mean, I live alone and just pay someone to come in once
| every two weeks. You don't need someone living there full
| time. Just outsource some of the major chores. Folding
| laundry, scrubbing toilets and tubs, cleaning the floors.
| Cleaners bust through that stuff in a couple of hours and
| then you've got all your privacy back.
| em-bee wrote:
| with kids the primary help needed for busy parents is
| actually making dinner. and laundry gets done every other
| day. the result is that the helper is around every
| evening which is the main time the family is at home.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| You're wrong because you've bucketed half the global
| population either because of your blissful ignorance or
| because your personal anecdotal, likely very limited data and
| sample size, supports your belief.
| perpetuummobile wrote:
| I'm sorry but I'm not blissful about it. Women bad ha ha...
| not.
|
| What else do I have to go by than my own personal
| experience? Self help book? You have no idea what weight my
| sample has given the constant emotional and physical abuse
| I have to deal with.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| You asked to be pointed out where you are wrong, and then
| you argued with the responses given.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Upvoted and you're right. Have a nice day!
| cassac wrote:
| I think it's just different things for minor irritations. For
| me it's the never being ready on time.
|
| When I say I'm ready to leave, that means I could be in the car
| in 30 seconds. When my wife says she is ready to leave, that
| means she's ready to start getting ready to leave. I've learned
| just to pad 20 minutes into departure times.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| Boss, you also have your glass issue. We all have a small minor
| irritations that we just can't shake off. You're lucky your
| partner, for some reason, isn't poking your particular minor
| irritation. Or, maybe, your partner did poke it and you told
| them to stop and they stopped. If they continued you too
| would've left like the author's wife.
| acuozzo wrote:
| Have you really never met a guy with OCPD?
| greenonions wrote:
| As a counter question: why do men not recognize that these
| simple tasks make women feel loved and respected?
|
| My own father is the perfect example of a man who cannot deal
| with these minor irritations. My mother complies with his
| requests and their relationship is maintained.
|
| If you read the article, it's not that the irritation is minor.
| Of course it's a very small task. The issue is that the (often
| male) partner never chooses to act differently for the sake of
| their partner. If it isn't difficult to do the task, why don't
| you just do it? If your wife asks you to put the dishes in the
| dishwasher, why don't you just do it? It's not hard and will
| make her happy.
|
| Obviously some people will have very unreasonable
| standards/requests. However, I think it's more common that one
| partner repeatedly refuses to do anything differently for the
| sake of their partner, argues about it, and then wonders why
| their relationship is so bad.
| funcantor wrote:
| You've been in plenty of relationships, enough even, that you
| can make the claim that "often male" partners are not able to
| tolerate minor irritations?
| grumple wrote:
| What is this, slut shaming? I'm a man and not the person
| you replied to. I've had close to a dozen long-term
| partners and many more short-term ones. This is not
| uncommon in the western world for men and women.
|
| Everybody gets annoyed by something. Men and women. Couples
| fight. Most of them a lot. Shit, in my apartment building I
| hear them fight all the time.
| stuckinhell wrote:
| My husband and I had one of our first major fights over fruits
| and newspapers. I'm a bit of a packrat, and he is someone who
| embodies minimalism. I let fruit rot a bit in the kitchen, and
| kept a lot of newspapers, magazines, and other "junk mail".
|
| Eventually one day he flipped out over them. We have come to an
| unpleasant compromise. Once a month, he gives me a week notice,
| he's going to throw it all out, and then he does. I've come to
| accept it, since there isn't much he gets bothered by
| otherwise.
| orlovs wrote:
| "It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out -- it's the grain
| of sand in the shoes"
| nineteen999 wrote:
| Two people too stupid to invest in a dishwasher, and to get on
| with life.
| amznbyebyebye wrote:
| There's always going to be a glass issue. Communicating the
| issue, being open to listening, knowing what to let go and what
| matters is what makes or breaks things. There's no algorithm to
| this, relationships are founded on love, which is an emotion that
| has little to do with intellect or logic. So for these things
| ultimately love is the answer.
| snvzz wrote:
| I'm surprised nobody is questioning the decision of marriage. It
| is a really bad deal.
| nbevans wrote:
| One wonders why he didn't just get a dishwasher machine... Very
| cheap solution compared to divorce!
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I think you're being glib but the article mentions a
| dishwasher.
| motohagiography wrote:
| So strange to read this as marriage hasn't really registered as
| thing for me in several years. I'm not sure what the case for it
| today is. Reading about guys saying if only they had been less of
| themselves, they might have avoided getting left just leaves me
| with a bad taste. I'm of the mind that we should take
| responsibility for our own happiness, and explicitly give others
| the opportunity to do the same for themselves.
|
| Controversially, if there is one thing I have found people live
| to regret most it's apologizing. It has taken a while to
| articulate, but I think apologies are a broken concept because
| they are what we offer transactionally when we are at a
| disadvantage, they're an unsatisfying, forced declaration of kind
| of moral bankruptcy and submission, which is the exact opposite
| of what someone who loves you wishes for you, or wants from you.
|
| I consider that what I really mean is, "I took this specific
| thing for granted and what I mean is I don't take it for granted,
| and thank you for it." Acknowledging and thanking someone for
| what you recieved from them adds value to a relationship, whereas
| an apology just asks to write it off. The same may be true for
| promises as apologies are mainly an artifact of breaking them.
| Taking responsibility for our own happiness and converting
| apologies into recognition and thanks before uttering them seems
| a lot more sustainable and likeable than being introspective and
| trying to change and compromise. Maybe I'm out of touch, but
| something about the article rubbed me the wrong way.
| ggm wrote:
| Some lessons are very hard to learn after the event, the author
| is right that it's better to learn these ones up front.
| dazc wrote:
| Be blind to his/her faults is generally good advice, so long as
| they are minor irritations.
| brudgers wrote:
| Disrespect is not minor.
| j79 wrote:
| When my wife and I started dating, we stumbled across this
| video which I like to recommend to friends and family:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1tCAXVsClw
|
| The speaker talks about the "Price of Admission" when it
| comes to relationships.
|
| We consider these "minor irritations" as the Price of
| Admission :)
| ramses0 wrote:
| I've recommended that video to near 100 people, it's so
| heartfelt and insightful.
| ggm wrote:
| Kinda Tao of the ietf: try to meet expectations and be
| accepting of failure. But dude, if she says dirty dishes by
| the sink won't fly you should listen. 30 years of that can
| break anyone. One of the colditz pows said the way a guy
| asked you to pass the salt for 5 years straight could be semi
| fatal
| andreyk wrote:
| "Hundreds, maybe thousands of times, my wife tried to communicate
| that something was wrong. That something hurt. But that doesn't
| make sense, I thought. I'm not trying to hurt her; therefore, she
| shouldn't feel hurt. ... There is only one reason I will ever
| stop leaving that glass by the sink, and it's a lesson I learned
| much too late: because I love and respect my partner, and it
| really matters to them."
|
| wow.... this isn't a marriage lesson, it's a basic human
| etiquette lesson. Listen to what someone is telling you and try
| to see things from their perspective. At least the author does
| call out their own immaturity with respect to this:
|
| "I think I believed that my wife should respect me simply because
| I exchanged vows with her. It wouldn't have been the first time I
| acted entitled. What I know for sure is that I had never
| connected putting a dish in the dishwasher with earning my wife's
| respect."
| cycomanic wrote:
| The communication strategy that saved our relationship is not
| to talk about what the other does or doesn't do, but instead
| talk about how some things make you feel. For example: "when
| there is a glass on the sink I feel like I'm feeling
| undervalued..." the other than needs to first acknowledge how
| the other feels "I hear that you feel undervalued..." before
| giving their argument.
|
| It sounds very formulaic but it really helps to deescalate the
| situation. It's much more difficult to escalate a fight if your
| partner says they are hurting.
| usefulcat wrote:
| This is good advice. I would only add that it can sometimes
| be difficult for a person to know how they are feeling or
| why. You have to know how you're feeling before you can
| meaningfully express yourself as "when you do X I feel Y".
| op00to wrote:
| Yes, that's where people must take personal responsibility
| for their own happiness and put the work in to understand
| and master their emotions. It's silly to assume that
| everyone is just born able to effectively manage emotions.
| op00to wrote:
| > "Hundreds, maybe thousands of times, my wife tried to
| communicate that something was wrong."
|
| If you try to communicate something hundreds of times and it's
| not getting through, it isn't the recipient that is at fault.
| cloudier wrote:
| Exactly. If you intend to throw a ball to your dog but
| accidentally break a vase as a result, does your original
| intention absolve you from the consequences of your actions?
| krona wrote:
| As though the thoughts and feelings of another person are as
| predictable and consequential as the laws of physics. I wish.
| cloudier wrote:
| I agree that the thoughts and feelings of other people in
| general are difficult to predict. But a person you marry is
| often someone you spend a lot of time around and hence
| whose thoughts and feelings can be predicted to some extent
| - because you see them in different situations, then see
| their reactions and talk to them about their thoughts and
| feelings.
|
| In this specific case, the author denies that the
| consequences existed:
|
| > But that doesn't make sense, I thought. I'm not trying to
| hurt her; therefore, she shouldn't feel hurt.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Yes this is classic human psychology.
|
| I did a bad thing - well I didn't intend to do it, so I'm
| still good/right.
|
| Someone else did a bad thing - they are a bad person.
|
| I should be measured by my intents, not my actions or
| outcomes.
|
| Others should be measured by their outcomes, because
| thats obviously what they intended.
| watwut wrote:
| If someone complains a lot and often and typically about
| same set of thing, it is pretty easy to guess they are
| annoyed about that set of things. They feelings are no
| mystery, they feel bad about thing they complain about.
|
| The unpredictable thing here were consequences - that she
| will act at her feelings eventually instead of just
| experiencing them. And it basically what he writes about in
| the article, that she eventually figured out her feelings
| don't matter to him and interpreted situation as such. And
| then it was too late to fix anything.
| [deleted]
| beckler wrote:
| About 10 years ago, I had a internship at Newell Rubbermaid. As
| part of the experience, the entire group of interns across all
| the brands got to have lunch with the CEO and basically ask him
| anything we wanted.
|
| At some point, someone asked about his biggest regret. We all
| expected some business blunder, but he said that he was offered
| an executive position by Kraft to lead their Asian segment, and
| that his wife really did not want him to take the job because it
| would require them to move to that region. He regretted not
| listening to her, because it ended up being the catalyst that
| dissolved their marriage.
|
| We were all stunned silent, and you could tell that he was
| genuinely remorseful and so vulnerable in that moment. There are
| only a handful of moments in that internship that I vividly
| remember, but that was by far the most impactful one.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Almost all of us that get to 50 have a life lesson like that
| that boils down to "Optimize for the people involved, not the
| machines and systems."
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I appreciate you sharing this.
|
| Reminds me of a class I took at the University of Illinois, it
| was a seminar in entrepreneurship for engineers, if I remember
| correctly.
|
| I believe a CEO of a $100M+ company came in and gave a speech.
| His first slide had a PowerPoint, on which he put something
| like, "3...2...1." Then he said, "3 wives, 2 divorces, and 1
| heart attack. That's the real cost of entrepreneurship." I've
| remembered it ever since.
| nradov wrote:
| Mark Cuban had a different perspective when he was younger.
|
| "I went through girlfriends (who threatened) -- 'It is your
| business or me,'" the Shark Tank investor recalled. "And I
| was like -- 'What is your name again?' It was just non-stop."
|
| https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/shark-tank-star-
| mar...
|
| I'm not endorsing that comment. I just thought it was
| interesting to see how a notable entrepreneur approached
| relationships. He did later get married after achieving
| financial success, and presumably knows his wife's name.
| blunte wrote:
| It's a question of what you live for and where you find
| your worth. If you live for other people, and you find your
| worth in them, then you will direct your path accordingly.
|
| If you find your worth from within, or perhaps from without
| in a very broad sense (making something big that the world
| needs/wants/admires), then 1:1 is not so important.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _a CEO of a $100M+ company came in and gave a speech. His
| first slide had a PowerPoint, on which he put something like,
| "3...2...1." Then he said, "3 wives, 2 divorces, and 1 heart
| attack. That's the real cost of entrepreneurship."_
|
| Plenty of people who were never entrepreneurs suffer the same
| or worse.. and do so while earning a tiny pittance of what
| CEOs make.
|
| Lack of money causes all sorts of additional stress on
| families as well... including health issues from not being
| able to afford health care, or only getting poor quality
| healthcare, or not being able to afford preventative care,
| eating poorly, living in dangerous/polluted areas, not being
| able to afford to send your kids to college, not being able
| to afford vacations, etc..
|
| Not to mention the stress of being treated like shit or
| replaceable cogs by the people above you in work environments
| that are unhealthy or unsafe.
|
| CEOs have it easy.
| joyeuse6701 wrote:
| Yeah but the (insert suffering in group) had it tougher
| than (out group). We can always compare and find someone or
| something that has it worse. What's the point in bringing
| it up, that we can't feel sorry for someone who has
| suffered because someone else has perhaps suffered more in
| our estimation?
|
| No one has nor should have a monopoly on sympathy.
| watwut wrote:
| I mean, moving whole family without consent of partner indeed
| tend to break relationships. Not being able to take major
| promotion do cause resentment too, but damm, if my partner
| moved me to region I don't want to, I would be pissed.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| But still, I can't imagine not being willing to move to any
| first world country that my senior executive spouse got
| transferred to -- as a senior corporate executive they've
| have a ton of resources at their disposal to make the move as
| easy as possible.
|
| I have a good job that I like, but if my wife told me her
| company was moving her to Japan for a while, I'd jump at the
| opportunity.
| watwut wrote:
| > I can't imagine not being willing to move to any first
| world country that my senior executive spouse got
| transferred to -- as a senior corporate executive they've
| have a ton of resources at their disposal to make the move
| as easy as possible.
|
| I can see it easily. After move, all your friends and all
| your life are far away. You have to change habits,
| language, adjust to different culture. You are very likely
| to be super lonely most of time. And you loose actual
| support network where you live. You can get some paid one,
| but that is something different. If she worked or had other
| ambitions (entirely possible she did not), those are likely
| gone after the move.
|
| Many people like and have build their lives. And many if
| not most don't want to uproot and change everything.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| It's impossible to answer in a vacuum.
|
| We live where we live because we're 10 minutes from my
| wife's two sisters, my wife's parents, and 3 cousins our
| kids love to play with. Generally, I think the only way
| we're moving is if they move first. Because my wife's whole
| family is here. And she spends multiple days per week with
| them. As do our kids.
|
| The idea that she should be supportive of me tearing her
| away from this support structure is questionable.
|
| Obviously if something came up we would discuss things. But
| I don't expect her to like it. Even if it involved a pay
| raise. Even if it involved moving somewhere she would love
| to live. Because these people aren't there.
| op00to wrote:
| The idea that a well compensated, educated adult can't
| survive without an extensive support structure for a few
| years is questionable. Hell, I haven't had a support
| system at all - my family was actively abusive and
| antagonsitic to me, and yet I was able to successfully
| build a career, family, and so on.
|
| It's just as likely codependancy as it would be support.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| It's not that they "can't survive". Their life just might
| be substantially worse.
| [deleted]
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >The idea that a well compensated, educated adult can't
| survive without an extensive support structure for a few
| years is questionable.
|
| Financially, sure. In terms of mental health and feelings
| of isolation (especially for the wife, who won't have a
| high-flying career to distract her/build new contacts
| in), it's absolutely a problem.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >I have a good job that I like, but if my wife told me her
| company was moving her to Japan for a while, I'd jump at
| the opportunity.
|
| Do you have kids? What's your relationship with your family
| like? How good/irreplaceable are your friendships?
|
| For a lot of people, dropping all of these things are
| inconceivable. I know my aunty was reduced to tears when
| her son (who is expecting a baby) moved from Woodend to
| Canberra. To her, it meant seeing her grandkids a couple of
| times a year rather than spending time with them every
| week.
| imchillyb wrote:
| --silent room--
|
| Dumb, snarky, about to be fired, me: "So. What you're saying
| is... She's single?"
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| Valuable lesson for all of those interns that there is more to
| life than business.
| jl2718 wrote:
| Or that life affects your business much more than the other
| way around. Mess it up and you'll start failing at everything
| for a million tiny reasons.
| munk-a wrote:
| It's also important to remember that business is far less
| important than other aspects of life.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Valuable lesson for all of those interns that....there may be
| a million other things going on between two people. Unless
| you get both sides of the story, you only have one side of
| the story. Applies to CEO's as much to janitors.
| blunte wrote:
| Maybe this is my pessimistic view, but most relationships don't
| last. Some of the ones that do last only because of complacency
| or discipline (but they arguably should dissolve).
|
| Conscious memory seems to favor the positives. Unconscious
| memory favors the negatives. If you quickly raise your hand
| near a person who has been physically abused a child, even as
| an adult they may instinctively recoil. But if you ask someone
| about their lost relationship, they will often speak of the
| great things of their partner, ignoring the (perhaps
| incomprehensible or inarticulable) negatives.
|
| Life is hopefully quite long. Relationships involve 2 (+?)
| people. During one's life, one hopefully changes a lot. Picture
| vectors in two dimensions. People who pair up are vectors that
| cross at one moment (brief) or run somewhat parallel for a
| period. Try as we might, adjusting our trajectories, it's
| practically impossible to maintain a parallel path without
| giving up some or all of our own development.
|
| So realistically in our modern times, relationships are based
| on a period of relatively parallel trajectories. And when the
| distance between those vectors becomes to great, it's time to
| stop trying to maintain a connection. That involves some
| feelings of sadness, but it also offers new possibilities.
| MrFantastic wrote:
| It's ironic to me when women choose successful ambitious men to
| marry and then complain these same keep striving to climb up
| the corporate ranks.
| nineplay wrote:
| It's ironic to me when men marry for any reason besides
| wanting a docile helpmeet and then complain that their
| partners have real ambitions, opinions, and goals.
| beowulfey wrote:
| Believe it or not, some people enter enter into marriage as
| equals, and view each other as teammates working together and
| respecting each other's input into major life decisions.
| Diesel555 wrote:
| People also change and / or realize what they thought they'd
| like turns out to not be what they like. You can't know you
| will like a situation until you are living it.
|
| I think entering a new job is similar, I may think I'm going
| to really like the job, but then when I'm actually doing the
| job I realize there are things I didn't consider and don't
| like it. Luckily, I can quit a job easily. In a marriage -
| you have to grow together if you want it to work.
|
| There is a book which describes exactly what the author of
| the article realized too late, it's better to learn it via
| reading than in hindsight:
|
| Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
| taurath wrote:
| Marrying someone with ambitions doesn't mean the ambitious
| spouse gets full control over where the other partner lives
| and the relationships the other partner can have. A
| partnership is not a contract to have the needs of one
| partner subsumed by whoever happens to be more ambitious. You
| don't know what they communicated before deciding to get
| married. Strange to not be able to imagine being on the other
| side of it
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| > Marrying someone with ambitions doesn't mean the
| ambitious spouse gets full control over where the other
| partner lives and the relationships the other partner can
| have.
|
| Not the OP nor GP, but I think the person who sought after
| an ambitious spouse is equally responsible for
| understanding the trade-offs.
|
| The term "married to their career/job" was an old term when
| I was a child growing up in the 1970 and 1980s.
|
| That ambition comes at a veey well-known cost.
|
| I've also read and heard more than my fair share of
| dissolved marriages, because the main provider was always
| working; but how many spouses are willing to live far
| beneath their means, to accommodate for a better work life-
| balance?
| watwut wrote:
| This does not sound like trade off for ambitions. More
| like ignoring her strong preference and then being
| shocked it turned out to be straw that broke camels back.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| dijonman2 wrote:
| This is a negative comment and does not contribute to the
| conversation.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Marrying a successful and ambitious 20-something in no way
| commits one to be fine with the same ambitious person
| uprooting family's life a decade or two later and moving to
| the other side of the world. Family is about shared sacrifice
| for its well being, and sometimes (in fact, usually) one
| needs to sacrifice their career for the family. That's life.
| gamesbrainiac wrote:
| I can share the converse example. My uncle had a once in a
| lifetime opportunity to get training in the US and get a
| promotion at his company. His wife did not want him to
| leave for 6 months. He did not get the training or the
| promotion. He fell way behind his colleagues that did. Fast
| forward 20 years, and he was unable to give his children a
| good education, whereas his colleagues who got promoted,
| did.
|
| He gets really sad and jaded when he talks about that
| decision.
|
| I put this real-life story in contrast, just to prove that
| it's not just about "Always listen to your wife, she is
| always reasonable". For the trivial stuff like putting away
| your shoes or your socks, fine. But some decisions make a
| career and determine the future success of your offspring.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Marrying a successful and ambitious 20-something in no way
| commits one to be fine with the same ambitious person
| uprooting family's life a decade or two later and moving to
| the other side of the world.
|
| Oh please. The writing was on the wall. If he's playing the
| "climb the corporate ladder" game nobody should surprised
| when he draws the "manage the Mongolian division" card.
| Expecting him to give that up when climbing the corporate
| ladder is the life he's chosen is somewhere on the spectrum
| from foolish to selfish.
|
| There's a reason literally every culture has a litany of
| proverbs for women about not trying to change their men
| (and there's similiar but different proverbs for men).
| cheschire wrote:
| Why not also examine the decision of the ambitious spouse to
| marry someone who may at some point add friction to the
| progress?
|
| Marriage requires compromise on both ends. I don't see the
| irony.
| ksdale wrote:
| Marrying a successful, ambitious man does not, in any way,
| mean that a woman should defer completely to every single
| career decision a man makes. I'm sure this executive's
| schedule was already plenty demanding without the burden of
| moving to another country.
| dijonman2 wrote:
| If the man is providing for the household then I'd argue
| that the woman should make every reasonable effort to
| support her husband.
|
| Everything changes all the time without exception. Getting
| used to change serves everyone.
| msrenee wrote:
| Why do you assume the wife isn't working as well?
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| Supporting one's spouse does not mean acquiescing to
| every opportunity afforded the other. Things are a little
| different when we're talking about matters of
| shelter/food/health, but in this situation we're talking
| about an international relocation of an already
| successful businessman. He was pursuing personal career
| and experience outcomes, he wasn't trying to drag his
| family above the poverty line.
|
| And besides, it's pretty clear HE regrets the decision.
| Maybe learn something from the person who lived the
| experience.
|
| > Everything changes all the time without exception.
| Getting used to change serves everyone.
|
| This statement is meaningless. Change in life is
| constant, but everything doesn't change all the time. You
| weaponize this statement as if to say we - or at least
| one spouse - should abdicate their agency in their own or
| their shared life.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| The thing is, he was likely already providing incredibly
| well for the household and didn't need to move the whole
| family to Asia. If I pulled some crazy shit like that,
| I'd hope my wife reminds me who I'm working for and why.
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| FWIW, it sounds like she DID move with him and support
| him (through a non-"reasonable" request of moving to the
| other side of the world.)
|
| The marriage still fell apart.
| nineplay wrote:
| She's providing for the household by taking care of
| everything in their lives outside of his specific
| business functions.
|
| He should be making every reasonable effort to support
| her.
| dijonman2 wrote:
| Money isn't free. The person earning needs to be
| supported. Running a house is work but I wholeheartedly
| reject the notion of someone both working and
| supplicating their partner. This is abuse.
| brewdad wrote:
| If you think this story represents abuse, I truly hope
| you aren't married and never do.
| DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote:
| > taking care of everything in their lives outside of his
| specific business functions.
|
| You're just making stuff up. You don't know this is the
| case.
| DwnVoteHoneyPot wrote:
| > a woman should defer completely to every single career
| decision a man makes
|
| You're making a straw man argument here... none of the
| comments above say "defer completely" or "every single
| decision".
| ksdale wrote:
| Haha the parent post literally said that it was ironic
| that a woman would marry an ambitious man and then
| complain about said ambition. The ambition, implicitly,
| being wanting to move to Asia for a job. It seems to me
| if a woman isn't allowed to complain about moving
| continents for a job, she's not allowed to complain about
| anything, and this is, therefore, not a strawman.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Yeah, I don't see the straw man there. Signing up for
| 55-hour workweeks does not mean signing up for a life in
| Asia.
| ponow wrote:
| Sounds like bait and switch.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Reminded me of The Office. "It's not real until your wife is on
| board."
| draw_down wrote:
| gompertz wrote:
| I keep this in mind too when cancelling plans or trips in
| order to do 'important' corporate work. The business will
| never remember you did a day from now; but your partner sure
| as hell will.
| a_brawling_boo wrote:
| Thanks for saying this. I spent years worried if I took an
| hour or two or a day during 'busy' times, and it turned me
| into a liar, because I said I do things or be somewhere and
| often times I did not because of work. It is always a
| 'busy' time.
|
| It took years, several jobs, and therapy before my eyes
| were open. Nobody cares, you are a human and have a life,
| if your employer does not understand that you need a new
| one.
| asdff wrote:
| I see my friends do this all the time and I just want to
| slap them in the face and tell them to snap out of
| whatever trance they are in. They work long hours, they
| are no longer making the time to take care of themselves,
| or keep up with people they love. They complain how
| terribly they hate their situation and how depressed it
| is, but they continue working those 60 hour weeks and
| bending over backwards to terrible bosses as if that is
| how it simply is and there is nothing better. It's making
| me depressed just seeing them slide off like this, all
| because of these shit jobs they put themselves into. And
| its not like they can't find other work either, they have
| good experience, but are so beaten down by the current
| job that they can't muster energy to commit to a job
| search on top of that 60 hour work week. You almost have
| to rip the bandaid off and just quit with nothing lined
| up.
| jrumbut wrote:
| It's a challenge to recognize those times that your need
| to work constantly is what you want to do (excited about
| a technical challenge, avoiding something at home, on an
| ambition kick), and your boss wouldn't blink an eye if
| you took the week off rather than work 80 hours.
| SpaceMartini wrote:
| This hit me when moving from a start-up to a FAANG. There
| is effectively an infinite amount of work for me to do on
| any given day, so at some point I just have to decide to
| stop - if I don't, I'll just end up tired tomorrow with
| an equally infinite amount of stuff still to do.
| [deleted]
| Hayvok wrote:
| They don't teach you stuff like this in business school, but
| they should.
| technotony wrote:
| Depends on the business school. At INSEAD we had a whole
| elective class devoted to personal psycological decisions
| like this to get people thinking about what kind of trade
| offs they wanted to make.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I wish that had been an option for me as a CS student..
| it was hard for me to learn it in the real world where
| you get lots of "work hard, play hard" speeches.
| idkwhoiam wrote:
| I made a decision to not get married because I don't want these
| kind of problems and drama in my life. Also, depending on your
| country of residence, marriage is probably the worst deal in your
| life.
| raldi wrote:
| This sounds to me more like a symptom, and the underlying
| pathology is that this person gave insufficient consideration to
| all the little concessions his partner was making on the things
| that matter to him, and was certainly not expressing gratitude
| for them.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| Marriage is like kids. What does it expect? Blood.
|
| I remember a guy who planned to join the Marines when I was a
| kid. Every time I saw him he was doing push-ups. All the time. A
| neighbor - who was ex-military or maybe even a Marine himself -
| told me that was all well and good but had limited utility. If
| you go can do 100 push-ups when you go through boot camp they'll
| make you do 110. They want blood.
| greenonions wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Please omit hostile swipes from your HN comments, even when
| another comment doesn't make sense or feels off somehow. The
| swipe aspect only makes everything worse. You can express
| your question in a more open-minded way.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| csours wrote:
| Listen to human experiences. If someone tells you they are
| experiencing something, they are experiencing it.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| " My wife left me because sometimes I leave dishes by the sink."
| can easily spiral out to "you don't give a sht about my feelings,
| I'm not heard even for little things requested constantly" and
| then it amplifies other little dismissed requests which all come
| together and builds up from a mole hill to a mountian
| sethammons wrote:
| In a relationship, you often get to chose between being right
| _or_ being happy.
|
| A lot of people don't realize this but here it was again. The
| author wanted to be right ("my view is correct, glass near the
| sink is not important"). The author lost being happy at the cost
| of being right since their spouse left.
| jgerrish wrote:
| Ooh, we could write a ML app to categorize plates and precious
| china and recommend a way to pack your dishwasher and like even
| provide house-dependent subsets of recommended packing (collect
| bonus points!) and this is so fucking magical!
|
| Am I missing the point?
| meerperson wrote:
| This seems like a one-sided stopgap to a problem that is
| undoubtedly two-sided and it sets a precedent for [the author's
| definition of] respect that cannot be maintained indefinitely.
| For example, what if you were just about to put the glass in the
| dishwasher but the doorbell rings?
|
| The only settings that come to mind where this level of
| "adherence" is maintained are prisons or abusive households where
| everyone is in fear of punishment, and where punishments can even
| be handed out by the warden for no reason at all.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| This is why a husband and wife should share a core value system
| otherwise one person would sacrifice their values for the other
| and that also ends up with resentment.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > This seems like a one-sided stopgap to a problem that is
| undoubtedly two-sided and it sets a precedent for [the author's
| definition of] respect that cannot be maintained indefinitely.
|
| I don't know that it's one-sided. The author may have asked
| their spouse to similarly adjust behavior in various ways; if
| they were amenable to that, but didn't get a corresponding
| response on their own pet peeves, that'd be an imbalance that'd
| stew over time.
|
| > For example, what if you were just about to put the glass in
| the dishwasher but the doorbell rings?
|
| Doing it very occasionally and doing it all the time are likely
| to have substantially different impacts on the spouse.
| InfiniteRand wrote:
| You're right, frequency matters. I also think it matters that
| he reacted defensively (at least that's how I read the
| essay), rather that just saying, "Okay, sure" and putting the
| glass in the dishwasher. It's a token response that doesn't
| really mean much, but it's a token that shows some
| consideration.
|
| I think that's why a workaround solution like putting the
| glass on a counter out-of-sight would also be helpful. It's
| not that the workaround necessarily improves anything from
| his wife's perspective (the glass still needs to be cleaned)
| but it shows some effort.
| nineplay wrote:
| I'm the messy one ( and the wife ) in our situation and this
| article has made me think about my relationship.
|
| My takeaway is that I can sit and pout that my partner shouldn't
| be overreacting to a glass and I can sit and pout and say why
| should I be the one to change, why can't he change.
|
| Or I can stay married. If I'm going to get caught up in my
| marriage being 'fair' I'm going to lose. There have to be times
| when I 'lose' because I give in and he doesn't. I have to trust
| that there will be times when he 'loses' because he's giving in
| when I don't.
|
| It's that trust that's important. Not each little niggling fight
| but a trust that the other person is going to value you over
| valuing some abstract concept of fair. If I show a willingness to
| overcome my preferences for his sake, then he's going to be more
| willing to overcome his preferences for my sake.
|
| It's easy to get stuck on fair but that turns hundreds of little
| things into battlegrounds.
|
| If I trust that he's a loving caring person than I should be
| willing to lose. If I don't trust that, then we're already done.
| madrox wrote:
| This, I think, is the heart of advice heard so often: "don't
| keep score." If balancing our emotional checkbook is more
| important than harmony with our partner, we care about
| something more than our marriage. I'm no expert, but I think
| caring about anything more than our marriage is how marriages
| end.
| maestroia wrote:
| Let's reverse the situation and ask, what did she do which he
| considered disrespectful?
|
| Did he go all passive-aggressive over those items? Did he discuss
| them with her? Would she consider changing her behavior, even
| minor?
|
| It takes two to tango.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Get a dishwasher
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| That won't solve their issue
| chmod600 wrote:
| The author still doesn't seem to quite get it.
|
| The problem is that seeing the dish was one of his wife's primary
| interactions with him, and it was a negative one. She doesn't see
| him most of the day, I'm guessing, but she still sees the one
| glass on the otherwise pristine countertop and knows it's him. It
| causes a slight bad mood, which carries over to the time she does
| see him, which then puts him in a bad mood.
|
| The solution is to literally count good interactions you have
| with your partner during a day or week. It could be by being
| unexpectedly tidy or with small surprises or even just being
| excited and happy and lighting up a room for no reason. If that
| count starts to average less than one, your are in real trouble.
|
| What won't work is driving the small annoyances down to zero.
| Sorry, ain't gonna work. There's always something to be annoyed
| about.
|
| That being said, if your partner seems to care a lot about one
| thing, at least make some effort just because you care. But do it
| because you want them to be happy, not to systematically
| eliminate possible causes of divorce, because it's not gonna save
| you.
| [deleted]
| SunlightEdge wrote:
| I think this is very useful advice. It partly reminds of
| laughing therapy. Where people laugh continuously for 2 minutes
| (fake laugh). But what can happen is that you start to
| genuinely feel happy and laugh.
| pshc wrote:
| https://archive.ph/t3m62
| holdenc wrote:
| Today its glasses of water by the sink, tomorrow it's "you have
| to sanitize the car steering wheel after you drive," and
| eventually it's "don't get close to me if you walked by the bus
| stop." I feel sorry for anyone who has to endure this.
| Barrera wrote:
| > When we're having The Same Fight, positive intent, or chalking
| up any harm caused as accidental, can be just as much of a trust
| killer as more overtly harmful actions. It doesn't matter whether
| we are intentionally refusing to cooperate with our spouse or
| legitimately unable to understand what's wrong--the math results
| are the same. The net result of The Same Fight is more pain. Less
| trust. Regardless of anyone's intentions.
|
| It would be very enlightening to also read the article written
| from the perspective of the partner. I suspect that partner would
| not focus on the glass but the lack of empathy shown by the other
| side, and the erosion of trust that causes over time.
| raydev wrote:
| He covers the lack of empathy pretty well if you read to the
| end.
| notacoward wrote:
| My wife and I wrote our own marriage vows. The first two were
| pretty conventional (stay together, share joys and sorrows). The
| third was the most important IMO and also hardest to keep.
|
| "Treat each other's needs and priorities as equal to our own"
|
| If you don't think it's hard, try it. I don't mean just
| respecting each other's time and attention in a general sense,
| which BTW I've come to believe is a good rule for all
| interactions. I mean treating their habits and preferences and
| pet peeves, no matter how silly they seem to you, as seriously as
| your own. Also, no double standards _anywhere_ in your life
| together. No matter how exhausted or aggravated you are yourself
| at that moment. Consistently doing that takes a _lot_ more self
| discipline than most people have. I can 't say we've always
| succeeded, but after 26 years I'd say it has been worth the
| effort.
|
| N.B. I'm _not_ saying you shouldn 't have your own preferences
| and habits and pet peeves. I'm totally not into that "become one
| person" thing; my wife and I are in fact pretty notoriously
| independent and happy to do our own separate things e.g. at
| social gatherings. There _will_ be conflicts between your
| priorities and theirs. I 'm just saying that those conflicts
| should be resolved starting from a position of equality.
| em-bee wrote:
| _" Treat each other's needs and priorities as equal to our
| own"_
|
| i'd go a step further and say that we each are responsible for
| each others needs and priorities. at least the important ones.
| my job is to enable and support your needs and priorities, and
| your job is to enable and support mine.
|
| your needs are actually more important than my own.
|
| this of course only works if we both understand, agree and
| respect on what each others needs and priorities are. which
| requires open communication.
|
| because if you take advantage of me fulfilling your needs while
| you ignore my needs then the relationship will fail.
| notacoward wrote:
| Can't sign on with that. Subordinating one's own desires to
| the other or to the relationship like that isn't healthy,
| even if it's mutual, and I'm pretty sure my own marriage
| wouldn't have lasted this long if either of us had tried it.
| "Two servants" doesn't work. I think O. Henry even wrote a
| story about where it leads, and can lead even with the best
| of communication. Consciously or no, sooner or later one
| person will demand more and - lacking any directive that
| would pull things back into balance - you'll have an unequal
| relationship. IMO treating each other's needs as _exactly_
| equal, no less but also no more, does provide the necessary
| pull toward the center and thus is more sustainable long
| term.
| em-bee wrote:
| fair point. maybe i am seeing things a bit to idealistic.
| it depends on the persons character. someone who is not
| assertive needs more attention from their partner to their
| needs than others.
|
| it also makes more sense to look at it from the other side:
|
| if i know that my partner is subordinating her desires for
| my sake, then i have an extra responsibility to make sure
| that i take care of her needs.
| SteveGerencser wrote:
| I stopped doing dishes and generally cleaning around the house
| years ago. To start, I started in the restaurant business as a
| kid and my idea of cleaning a kitchen is wildly different than
| hers. While I was in restaurants she was in the USAF having other
| people do things like clean.
|
| After many years of me watching her take everything I washed or
| put away out and redo it, even emptying the dishwasher just to
| reload it and wash the dishes became a 'normal' thing. I gave up
| trying and just leave dishes in the sink or next to it because no
| matter what I do, she will redo it.
|
| I wait till she's out of town and do a deep clean on the kitchen
| just so I know it's finally cleaned the way it should be.
| [deleted]
| simulate-me wrote:
| I don't think it's possible to pinpoint why relationships
| dissolve. Sure, there is always "something," be it dirty dishes,
| a certain habit, etc. But usually, these are context-specific
| complaints, meaning the person complaining about e.g. dirty
| dishes could be happy in a totally different relationship where
| their partner also didn't do the dishes. Ultimately relationships
| break down because one or both people stop trying. Caring about
| the dishes is a symptom of, or response to, relationship apathy,
| not the cause.
| DanHulton wrote:
| There is a whole other potential article out there that could be
| written from the ex-wife's side - "My marriage died because I
| couldn't make this one simple sacrifice".
|
| And I suspect both would just as incorrect, at least by omission.
| The glass thing is a useful article hook, but it's unlikely that
| it encompasses the sole reason their marriage fell apart. There
| is a deeper issue here, about neither side being willing to
| sacrifice for the other that likely really lies at fault.
|
| I like the idea that a really good relationship is a 60/40
| compromise, where both sides are struggling to be the 60. It
| sounds like both sides of this marriage were struggling to be the
| 40.
| [deleted]
| 4ec0755f5522 wrote:
| The wife's article would be called "I told him everything I
| needed but he still thinks it's about the dishes".
| david-gpu wrote:
| _> a really good relationship is a 60 /40 compromise, where
| both sides are struggling to be the 60_
|
| Perhaps I'm misreading your comment, but in my experience
| feeling that you are doing most of the compromising can easily
| lead to resentment. Looking at things as a zero-sum game in
| which you are either compromising or getting things your way at
| a certain ratio is intrinsically competitive.
|
| In my opinion, both in marriage and in other social settings,
| relationships grow stronger when both feel that they are
| working together towards a common goal that satisfies all
| parties. This takes more work than a simple "your way or my
| way" approach, but it leads to all parties feeling seen and
| heard (because they are!).
| [deleted]
| jancsika wrote:
| > I like the idea that a really good relationship is a 60/40
| compromise, where both sides are struggling to be the 60. It
| sounds like both sides of this marriage were struggling to be
| the 40.
|
| I'm picturing a therapist helping a refugee from Objectivism by
| suggesting to "compete on making the greater compromise, within
| a threshold" because that's easier to explain to them than
| cooperation.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I'd take this even further. Sometimes it's 50/50. Sometimes
| 60/40, Sometimes 100/0. You just have to comfortable with
| that's how it is.
| cjohnson318 wrote:
| The Gottman Institute did a lot of research on the effect
| of accepting bids (putting the glass in the sink), ignoring
| bids (leaving the glass out), and rejecting bids (throwing
| the glass against the wall and arguing), and they
| determined that accepting a bid added one feeling dollar
| (my term) to the bank account of your marriage (my
| metaphor), while rejecting a bid took five out, and
| ignoring a bid took like ten or fifteen out.
|
| TLDR: Ignoring someone, or causing them to feel ignored, is
| more painful than intentionally being mean to them, because
| even that is a form of acknowledgement or attention. Also,
| you need to keep putting feeling dollars in the bank
| because you never know when you're going to have a huge
| fight, have your partner check the balance, and decide
| there's no reason to keep going.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Broadly, this is a GREAT point. I wonder if the author
| ever let loose with a loud "Why the f** do you think this
| glass is so important? It's _objectively_ stupid and you
| 're being ridiculous! Get over it, it's just a f**ing
| glass!"
|
| Not for the truth of the point or being correct, which is
| impossible to determine, but for the generation of what
| comes next.
| vxNsr wrote:
| Personally I'd rather lose 100% of the disagreement some of
| time (i.e. 50%) than part (40%, 50%, 60%) of the argument
| every time.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I mean, you have to go to the classic point of rhetoric
| here. Do you want to win all the arguments, or do you
| want to have your way? Strategically losing arguments, or
| even just "lots of admitting when you're wrong (and also
| subconsciously reminding and modeling the fact that it's
| okay to be wrong)" is worth so much.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Ideally a partnership is a 'the whole is greater than the sum
| of the parts' situation. It should be a win-win for both
| partners. If both partners have to 'make sacrifices' then you
| have a 'the whole is less than the sum of the parts' and in
| that case, the only reasonable thing to do is to chuck it all
| out the window and start over.
|
| The 'trial period' in a relationship should be a time frame in
| which both partners try to figure out if they're in a win-win
| situation or not.
|
| Incidentally, this is why economic collapse at the societal
| level leads to so many divorces. Yes, that sounds
| transactional, but that's the reality of marriage, it's as much
| an economic partnership as it is an emotional one. Not
| necessarily a great idea for everyone, too.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| That was the bulk of the article... The glass wasn't the
| problem, it was indicative of greater problems. The author even
| says ``A dish by the sink in no way feels painful or
| disrespectful to a spouse who wakes up every day and
| experiences a marriage partner who communicates in both word
| and action how important and cherished their spouse and
| relationship are.''
|
| They had communication issues, but it wasn't anything huge, it
| was all small cuts like the glass by the sink, or the socks
| casually left at the foot of the bed, letting the trash bin
| overfill... All these little things that display a casual air
| of thoughtlessness.
| Dobbs wrote:
| This isn't about the dishes. The dishes are just a symptom of
| the unequal divide of emotional labour in most relationships.
| Even in relationships where both parents work full time more
| often than not the majority of the mental and physical burden
| of running the house tends to fall onto the woman. Of course
| this isn't an absolute, but it does tend to hold true.
|
| You can see this at the outbreak of COVID where many women had
| to step back from jobs because they suddenly had a massively
| increased load of child care that by default fell onto their
| shoulders.
|
| The article is about someone coming to the realization of the
| ugly situation they are putting their spouse into, one that is
| extremely common. Don't try and devalue that by turning it into
| a "both sides" debacle.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Even in relationships where both parents work full time more
| often than not the majority of the mental and physical burden
| of running the house tends to fall onto the woman."
|
| I'd love to see the data on this.
| cassac wrote:
| This is of course anecdotal, but I find many people (of all
| genders) like to complain when people don't do it the way
| they want, and when they can't micro manage, they get
| upset. If you just want it done then delegate. If you want
| it done YOUR way then YOU have to do it.
|
| For example my wife always makes it sound like finding
| shoes for the kids is the same as planning a trip to the
| moon. If I say I'm going to get them shoes she says I can't
| be trusted. I don't care, the kids don't care, but boy does
| it stress her out every time their feet grow.
| brimble wrote:
| Guys make up for it by doing the majority of the household
| tasks with the highest likelihoods to kill or maim the
| person doing it.
|
| (Mostly joking. But only mostly.)
| Dobbs wrote:
| If you look around for things about "emotional labor" or
| "unpaid labor".
|
| For example I found this from around 2014, it isn't
| strictly about dual income households, but there is data
| out there for that:
|
| > Around the world, women spend two to ten times more time
| on unpaid care work than men.
|
| Source: https://www.oecd.org/Dev/Development-
| Gender/Unpaid_Care_Work...
| giantg2 wrote:
| Any source for US or other developed countries? And of
| course the dual income is important too.
|
| Of course in developing nations or other scenarios with
| stay at home women will see them doing more unpaid work.
| I'd imagine it's similar for a brief time in developed
| countries when women leave the workforce to have children
| too.
|
| At least in my experience it seems division of overall
| labor is generally equal for the relationships I have
| seen.
| sjostrom7 wrote:
| https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/24/among-u-
| s-c...
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/25/for-
| america...
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/283979/women-handle-main-
| househ...
|
| Anecdotally, I have a fairly progressive friend circle
| and I still think, between talking to different halves of
| a given hetero couple, it seems like the man tends to
| exaggerate how much he does around the house, how much
| childcare he does, how self-motivated he is to do so,
| etc. When asked, these men will enthusiastically agree
| that the split should be even when both partners are
| working, but walking the walk is understandably tougher.
| These patterns don't disappear within a generation,
| unfortunately. If I only spoke to the men, I'd have the
| same impression you do.
| giantg2 wrote:
| So, for link number one... I guess we have to define if
| we are measuring work by hours or by tasks completed.
| It's possible that some of those men are cooking as many
| meals but that they spend less time doing it. Secondly,
| and more importantly, that article is about only a single
| area. I want to see overall breakdown of all the
| work/chores. The article hints at women working fewer
| paid hours. That's an area that should be more thoroughly
| investigated, as whoever is working fewer hours at a job
| is more likely to be doing more chores to contribute
| equally.
|
| For the second article, it seems to be self-reported
| perceptions and not actual measurements. Again, it only
| deals with limited categories. Of course if we are
| looking at chores that are traditionally "women's work",
| some of that bias may carry over. Likewise, handyman
| work, appliance repair, mechanic work, paperwork, yard
| work, etc that are traditionally "men's work" are likely
| to still have more men than women saying they spend more
| time on that.
|
| The third article is more what I was looking for. It's
| still perception based but it takes into account a wider
| array of tasks. It also shows how working status and
| income play a role. It also backs up my theory that the
| bias extends the other way on the traditional "men's
| work" portions.
|
| So we aren't going to see that grey line hit 100% in
| every category, and for good reason. Specialization of
| labor leads to efficiency. So task assignment or self-
| assignemnt will go to the person who is more interested
| in or better at that task. I would have liked to see an
| overall category to see how close the overall chore and
| work breakdown would be to 50/50. That's really the meat
| of the issue - equally contributing, even if the
| underlying tasks are divied up. Otherwise, we can cherry
| pick tasks like mechanic work or dishes to fit whatever
| narrative we want.
| david38 wrote:
| Not all full time work is equal. I'll bet whoever has the
| more draining job cares a lot less about the household.
| em500 wrote:
| The marriage lesson that I learned, not too late, is to hire
| domestic help pretty much as soon as we could afford it.
| Dobbs wrote:
| If resources are there then yes I definitely agree. It
| makes a major difference in quality of life, particularly
| for myself and my partner who both struggle with ADHD.
| kraftman wrote:
| I think there are two seperate issues. One is the dishes, and
| the divide of labour. Of course both of those should be equal
| in the way that both people deem fair.
|
| The second is about respect and attitude and empathy towards
| your partner. It's about remembering that something is a
| bigger deal to your partner than it is to you. I like to look
| after my electronics so they'll last a long time, my wife is
| less careful with them and sometimes that bugs me, but I know
| that it's just not on her radar the same way its on mine. If
| it gets bad we discuss it and try and reach a compromise. The
| same goes for loads of other things too: if you go into it
| assuming the best of your partner not the worst you'll have a
| completely different relationship, and different discussions
| about how to solve the problem.
| david38 wrote:
| It's not an unequal divide in emotional labor. He is doing
| what he sees fit, but she requires much more.
|
| If I'm content to live at level 10, so do level 5 work, I'm
| not being lazy. If she requires living at level 20, she will
| then need to do level 15 work.
|
| She will view him as slacking off, but in reality, he isn't.
| They just have different standards. It is no more correct for
| her to force him to level 20 as for him to force her to level
| 10. It's simply an incompatibility that they didn't consider
| when marrying.
| lhorie wrote:
| Yeah, gonna have to agree with you here. The guy appears to
| be downplaying his role by trying to make it a narrative
| about glasses by the dishwasher, but if you were to hear the
| wife's perspective being boiled down to "I am not your maid",
| that would put things in a very different light. Then, it's
| not about glasses or socks or messy storage spaces or how
| inconsequential any of those seem to any particular person,
| it's about who has to pick up the slack and why.
|
| If anyone here is a guy finding themselves siding with the
| guy in this story, one way to "see things from the other
| side" is to imagine a scenario that is traditionally reversed
| in terms of gender roles. For example a scenario where your
| partner leaves hair clogging the bathtub and you have to
| clean up after them every time. And go buy drano and get
| dirty plunging the drain for 5 minutes every once in a blue
| moon. After repeatedly complaining about the issue for over a
| decade. "What do you mean I never clean up, I do my best to
| try to remember to do it. It's not a big deal. The pipes
| being old aren't _my_ fault " they say every time. Be honest
| and tell me your immediate armchair solution isn't to bail
| out of that relationship.
| lubesGordi wrote:
| No, it's always the person who isn't communicating their
| wishes and building up resentment over time that is at
| fault. If they were communicating their wishes and the
| other person was saying no, I'm not doing that, well then
| that's something different.
|
| If you say, 'this is important to me' and I don't naturally
| see it as important, it's my job to take your perspective
| into account. If I actually care about you, this is a non-
| issue (I don't want you to suffer!). If a million things
| are 'important to you' and you need everything done now,
| well then there's reasonableness issues there. These issues
| can get sliced a million different ways and its the
| emotional intelligence matchup (or corresponding sacrifice)
| of the two parties that's going to decide which way it
| goes.
| cgriswald wrote:
| The problem with the marriage was that he ignored all these
| things that were various levels of important to his wife
| rather than take the opportunity to show her that she was
| important to him.
|
| Unequal division of labor could explain _why_ the dishes were
| important to her; but that 's not in the article and it's not
| what the article about.
|
| I think an unequal division of labor is largely orthogonal.
| In my failed marriage, I carried the greater burden by far.
| Yet it was my ex who had the thought "you don't do X, so you
| don't love me."
| chasingthewind wrote:
| I don't think you're using the term "Emotional Labor" in the
| usual sense [0]
|
| "Emotional labor is the process of managing feelings and
| expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job."
|
| I do see people broaden the meaning of this term to mean
| almost anything that women do above and beyond a fair split
| of work, but I think your argument would be clearer if you
| just to it as the unequal divide of "housework" or some other
| term.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_labor
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| I think the correct term here is "Cognitive labour" not
| "Emotional Labor"
|
| https://behavioralscientist.org/how-couples-share-
| cognitive-...
|
| https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/what-is-the-mental-
| lo...
|
| In other words if I actually do put the dishes away and
| take the trash out, _but only when asked to_; then my
| partner would be within their rights to tell me to grow up
| and do the necessary when it obviously needs doing, to stop
| being passive and share some of the "Cognitive labour" of
| worrying about the to-do-list.
|
| And if I don't even do it when asked ... well then I'm just
| adding to their cognitive labour.
| nine_k wrote:
| I'd say that the whole "can't put dishes into sink for years"
| is but a tip of an iceberg, and the main part of it is "can't
| be bothered to pay attention for years". I suspect that such a
| breakdown in communication must be felt pervasively, but can't
| be described as easily, and likely most instances are too
| intimate to disclose publicly.
|
| If a bridge is under unsustainable strain, a single rivet
| failure can lead to a catastrophic collapse of the whole thing,
| even though everything just looked okay a moment ago.
| charles_f wrote:
| That's not what I took out of the article. I took out that the
| glass by the sink is just the token symptom for one of the
| 10000 ways that the author ignored stuff that made his partner
| fumed, representing an underlying lack of respect, and
| ultimately left. He mentions it as the real reason:
|
| > It was about consideration. About the pervasive sense that
| she was married to someone who did not respect nor appreciate
| her.
| vmception wrote:
| Another thing many couples miss is positive reinforcement.
|
| Many people fall into the trap of ignoring the desired behavior
| and chastising the undesired behavior.
|
| Because the desired behavior is _so_ normal and benign to one
| party. But its clearly not to the other party.
|
| If the glass was in the dish washer or washed and put away, I
| could imagine many couples experiencing no conditioning towards
| repeating that behavior.
| zrail wrote:
| Yep. I regularly thank my partner for the work they do to
| keep the house running and they do the same back for me. It
| genuinely helps me feel more connected to them when we
| recognize and show appreciation for the things that could
| absolutely be considered automatic.
| raydev wrote:
| > but it's unlikely that it encompasses the sole reason their
| marriage fell apart
|
| And he says as much in the article. It's frustrating to read
| all these comments that are clearly written without reading the
| entire thing!
| snarf21 wrote:
| Divorced and looking back, the root cause of this (in my
| experience) is a lack of empathy. Love is easy to come by while
| empathy requires walking in someone else's shoes. I understand
| this Same Fight because I lived through that. It is _never_
| about that thing, it is about not being seen. As the author is
| processing his divorce, it is good he sees that there is value
| in doing something selflessly. However, I can 't help but
| wonder if he isn't missing the forest for the trees. Maybe this
| man truly doesn't care about order/structure/cleanliness in any
| area of life, but I have to imagine there is at least _one_
| area that they are meticulous about. Whether that is his tools
| in the garage, his golf clubs, his home theater setup, etc.
| Would he have reacted in the same "... in the grand scheme of
| things, does it really matter?" nonchalance if his wife started
| leaving screwdriver in the bathroom and hammers in the living
| room or if his golf clubs were thrown on the floor under bags
| of trash? It feels like he stopped after he learned the first
| lesson examining his divorce and didn't finish.
|
| I think a lot of people would be well served to make a simple
| list of the life tasks that each partner currently performs.
| Then (where work schedules are possible), switch for 60 days.
| Anyone can grab groceries one day and it is no big deal. Force
| the other person to plan weeks of meals, keep the pantry
| stocked, etc. shines a bigger light on the unseen work and
| value each partner is providing. I learned this lesson the hard
| way and am better for it. Empathy is hard won and we need more
| of it. Apologies to my ex-wife for not being the person I
| didn't yet know I could be.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Force the other person to plan weeks of meals, keep the
| pantry stocked, etc. shines a bigger light on the unseen work
| and value each partner is providing."
|
| If my wife were doing this, our grocery bill would double and
| it would all be frozen dinners and takeout. I'm not sure I
| trust her to do safety critical mechanic work either. So
| maybe switching isn't great for some tasks.
|
| Edit: It seems people disagree. Why? All I'm saying is that
| not everyone is suited to doing all tasks and that switching
| for some of them might not work or could even be dangerous.
| powerslacker wrote:
| Funnily enough, randoms on the internet seem to think they
| know your wife better than you do.
|
| I agree with your position, not everyone is suited for
| every task. In my house, there are certain chores that only
| I do because I'm the only one capable. On the other hand,
| there are certain chores my wife won't let me near because
| I'll make an absolute mess of things.
|
| I think a good number of people on this site have swallowed
| a tad too much equality propaganda. Individuals are not all
| the same and they don't all have the same capabilities,
| instead individuals complement each other with their
| diverse skills, views, personalities, and natural talents.
| lhorie wrote:
| Isn't that kind of the point, to show to the partner that
| you have expectations for how certain things are done in a
| certain way for a certain reason that they might not have
| had an appreciation for.
|
| It can in fact be an avenue to dig into the deeper
| communication issues, e.g. if there's a pattern of
| downplaying expressed concerns or assumptions without
| actual communications, it's gonna surface real quick if the
| partner ruins a power tool (or the non-stick pan, or the
| monthly budget, or whatever) if they don't follow certain
| rules.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Sure, for small stuff that makes sense for a one or two
| time experience. They recommended 60 days. Eating
| preprocessed frozen diners for two months could be
| unenjoyable to one party and not the other. They might
| not care about the added cost too. So it could work if
| they try to stick to the rules. If they just don't care,
| then that might suck.
|
| Then for the car issue... even one large mistake could
| cost thousands or lead to death. If they are supervised,
| then maybe that could work. But that would at least
| require enough extra time to allocate 2 resources to the
| same task.
| lhorie wrote:
| Yeah, the way my wife and and I go about rotating tasks
| usually has one person explaining/hand-holding to
| whatever degree is appropriate precisely because damaging
| goods isn't a desirable outcome. As an exercise, it can
| still surface issues even without full on cold turkey
| switches, e.g. does one tend to forget/downplay/skimp
| things that were already covered previously, is the
| communication actionable/respectful/unambiguous/etc, do
| complaints surface verbally, does the taught person
| actually take away any lessons they didn't
| know/consider/appreciate before, etc.
|
| For example, the junk food example doesn't need to
| literally put you in the red, it can just lead to you
| complaining the food is crap and hopefully imparting that
| food not being crap is important to you.
| aliswe wrote:
| Voting system is unforgiving.
| bee_rider wrote:
| She would probably also outsource that mechanical work to a
| mechanic, just like you'd outsource the cooking work to the
| microwave/freezing company. Although, by outsourcing this
| work, you'd both have a little bit more free time. It might
| be a worthwhile experiment just to try for a month, if you
| can swing it.
| giantg2 wrote:
| You don't understand, I already do the shopping/cooking
| and the mechanic work. Outsourcing costs a lot of money.
| Plus, if the point of switching is to appreciate the
| labor of the other person, then outsourcing defeats the
| purpose.
|
| My point is, some tasks may not be equally suited for
| both people in the relationship.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Ah, ok. I thought you were providing one example where
| she normally does a task that you'd do poorly, and one
| where you normally do a task that she'd do did poorly, to
| set up a sort of symmetrical example.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Plus, if the point of switching is to appreciate the
| labor of the other person, then outsourcing defeats the
| purpose.
|
| Locating, finding, and managing interaction with
| appropriate help is labor, too.
|
| And it's often a better way of getting the job done, even
| if the immediately obvious monetary cost is higher.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Locating, finding, and managing interaction with
| appropriate help is labor, too."
|
| But not the same kind. And really it's minimal once you
| find a good shop.
|
| "And it's often a better way of getting the job done,
| even if the immediately obvious monetary cost is higher."
|
| How so? If I can save $500-2k on maintenance costs every
| year, that's significant.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > But not the same kind. And really it's minimal once you
| find a good shop.
|
| Yes, that's an important time efficiency. Expending more
| effort on the same results is not a virtue.
|
| > If I can save $500-2k on maintenance costs every year,
| that's significant.
|
| Yes, but possibly less significant than the other
| benefits you could bring the partnership by _not_
| spending time on that.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Yes, that's an important time efficiency. Expending more
| effort on the same results is not a virtue."
|
| It's not the same result though. One costs a lot of
| money, the other costs only a little. Your statement only
| makes sense if someone has a bunch of spare money laying
| around.
|
| "Yes, but possibly less significant than the other
| benefits you could bring the partnership by not spending
| time on that."
|
| That's a moot point since my wife works during most of my
| off-hours. But I'm curious, what are these other
| benefits?
| ngc248 wrote:
| Totally agree... different people are suited for different
| things
| orwin wrote:
| You should learn to cook new dishes together. To each their
| own, especially in their own home, but cooking have
| inherent value itself for multiple reasons, and teach a lot
| of soft skills. And cooking together is great, if your wife
| agree to let you be slow and let you mess up. If you have
| kids especially: some of my best memories are my parents
| learning to cook weird asian dishes and fail or succeed
| together.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I enjoy cooking new stuff. She's completely uninterested
| in learning.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| It's funny, my wife has literally zero interest in
| learning computer programming in any way. I found that a
| bit odd, as I'd like to at least learn enough about
| anything she spends more than, say, 20 hours a week doing
| so that I can nod in the right places when she complains.
| Talking with my friend group, nobody found it even the
| slightest bit odd.
|
| You say your wife has no interest in cooking and
| everybody loses their mind. Doubly ironic because I would
| wager on HN, people are probably better programmers than
| cooks, on average.
| trelane wrote:
| > I would wager on HN, people are probably better
| programmers than cooks, on average.
|
| I don't know if my cooking or programming skills are more
| insulted. ;)
| brimble wrote:
| Most people find programming brain-meltingly dull.
| Socially, we're _much_ closer to accountants than the
| real professional class--lawyers, doctors, and the
| professional-adjacent groups like professors--and also
| closer to accountants (and not the fun kind, like
| forensic accountants) as far as people 's interest in
| what we do than, say, mechanical engineers or aerospace
| engineers or biologists or pharmaceutical chemists or
| whatever. May not be true in certain _very_ tech-oriented
| cities like SF where everyone seems to be connected to
| software (I dunno) but it is everywhere else.
|
| Shit, lots of programmers find it dull, too. It just pays
| a lot and is pretty fuckin' easy, so they get over it.
|
| (incidentally, I'm pretty sure the social-class thing is
| why programmers struggle to get basic professional
| respect and perks like a goddamn office and not being
| micromanaged, even when our pay is sky-high--those are
| _social_ perks, and we don 't rate them, mostly)
| giantg2 wrote:
| "people are probably better programmers than cooks, on
| average."
|
| Maybe. I think cooking is just a different type of
| programming, with neat hacks, syntax to follow, etc.
| Garbage in, garbage out is especially applicable too.
|
| Also, who is losing their mind over my wife not cooking?
|
| I believe everyone who eats should know how to cook at
| least a few basic things. Just like anyone who wears
| clothes should know how to wash them. Etc
| em-bee wrote:
| _If my wife were doing this, our grocery bill would double
| and it would all be frozen dinners and takeout._
|
| that's pretty dismissive. do you know this from experience?
| have you tried it? that's the point. not the outcome. does
| your wife understand the effort you go through? does she
| respect that? does she want it?
|
| the point is not to train each other to be equally suited
| to every task, but to better understand each other.
|
| if you are both happy with the arrangement as it is then
| you don't need to do anything, but but if one of you is
| unhappy about the efforts of the other then it may help to
| bring these things to light.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "do you know this from experience?"
|
| Yes. She doesn't/can't cook. When she shops she buys only
| the most expensive name brands. She buys only
| frozen/instant/pre-made meal items.
|
| "does your wife understand the effort you go through?
| does she respect that? does she want it?"
|
| She sort of understands, but impossible to completely
| under the circumstances. She sort of respects. She does
| not want to cook.
|
| "if you are both happy with the arrangement"
|
| For the most part, yes.
| [deleted]
| Cerium wrote:
| Years ago I learned this lesson about marriage while on a trip
| in South Western China. I joined a tour group to see a mountain
| for a few days. My party was six and the van sat eight, so the
| driver got another couple to join us. They were fascinating. We
| learned over meals together that they were an arraigned
| marriage. At the time I had extremely negative views around the
| practice, thanks to growing up in the USA where we celebrate
| our freedom to choose the perfect partner. From them I learned
| a new facet of love and saw something beautiful in their
| relationship. They entered marriage knowing they would have
| differences to solve together. They solved those differences
| and developed a great relationship.
|
| After that encounter I changed my mental model of finding
| someone to marry from finding someone perfect for me to
| arainging my own marriage. By that I meant that I wanted to
| find someone generally compatable but also willing to work
| together. It turns out I found that person on that same trip,
| and we have now been married for 7 years, but that is a long
| off topic story.
|
| For sure, each side needs to always be trying to compromise
| more than the other.
| qiskit wrote:
| > At the time I had extremely negative views around the
| practice, thanks to growing up in the USA where we celebrate
| our freedom to choose the perfect partner.
|
| For most of american history, "arranged" marriages were the
| norm and was based in communal, religous and practical
| realities. The disneyified idea of marriage is a modern PR
| invention primarily to get more business activity. Just like
| the idea of proposing with a diamond ring. It's amazing how
| easily and quickly media can change minds individually and
| collectively and alter history/culture.
| cma wrote:
| > For most of american history
|
| I see some things saying it was common among certain
| immigrant groups before 1900 (it doesn't say whether it was
| a majority):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arranged_marriage
|
| Now that it is 2022 though we're closer to 1900 than 1900
| is to the enactment of the constitution, so even then I'm
| not sure it would be most of american history unless maybe
| going colonial or pre-colonial (or are talking north+south
| america).
| bombcar wrote:
| This is a very important lesson - the chance of finding a
| "perfect" partner is vanishingly small if considered in the
| normal view - but the chance of finding someone who is
| willing to work together is higher.
|
| And most marriages are "arranged" in some way or another, we
| just like to pretend that random chance plays little part and
| somehow we've got it down to a science.
| billmalarky wrote:
| There is no such thing as the "perfect" partner if the
| definition of "perfect" means "perfect compatibility."
|
| Even if there were perfect compatibility (which would
| really just be extending solipsism to one's relationship),
| the only constant in life is change. Thus one might be
| "perfectly compatible" with another person in a small
| snapshot of time in which they enter into a marriage. Then
| every single day and every single change threatens that
| compatibility. It's a fragile house of cards to build a
| longterm relationship around.
| em-bee wrote:
| you have to continuously work on the relationship to keep
| each other compatible.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I can't recommend this book enough on the topic. TLDR Women
| are more picky then Men in the courtship marketplace, and
| finding a partner with matching values is most important to
| growing and staying together. People expect a fairy tale,
| when they're signing up for a job (relationships require
| work and effort).
|
| A quote from the author 10 years post publishing: "I think
| the book is really, ironically, about having higher
| standards about the things that matter, like the character
| qualities, generosity, kindness, reliability, and not
| getting so hung up on things like, you know, whether you're
| going to go on a second date with a guy because of how he
| dressed."
|
| https://smile.amazon.com/Marry-Him-Case-Settling-
| Enough/dp/0... (Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr.
| Good Enough)
|
| https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23687614M/Marry_him
|
| The Atlantic piece that was the genesis for the book: https
| ://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/03/marry-h...
|
| https://jezebel.com/lori-gottliebs-marry-him-was-always-a-
| ca...
|
| EDIT: @300bps (HN throttling, can't reply directly) Indeed.
| The book covers exactly this (census data for the dating
| marketplace and the dynamic between genders as age brackets
| tick upwards). The market is great for women 21-30, and it
| rapidly declines after 35. You can borrow the book from the
| Internet Archive with the library link I tossed in this
| comment for more context.
| 300bps wrote:
| I first want to say that I cringed reading the entire
| original article.
|
| But I want to address something you said as well, "TLDR
| Women are more picky th _a_ n Men".
|
| This is highly age-dependent... On _average_ :
|
| A 21 year old woman on a dating site _has_ to be picky.
| She 's getting constant messages from men anywhere from
| 18 years old to 100 years old.
|
| A 40 year old woman is still a bit picky on a dating site
| but is starting to realize that things are vastly
| different than they used to be.
|
| A 47 year old woman is generally willing to date just
| about anyone that messages her. Or she's given up on
| dating.
| metadat wrote:
| This is an over generalization, every person is different
| and has their own quirks and preferences.
|
| The hot take you've presented is useless at best, and
| possibly even harmful to view people from such a single
| dimensional lens based on their age.
| 300bps wrote:
| What's unfortunate is that I can literally emphasize the
| words _on average_ and use words like _generally_ and
| still get the accusation that boils down to, "but not
| everyone is like that."
|
| If you think my opinion is useless, the most likely
| reason is because you have little to no experience with
| the topic. Are you in your 40s? How many 47 year old
| women have you dated?
| metadat wrote:
| Well, I'm within a year or so of being forty. I've have
| been on about 75 dates over the last two years with women
| aged 29 to 50s.
|
| IME, often the desirable ladies in their forties have
| been those who stayed in a dead end relationship for
| (way) too long. If someone has never been in an LTR by
| the time they're 35, they were always quite odd and I
| learned it's a good idea to double click and ask
| questions to learn what might be going on there.
| 300bps wrote:
| _Well, I 'm within a year or so of being forty. I've have
| been on about 75 dates over the last two years with women
| aged 29 to 50s._
|
| Huh, the first version of this comment before you edited
| it said:
|
| _Yes I 'm in my forties, have been on dates over the
| last two years with about 50 women aged 29 to 50_
|
| Another comment from you in this same story says:
|
| _Soon I should probably ask if she 'll marry me, advice
| on this would be welcome :) we are 9 months in_
|
| Congratulations on dating about 50, I mean about 75 women
| in about 15 months. Also congratulations on regressing in
| age!
|
| Since you explicitly solicited advice in your other
| comment - I think a man in his 40s (or almost 40) would
| be insane to propose marriage to a woman he's dated for 9
| months.
| metadat wrote:
| I'm 39, upon re-reading my post I didn't want to be
| dishonest. And tbh, it was probably more than 75. An epic
| quest full of interesting people and good learning
| experiences to discover what is actually out there! But
| alas, this isn't my primary account - so I try (and
| happily fail often) to keep it vague. Not that big of a
| deal either way in the end.
|
| > Since you explicitly solicited advice in your other
| comment - I think a man in his 40s (or almost 40) would
| be insane to propose marriage to a woman he's dated for 9
| months.
|
| Haha, thank you! Because of previous trauma, I am also
| hesitant to rush anything. Then I also have my sister
| (who just had a baby last year) whispering and telling me
| to just have a kid with my gf, even if we aren't married.
| I think she's just baby crazy at present, or perhaps she
| really does hate me and is playing the long game :)
|
| p.s. Not that you asked or that it's really any of my
| business, but I'll try anyway: One pattern I've noticed
| in our exchange is you seem to get a bit hung up on the
| small details. My interpretation is that you are probably
| a really great engineer, of the sort I enjoy working with
| the most (seriously). Just don't forget to zoom out and
| view the forest from time to time!
|
| Sincerely,
|
| Metadat
| samhw wrote:
| > A 21 year old woman on a dating site has to be picky.
| She's getting constant messages from men anywhere from 18
| years old to 100 years old.
|
| Putting the rest aside for a moment, I never till
| recently knew how true this was. I'm gay(ish) and I had
| never been on straight Tinder, so I always brushed off my
| friends' complaints as histrionic. A month or two ago I
| decided, in a moment of experimentation, to set my Tinder
| to 'bi'. I do pretty well on gay Tinder - overwhelmingly
| the guys I'm interested in are interested back - so I
| expected great things. I got _nothing_. Not a word, not
| from a single girl.
|
| Out of sheer curiosity I matched one time with one of the
| enormous acneous beasts who were the only girls to swipe
| right on me, and _even she_ didn 't send me a message.
| It's wild. If I were straight, I'd be an incel by now. I
| know from (very very little) real-life experience that
| I'm not that unattractive to (what I'd consider) good-
| looking girls, but the online dating apps are seemingly
| just a meat market. I struggle to make sense of it all.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "People expect a fairy tale, when they're signing up for
| a job."
|
| This is worth reiterating.
| openknot wrote:
| It's important to note that part of the job is to make it
| a fun job at the least, and daresay a fairy tale at the
| most.
|
| This includes positive surprises (though care needs to be
| taken), thoughtful gifts (especially on Valentine's and
| birthdays), and some element of spontaneity. Flirting is
| also important.
|
| Spontaneity can be considered as part of the job, but
| it's important to keep it fun to avoid boredom in a
| relationship. I've read anecdotes that a faithful but
| boring relationship can cause another partner to
| unexpectedly break up at the least, or have an affair at
| the most.
|
| I recommend a person to work on making the relationship
| exciting instead of breaking it off, but as evidence that
| this is important to factor in, a few anecdotes of people
| with this problem are listed below:
|
| -Thread with humane advice for the original poster: https
| ://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/1qcomq/anyon..
| .
|
| -Thread with not-so-humane advice that I personally
| disagree with: https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/com
| ments/oq7so/after_...
|
| -Final perspective to establish a pattern, with the rule
| of threes: https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comment
| s/67df9t/i_29f...
| pdimitar wrote:
| It's not. It's BS but it's apparently popular view among
| certain audience (maybe Americans?).
|
| Why are you people so cold and calculating when talking
| about feelings? Love and care do wonders and you are able
| to work _everything_ out almost effortlessly. I have seen
| it in couples several times in the past and I am
| experiencing it for over 8 years now as well. With the
| right person it works automatically and there 's zero
| sense of "sacrifice" there. In 8 years I haven't felt
| that I've made a compromise that hurt me or her. None of
| us ever felt like they had to cut a part of themselves to
| continue being in the relationship. We develop and grow
| together.
|
| I'll never agree to this work-ethic-like expression of
| relationships. To me you look miserable for even using
| that framework of a language.
| pdimitar wrote:
| > _People expect a fairy tale, when they 're signing up
| for a job._
|
| Nope. BS. And I am saying this as a guy with one failed
| marriage and now with a super happy one going stronger
| than before even, 8 years down the line.
|
| Stop perpetuating work ethic when it comes to feelings
| and partnership, please. Relationships can be beautiful
| in literally every way. Maybe just keep looking and don't
| generalize because that makes you look bitter. Is that
| your intent?
| scarmig wrote:
| The key is to find someone who is actually attracted to
| you. Not in a "oh I guess I can tolerate kissing you"
| type of way, but in a "I often fantasize about touching
| your body" type of way.
|
| Mutual sexual attraction makes it possible to develop
| that type of relationship, but a lot of the time men in
| particular settle for less.
|
| I strongly encourage anyone who doesn't have that type of
| relationship and wants one to break things off. Even if
| there's only a 25% chance you think you could find
| someone like that, it's worth it: it makes everything
| nearly effortless, and the relationship becomes filled
| with joy and not drudgery.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Absolutely! I didn't even look that good when my wife
| found me; I had a belly and my teeth definitely needed
| attention (and after 32 months of bracers they look
| better than those of most people I meet nowadays ^_^).
| She _still_ thought I was the sexiest man she has ever
| met, and her actions when we were alone confirmed it many
| times.
|
| Without genuine attraction a relationship turns into a
| transaction. And it starts poisoning the sides involved.
|
| I too recommend people getting a bit more courageous and
| stop settling for less than what would make them happy.
| mise_en_place wrote:
| It's not so much work ethic as it is mental discipline.
| If you have not mastered yourself when it comes to the
| dishes, you cannot master yourself in tough periods of
| life, and so on. You have to be present in each moment,
| regardless of whether it's doing dishes or having the
| best day of your life.
| pdimitar wrote:
| IMO part of a relationship is to grow and develop
| together. If somebody stubbornly decides they are already
| as perfect as they can ever be, then the results -- them
| being lonely -- are predictable.
|
| And yep, being present and aware is absolutely critical,
| I agree with you.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| > _@300bps (HN throttling, can 't reply directly)_
|
| Just a tip, the throttling only applies to the comment
| thread, and I believe it is only a five-minute timeout.
|
| You can always reply to a comment directly without
| waiting for the timeout, by clicking on the timestamp
| next to the username. That takes you to the individual
| comment page which will have a reply box.
| nicoburns wrote:
| My pet peeve is people who leave dirty dishes _in_ the sink
| rather than next to the sink. This seems to considered the
| correct /polite place to leave them by some people. But it means
| that other people can't use the sink without first moving your
| dishes!
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| Oh god... who will tell him?
|
| She leave him by anything _but_ that.
|
| That was the tip of the iceberg in a big comfort zone.
|
| Details do matter, in that point the author is right but the
| article is a huge expression of rationalization to cover up
| deeper issues.
|
| If she would be happy to have him, do you think she would f* care
| about dishes? She would be proactive and happy to help by
| cleaning that herself. And offering to cook and more.
|
| Sorry but the text is not defensible in any possible angle. That
| publication is nothing but a glorification of superficiality
| disguised as an allegedly clever insight.
| hello_popppet wrote:
| > glorification of superficiality disguised as an allegedly
| clever insight.
|
| Captures most of the "news" and other topics on here to be
| honest...
| rhacker wrote:
| This is how I read this. The wife may have long ago brought up
| some argument that was "banned". In other words - bread winner
| conversations.
|
| Bread winners often have this trait: I make all the money, and I
| can only do that by working my butt off. So you need to take care
| of all the other things. No questions.
|
| This is why the dishes is such a huge deal now: Since the ACTUAL
| conversation is banned (by the man) the only thing the wife was
| able to bring up is anything that causes her to do MORE work for
| him. She now has to wash and put away the glass. It's a problem
| not because of that task, but because she got lesson-ed years ago
| on the bread winner crap and it's non-stop marriage poison
| forever after.
|
| Every time she sees him spend a few minutes glazing at a window
| or "browsing hacker news" (for example lol) or just not doing
| anything - that's feeding the fire too - because why couldn't he
| help with the unseen tasks she's been given and IGNORED for.
| j7ake wrote:
| Would this situation have been solved if both partners were
| working ?
| watwut wrote:
| Is there reason to think they were not? I tried to find where
| in article he says she was stay at home mom and can't find
| it.
| glitchc wrote:
| Yup, a lot of these dissolutions are over money and control of
| the finances. Breadwinners need to treat their stay-at-homes
| with nice dinners, shopping experiences and pocket money that
| feels reasonable. A lot of them get it wrong.
|
| It's all about dignity and respect really. Take that away from
| your partner and they'll resent you, no matter how much pove
| there is between the two of you.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Yes, in a way I think it's almost easier to have two incomes
| and pay for help/services with the excess.
|
| Even if there is a 2:1 income ratio, each side can feel they
| are contributing monetarily and collectively decide what
| tasks are worth doing vs paying for.
|
| I can understand the psychology of both sides - the
| breadwinner thinks they are doing their job outside the house
| so why is the spouse not doing all the stuff inside the
| house.
|
| Any subset of tasks breadwinner spouse pick up (like dishes
| or laundry) they expects a gold star sticker for doing extra.
| Meanwhile the homemaker spouse feels put upon for the 1000
| other things they do around the house and dealing with the
| kids.
|
| Likewise this is akin to the homemaker spouse tutored the
| neighbors kid for $100/week and then telling the 6-figure
| breadwinner that they are also contributing to the families
| income. Each side feels correct and like they are going above
| and beyond their scope..
| Thlom wrote:
| Is it normal in the US that only one in a relationship is
| working? I don't think I know anyone where only one in the
| relationship is working. To me it feels like the power
| dynamics in such a relationship quickly gets really toxic.
| Jabbles wrote:
| I think not calling it "pocket money" would be a good step.
| brimble wrote:
| That seems very neutral to me? I'm struggling to think of a
| term that's not worse ("allowance") or less accurate.
|
| [EDIT] It just means money that's expected to be spent, but
| not budgeted specifically for anything, and is largely put
| to personal discretion without any kind of accounting
| expectation--no? Some phrase using "discretionary" might
| also work, but that one seems too technical or formal.
| defgeneric wrote:
| I think you're confusing that with "pocket change" as in a
| small/insignificant amount of money. Pocket money can just
| mean that you always have money around that can be spent
| according to whatever whim or whatever you want to do.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| It does go both ways, however. Just as the "breadwinner"
| doesn't get to use their money to diminish the (very
| substantial) labor of the other at home, the other doesn't
| get to use their labour to assert complete dominance over how
| the shared house is used.
|
| It's teamwork. Having two warring departments in a company is
| bad news, so is two adversarial government agencies: there's
| a common goal at stake. It's no different at home.
|
| If you were on a sports team, you'd think carefully about how
| a teammate wants the ball, and they'll think about how they
| can make it easy to set up for you to execute that pass.
| Making a hospital pass doesn't make either of you look
| better, and doesn't win the game.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| > Breadwinners need to treat their stay-at-homes with nice
| dinners, shopping experiences and pocket money that feels
| reasonable.
|
| This to me feels like materialistic pandering. Breadwinners
| need to see their spouses as financial partners in a shared
| life.
| a_puppy wrote:
| This is an interesting point of view. I don't know enough about
| their relationship to know whether that's what was going on.
| But, I do want to point out something else in your comment:
|
| > She now has to wash and put away the glass.
|
| No she doesn't. She can just leave it there. She can leave her
| own glasses there, too.
|
| The pressure to keep the counter clean isn't coming from the
| husband. He doesn't give a damn how many dishes are on the
| counter. It's coming from an expectation of femininity that
| she's internalized: "a wife is supposed to keep the counter
| free of dishes". The husband isn't helping her meet this
| expectation, but he isn't imposing the expectation on her,
| either.
|
| I'm not married, but I see this theme in a lot of fights over
| household chores: it's not that the husband expects his wife to
| do all the chores, it's that he doesn't actually believe the
| chores need to be done.
| jacobolus wrote:
| > _It 's coming from an expectation of femininity that she's
| internalized._
|
| This is a sexist assumption which denies the woman individual
| agency. One person in a relationship having a higher standard
| for cleanliness than the other isn't necessarily the result
| of some society-wide conditioning. There are plenty of very
| tidy men and more relaxed women out there in the wide world.
| And plenty of relationships where both partners are very neat
| or very messy.
|
| When people have different standards, they need to
| communicate and work together to solve problems in a mutually
| acceptable way. Both "I don't care if we live in a pigsty so
| it's all your fault for caring about it" and "everything
| needs to be perfectly spotless and you need to contribute
| equal time to maintaining the space to my exacting
| specification" are one-sided cop outs.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I've never heard of men complaining about their female
| partners being untidy with household things except in the
| case where they simply do nothing (and that's rare), is
| that common where you are.
|
| My father did all the washing up in our house growing up,
| and mum did most of the cooking, but he never once
| annotated me for leaving dirty dishes whilst my mother
| regularly would complain.
|
| Almost every married woman I know fits the stereotype of
| being more houseproud than their husbands (I'm in the UK).
|
| You call it sexist, but it seems to reflect a genuine sex-
| based divide.
| vasco wrote:
| In my relationship it's the other way around so there
| goes your theory.
| uoaei wrote:
| > it seems to reflect a genuine sex-based divide.
|
| You seem to have an extraordinarily limited and
| homogenous social circle.
| atombum wrote:
| Well let me be a data point to the contrary for you.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| > I've never heard of men complaining about their female
| partners being untidy with household things
|
| Know him? Of course I know him. He's me.
| maweaver wrote:
| I am have found that since I started working from home
| due to covid, a neat house is much more important to me.
| It makes me anxious being in a house all day that is a
| mess. And I have become the one who bugs my wife to
| please pick up after herself more.
|
| I wonder if women traditionally spending more time at
| home is the cause of this gender difference.
| weldedtogether wrote:
| Anecdotal evidence as it is, I'd like to vouch for the
| fact that I am usually the "mother" in this scenario.
| Dirty dishes being left out drives me nuts, especially if
| it's overnight. When I wake up and come out of the
| bedroom to a clean house, I'm relaxed. Waking up to a
| house with dishes still around from the night before can
| set a baseline stressed (need to do this still) mood for
| a hefty chunk of my day.
|
| On the other end, my girlfriend doesn't seem to mind at
| all. She does when it gets very messy, but the minor ones
| don't bother her like it does me. The author's mindset
| regarding dishes in the above article does remind a bit
| of her as well.
| op00to wrote:
| My anxiety manifests in similar ways. I "do the dishes"
| (or whatever annoying task it is that tweaks my anxiety
| in the morning) before I wind down for the night. I take
| control of my own happiness.
| [deleted]
| a_puppy wrote:
| > When people have different standards, they need to
| communicate and work together to solve problems in a
| mutually acceptable way.
|
| I agree! I don't mean to imply that the "relaxed" standard
| is better than the "tidy" standard. But my point is that
| the husband was not being hypocritical. He was not
| expecting his wife to keep the house to the "tidy" standard
| while himself only meeting the "relaxed" standard (which is
| what rhacker implicitly accused).
|
| > This is a sexist assumption which denies the woman
| individual agency.
|
| Yes, I made a generalization. I've never met the man or the
| woman involved, so I don't know their specific
| circumstances. It would have been more accurate for me to
| say something like "it's probably coming from an
| expectation of femininity that she's internalized", or
| "many women in the US today internalize an expectation of
| femininity that prioritizes tidiness". Obviously not every
| woman is tidy and not every man is relaxed, but there's a
| definite trend towards women being tidier than men, and
| that trend comes from internalized gender norms.
|
| This kind of generalization is very common in discussions
| about gender on the Internet. For example, rhacker's parent
| comment made a similar generalization, as did your comment
| about "rich middle-aged white men" a few days ago. [1] I
| don't think my generalization was any worse than those; I
| just flipped the genders by making a generalization about
| women instead of a generalization about men.
|
| I think there's a deeper discussion here about "if personal
| preferences arise from internalized gender norms, does that
| mean the preferences are invalid?" You seemed to interpret
| my comment as saying that her preference for tidiness was
| somehow invalid because it came from internalized
| femininity. I didn't intend that; I think that personal
| preferences arising from internalized femininity (_and
| internalized masculinity_) are perfectly valid.
|
| [1]
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30977147&p=3#30979367
| [deleted]
| k0k0r0 wrote:
| Wow. I never considered this before:
|
| Explaining certain kinds of behavior as the result of
| society-wide (patriarchaic) conditioning may be sexist
| itself, because it denies the womans individual agancy.
| uoaei wrote:
| It is generally rude in Western cultures to assume that
| someone is being controlled by something outside of their
| own volition, ie, to imply that they have less than full
| agency. This is most likely borne out of the
| Enlightenment era and its emphasis on the ideal of
| individuals carving out their own destinies as the
| highest moral pursuit.
|
| I personally think we will have to contend with the
| present and future of neuroscience research that
| investigates the distinction between which wills are
| truly free and which are conditioned on past experiences.
|
| All that to say, however, that 'sexist is as sexist
| does'. If such language as in GP is used to denigrate the
| position of the woman in this disagreement by casting her
| as a nuisance to be managed externally, then that is
| sexist, because she is no longer afforded a voice in the
| discussion but is instead reduced to an object to be
| manipulated, the primary reason for this being her
| gender.
|
| But I wouldn't recommend trying to close an argument by
| saying "Hey honey, I think you've been brainwashed by
| patriarchy. Don't you think we should try to challenge
| established hygiene and gender norms with this dirty
| glass standing as act of protest?"
| jacobolus wrote:
| You can point out / criticize trends and large-scale
| causes without stereotyping people or turning a trend
| into inescapable destiny.
| scarby2 wrote:
| > it's not that the husband expects his wife to do all the
| chores, it's that he doesn't actually believe the chores need
| to be done.
|
| This doesn't get said enough. It also not just wife vs
| husband - we all have different standards and it's a lesson
| that needs to be learned that usually someone isn't being
| malicious it's just not easy to force yourself to notice
| something if it's fine by your standards but not by your
| partner's.
| biomcgary wrote:
| I have certain expectations how our home should function,
| but I don't expect my partner to do the work of meeting
| those expectations. I put them on myself. My partner has
| certain expectations of how the home should function. They
| should put those expectations on themselves. Work toward
| shared expectations should be shared.
|
| I would assert that when one partner works
| disproportionately toward meeting the unshared expectations
| of the other partner (than vice versa), they are being
| exploited by that partner. Society frequently privileges
| some expectations over others. Consequently, one partner
| often feels disproportionately entitled to work from the
| other partner to fulfill their expectations.
| op00to wrote:
| > My partner has certain expectations of how the home
| should function. They should put those expectations on
| themselves. Work toward shared expectations should be
| shared.
|
| Three excellent rules for a successful marriage.
| avidiax wrote:
| > it's not that the husband expects his wife to do all the
| chores, it's that he doesn't actually believe the chores need
| to be done.
|
| This is a specific example of a general disagreement on
| values. Disagreeing on values is really difficult to resolve,
| since people rarely change them, so agreement is often
| impossible.
|
| It's not entirely satisfactory, but if both partners can
| recognize the difference in values, respect the other's
| position, and act in a way that accommodates but doesn't
| acquiesce to one side or the other, then they can live with
| the disagreement.
|
| So for the glass, the husband's position that a glass on the
| counter doesn't matter is valid, as is the idea that a clean
| counter has aesthetic value. So a compromise might be that
| the wife learns to accept that the counter will be dirty
| during the day, and they take turns cleaning it at night
| before bed.
| mhaymo wrote:
| I agree with your general point, but I have to add that
| that example "compromise" sounds highly unsatisfactory for
| the wife. Not only does she have to accept the dirty
| dishes, but the simple task of putting them in the
| dishwasher immediately has been replaced by the fraught
| emotional labour of managing and enforcing a cleanup rota.
| I think the OP is right that he should have just taken the
| L on this issue, and perhaps on some other standard of
| cleanliness she should be the one to compromise.
| Goronmon wrote:
| _No she doesn 't. She can just leave it there. She can leave
| her own glasses there, too._
|
| I'm having a hard time following the logic here.
|
| You agree that at some point someone has to do the dishes,
| correct?
|
| We can assume based on the article that the wife is the one
| doing the dishes. So, that means every time the husband
| leaves dishes out he is making more work for his wife than if
| he just put his dishes in the dishwasher.
| scarby2 wrote:
| > We can assume based on the article that the wife is the
| one doing the dishes. So, that means every time the husband
| leaves dishes out he is making more work for his wife than
| if he just put his dishes in the dishwasher.
|
| Not necessarily the reasoning that it may be re-used is
| valid, also it may be that he would eventually put it in
| the dishwasher when the dishwasher is ready to be run. They
| could probably have come to an agreement that there was a
| specific spot that one singular glass can chill out (maybe
| not even in the kitchen).
| avidiax wrote:
| I think the logic here is that it does not:
|
| A) Need to be done now B) Need to be done by the husband C)
| A & B
|
| If it's just a water glass, I'd not be surprised if the
| husband intends to (or would) reuse it from its position on
| the counter, hence the entire dishwasher->cupboard cycle is
| superfluous from the husband's point of view.
| [deleted]
| brimble wrote:
| > I'd not be surprised if the husband intends to (or
| would) reuse it from its position on the counter, hence
| the entire dishwasher->cupboard cycle is superfluous from
| the husband's point of view.
|
| Indeed. From the article:
|
| > I might want to use it again.
|
| I can tell you for a fact my dishwasher would run a whole
| lot less than 1/2 the time it does now, if I lived alone.
| Like, 1/4 as much. And that's just considering the wife,
| not the kids, like my usage solo vs. us before we had
| kids, and that's despite some things (dirty pots and
| pans) taking up more than 1/2 as much space as they do
| with two people. And it's not because I'd be doing more
| thorough hand-washing--I'd be doing a lot more re-using
| with a quick wipe, or maybe a brief run under the water,
| or even nothing at all (for, say, water cups). And yes,
| of course they'd stay on the counter (in the sink they'd
| get too gross to re-use, and they'd be in the way).
| k0k0r0 wrote:
| I don't entirely agree with the framing of this comment, but
| I'd like to share an expierience which is related.
|
| A couple of years into our relationship my significant other
| finally realized, that if she wants me to do specific tasks
| in our household, then thats her desire and not mine. I.e.
| that I for example leave "a mess behind in the kitchen" since
| I am totally fine with that, and its only her desire to have
| a cleaner kitchen, and not some general rule I had broken.
|
| This lead to a huge change in our relationship. Since then
| she mostly starts negotiating rules that we both can agree
| upon instead of starting a fight. I am very thankful for
| that.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > she mostly starts negotiating rules that we both can
| agree upon instead of starting a fight
|
| If only more people did this in all walks of life. Rather
| than get angry at teammates when they do something that
| annoys us, we can negotiate a mutually beneficial working
| agreement. We need to have the courage and self-control to
| approach these conversations when we see friction, and ask
| for compromise rather than demand change. And we need to
| have good faith.
| incomingpain wrote:
| I read this and feel like I'm the bad guy and I don't
| understand how.
|
| I'm the breadwinner. I pay 100% of the bills, excluding the 'I
| went to buy potato chips and ice cream'
|
| I WFH so I also tend to do the majority of chores. Which when I
| get burnt out or get sick I don't get as many chores done and
| the house goes to shit. Only ending up punishing myself really.
|
| I also have to 100% of the time decide what's for dinner and
| either order or cook it. My partner's incapable of making
| decisions.
|
| My areas of the house(my office for example) are kept orderly
| and clean. I try my best to keep the rest of the house clean.
|
| But when I leave a pot on the stove over night, I'll hear about
| it.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| This sounds like the overfunctioning & underfunctioning
| relationship pattern. It's not fun to be on either side.
| incomingpain wrote:
| >This sounds like the overfunctioning & underfunctioning
| relationship pattern. It's not fun to be on either side.
|
| Thanks I'll look into this. Never heard of this.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Best of luck to you. This stuff is hard. <3
| incomingpain wrote:
| Did you ever call it.
|
| https://eggshelltherapy.com/overfunctioning-
| underfunctioning...
|
| Talk about right on the money. I very much appreciate you
| helping me. I have some changing to do.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| not necessarily the bad guy but you absolutely have
| relationship issues and could benefit from counseling if you
| found a good marriage counselor
| avidiax wrote:
| It's time to ask your partner how they feel about the
| relationship, what they value in your contributions, and what
| they feel they are contributing, and vice-versa.
|
| This is a way for you to learn if you are undervaluing your
| partner's contributions, or if they think/know that they are
| free-riding.
| incomingpain wrote:
| I hear you and I'm afraid of the answer. I am extremely
| conflict averse.
|
| I sit at the dinner table hoping to talk every night. She's
| busy scrolling facebook. Yes sometimes I end up on my phone
| as well, but I actively make the effort to be there to
| talk.
|
| >you are undervaluing your partner's contributions
|
| I am a big believer in legitimate praise and even giving
| compliments to strangers. Though obviously stearing clear
| of flattery and fakeness.
|
| Once in a while she does find the energy to do something. I
| always notice and say something positive.
| aantix wrote:
| You have to learn to speak your truth courageously and
| divorce yourself from the outcome.
|
| Going through is the only way out.
|
| E.g. If you want more talk time at dinner, then voice
| that, and state that you will work on being present as
| well. To show that that you're in it together.
| scythe wrote:
| >I am extremely conflict averse.
|
| Is this you?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_in_adults#Anxiou
| s-p...
| incomingpain wrote:
| The 4 options would make me secure. I genuinely find
| other people interesting, I can pull the craziest stories
| out of people. People always have an interesting story,
| crimes are often involved lol. As for my self-esteem...
| my ego is probably a bit too big.
| username923409 wrote:
| In my opinion, you should reevaluate whether or not your
| current relationship is worth continuing. Everything
| you've written so far sounds like your wife is simply a
| parasite. Just being blunt because it sounds like you're
| being too hard on yourself; going through married life
| caring for the equivalent of an adult child the entire
| time is not something anyone should be expected to do.
|
| Feel free to just think of me as some internet a*hole,
| but I'm just feeling terrible imagining myself in your
| position.
| incomingpain wrote:
| >Feel free to just think of me as some internet a*hole,
| but I'm just feeling terrible imagining myself in your
| position.
|
| Nope, I appreciate the advice. From another post I think
| I discovered the approach. No splitsville needed.
| zaroth wrote:
| Or here's a different theory. Maybe this couple weren't actually
| in love anymore and just didn't want to come to terms with it,
| because there was a confounding variable, namely, a child.
|
| It's not the toothpaste cap. You can argue about the toothpaste
| cap all you want, but really, truly, it's not the toothpaste cap.
| chacham15 wrote:
| > I now understand that when I left that glass there, it hurt my
| wife--literally causing pain--because it felt to her as if I had
| just said, "Hey. I don't respect you or value your thoughts and
| opinions. Not taking four seconds to put my glass in the
| dishwasher is more important to me than you are."
|
| I think that here lies the issue. Is this the only way that you
| show that you value their thoughts / opinions? If so, the problem
| was never with the cups. If not, then this is how you comfort /
| reassure your partner and not "lets agree to disagree." From that
| place you have a conversation where you both figure out how to
| best make the both of you happy. E.g. "we'll get a
| special/specific cup which looks like it belongs in this area and
| you can leave it here as long as its empty and only use that
| cup." There are always various compromises that can be made as
| long as you have that conversation and are both looking for the
| best for each other.
| mason55 wrote:
| Yeah I think the cup is just a symptom of neither of them being
| able to step into the other's shoes, but it's hard to diagnose
| without a larger picture.
|
| The husband could have said "I understand that this is a small
| thing that really bothers you and even though I don't
| understand, it's clearly an asymmetrical thing in terms of my
| effort vs. your being bothered, so I will put the cup away."
|
| The wife could have just as easily said "I understand that this
| cup bothers me more than you think it should, if you're really
| that deadset on not putting it away can we find some other way
| to compromise?"
|
| But who knows, maybe she tried to explain that to him a bunch
| of different times and even when she was saying "it's not about
| the cup it's about not feeling listened to" he still just heard
| "it's about the cup"
| Dobbs wrote:
| It isn't just about respect. It is about you leaving work for
| your partner to do even though you could have done it yourself.
| This is about emotional labour and the uneven divide of
| household jobs.
| mason55 wrote:
| There's a whole spectrum, from misalignment on the proper
| state of the house, to the feelings of respect, to the
| increase in household jobs for the other partner.
|
| If the husband puts his cup by the sink at night, then picks
| it back up again in the morning, and finally after a few days
| it ends up in the dishwasher, then you'll never convince him
| that it's mismatched emotional labor, because in his eyes the
| cup didn't need to be put away.
|
| If you try to tell him that it's not fair for her to put his
| cup in the dishwasher every night and his response is "I was
| going to use the cup again tomorrow" then the conversation
| will never make any progress.
|
| No one is right or wrong in a conversation about whether it's
| ok to put your cup by the sink at night and then pick it up
| again the next day. It's just one of those things in marriage
| that you need to agree on how it will be, based on effort vs.
| how much one partner is bothered. And then stick to the
| agreement while giving your partner some occasional leeway.
| captaincaveman wrote:
| But I don't think in this case he said there was uneven
| divide of work. Also he wasn't leaving work for her to do, he
| did the work just not on her schedule, it was the wife who
| had the issue of the glass being there until end of day.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Your wife left because her feelings changed. That's all there is
| to it. End of story.
|
| Of course, this is completely unsatisfactory to a man. Men
| torture themselves trying desperately to think of the _reason_
| why her feelings changed. Was it that thing I said 2 years ago?
| Would it have been different if I did a thing on that one morning
| 6 months ago? Surely if I can figure out why this happened then
| there will be a solution.
|
| But not everything is a problem that can be fixed.
|
| She left you because she felt like it. You just have to accept
| it. There is no reason and there's nothing you could have done
| differently. It sounds callous, but once those feelings are gone,
| it's no more callous than you not being in love with any of the
| other women on earth.
|
| Men and women do not feel love in the same way. No woman will
| ever love you as deeply as you love them. This is the sad reality
| of being a man. It's getting tough out there, guys.
| [deleted]
| ianferrel wrote:
| My wife and I have found what is (I think) a good way to resolve
| many things like this. When we have a disagreement about
| something, we stop and ask each other whether this issue is
| important _to each of us_. If we both think it 's not important,
| then we just agree not to talk about it anymore. That's the
| "agree to disagree" case.
|
| If it's important to one of us, then we just do that. I don't
| have to _agree_ with her that it 's important to do it her way.
| If I don't really care what happens when I'm done with a glass, I
| do the thing she wants. The hard part of this is letting go of
| "being right" and just doing the thing that's important to your
| partner even if you don't think it _should_ be important. But you
| really can decide to do this.
|
| Only if it's important to both of us do we have to keep arguing
| about it or figure out a compromise. Those issues are luckily
| rare.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| An accurate title might be, "A dirty dish by the sink can
| _reveal_ a big marriage problem ". That is, a succeeding marriage
| includes strategies to deal with such things, and provides
| compensations for minor issues that can't be resolved, but a
| marriage that can't resolve them and does not offer sufficient
| compensating value will fail.
| belfalas wrote:
| Reminds me of this comic - "You should have asked!" - great
| illustration of these dynamics:
| https://english.emmaclit.com/2017/05/20/you-shouldve-asked/
| epicureanideal wrote:
| The most important marriage lesson is: don't get married. The
| person you marry is not the person you divorce. You can lose a
| huge amount of money battling it out even if YOU bend over
| backwards to be reasonable. If you want to flip a coin to see if
| you lose ten years of earnings, then marriage is for you.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| It's worth it though. Consider the single male life. You will
| have no friends, because your male friends will all get wives
| and girlfriends, who will dissuade them from hanging out with
| you, the weird bachelor. You will be seen as weird at work
| because all of your coworkers will be married, and people don't
| like an outlier.
|
| So the cost is high, so what? You could get divorced, lose half
| of everything you own, and have to pay ((your salary) - (her
| salary)) for the rest of your life. But what's the point of
| money if not to buy experiences?
| frontman1988 wrote:
| You can be unmarried and be in a relationship. Marriage is
| bondage. It's primarily a feminine desire of women to seek
| stability for their offsprings. Men are better off having
| multiple partners and having shorter relationships. Also as
| the weird bachelor you don't have to hang out with your
| coworkers, there is usually far more exciting company
| available.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I'm but a layman when it comes to interpersonal
| relationships, but it's my understanding that society puts
| pressure on people to get married. So while yes, in theory,
| you can be in a relationship and not married, in practice
| the social pressure will eventually push you, or, much more
| likely, the other person in the relationship, to want
| marriage. So your only recourse is to jump from
| relationship to relationship and break them off each time
| an ultimatum is reached. Breaking off relationships takes
| an emotional toll on people, so it's not a viable strategy
| for many people.
| 62951413 wrote:
| It's factually correct though you need to replace "can" with
| "will", especially in states like CA. Make no mistake, the
| discrimination is systemic. So it's not just you who is unlucky
| and you won't find a loophole just because you're clever.
|
| And it's all fun and games until you're about 40. At which
| point a man needs a family to take care of. So it's the most
| existential catch 22 situation in your life. You cannot win but
| you have to play.
| whateveracct wrote:
| You actually can win..love exists..
| whateveracct wrote:
| what a pitiable existence
| tomp wrote:
| Buy a dishwasher. Best investment ever.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Think of all the wear and tear on the dishwasher because you open
| and close it every time you use a dish or glass. I'll bet
| dishwasher manufacturers are pleased by this sort of thing.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| As an engineer, the much worse scenario is dirty dishes sitting
| in the sink while the dishwasher is considered "full" but is
| actually at some fraction of its capacity.
| jayski wrote:
| Im 99% sure the wife in this story used the glass as an excuse to
| get out.
|
| If youre happy with the life youve built together and love your
| partner theres no way you leave it over something like this.
|
| I dont buy the "it shows disrespect" argument.
|
| Shes going to be with somebody else in a years time.
|
| But when youre in a bad situation and the other person isn't
| giving you a good reason to leave sometimes you have to get
| creative.
|
| Ive done it, and its been done to me.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| The real nugget of truth is found a quarter of the way into the
| article.
|
| > I'm not trying to hurt her; therefore, she shouldn't feel
| hurt.
|
| The author correctly identified the underlying dysfunctional
| belief[1], but fails to address it head on. Instead he finds
| ways to thematically "care more".
|
| > I could have communicated my love and respect for her by not
| leaving tiny reminders for her each day that she wasn't
| considered.
|
| While, not untrue, without addressing the root-cause ie: the
| dysfunctional belief, there will continue to be an underlying
| friction between the internally held belief and the behaviors
| he wants to perform. This can work in the short-term, but only
| by confronting the dysfunctional belief can a long-term change
| be made[2]. Presumably there were many other manifestations of
| his dysfunctional belief in his marriage that were not listed
| but which played out in similar ways.
|
| 1. From this list of dysfunctional beliefs apply to more than
| only parent-child relationships
| http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/dysfunctiona...
|
| 2. Based on only the information available in the article.
| Inferences based on a limited amount of information are always
| subject to what the author reveals and no more.
| causi wrote:
| Yes. I've seen far more "looking for an excuse" divorces than
| not.
| rajin444 wrote:
| Definitely this. The writer (and many commenters here) are
| missing a very important distinction. Changing yourself is good
| and healthy but only when you want to. Changing for somebody
| else is toxic and will not work.
|
| Marriage is a partnership, not a series of trade offs (in
| practice it will look like this, but it cannot be seen as
| this). Both sides should be grateful for the changes they make
| for one another as well as respect one another when they can't
| change. In the case of the latter, it takes two people who
| believe in committing to one another no matter what. If two
| people marry without committing to the idea of a life long
| partnership it's not going to work.
|
| * Major Marriage Crimes excluded, sometimes people do change
| and there's nothing you can do
| mkoubaa wrote:
| I don't agree with the last point, it's somewhat culturally
| charged. In many cultures a marriage that isn't intended to
| be permanent is normal.
| trelane wrote:
| What cultures?
| glitchc wrote:
| Bad behaviour always needs a rethink. Change from bad to good
| behaviour is always painful and unwanted. By your logic no
| one should change their bad behaviour because they don't want
| to change.
|
| The id and the superego have to be in balance.
| usefulcat wrote:
| There's a big difference between changing _who_ you are and
| _how_ you behave.
|
| If a person considers being asked to put a dish in the
| dishwasher as an assault on their identity, they're certainly
| entitled to feel that way but they're probably also not well
| suited to marriage or any similar relationship.
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| > Im 99% sure the wife in this story used the glass as an
| excuse to get out.
|
| I'm 99% sure she would never even mention the glass if you
| asked her why she left. The author said his marriage "... bled
| out from 10,000 paper cuts." The glass was 1 minor thing
| amongst far too many things.
| [deleted]
| hn_user82179 wrote:
| He digs into his marriage a lot more in later blog posts:
| https://matthewfray.com/an-open-letter-to-shitty-husbands/. I
| don't think she used it as an excuse at all, but he's more
| using this one frequent occurrence as a metaphor for the
| marriage.
| giantg2 wrote:
| To be honest, it feels like a lot of the descriptions of the
| volumes on that page are strawmen or cherry picked bad
| examples.
|
| Nobody gets divorced for leaving a dish by the sink. They
| might get divorced because they just don't do anything around
| the house (aka unequal distribution of work/chores).
| aidenn0 wrote:
| In TFA he says it wasn't about the dish. He also strongly
| implies that it's not about not doing things around the
| house. It was that for all things that he considered
| unimportant, he treated as unimportant. Even if his wife
| said they were important to her.
|
| To him, a single glass by the sink was no big deal if there
| was no company. She didn't want the glass by the sink. Him
| refusing to even consider a compromise here was
| communicating "what you think is important doesn't matter."
|
| My wife is one of those people that thrives on a regular
| bedtime schedule (always go to bed at X PM, every day). I'm
| the sort of person who goes to bet at 9pm one day, 2am the
| next, but I always get up at the same time.
|
| So far, all good.
|
| However, she _really_ wants me in bed next to her if we are
| both home. I think this is silly. It was a constant fight
| for a while until we had a couple of good talks about it;
| she sleeps just fine with a light on, so I can have a book
| or a laptop[1] in bed next to her and be awake as long as I
| want and she is perfectly happy; me being a voracious
| reader am also pretty darn happy with this. Also, had we
| not talked this out, this solution would never have
| occurred to me; I can 't fall asleep with a light on in the
| room unless I am seriously sleep deprived. At first I was
| reading only e-books on my phone to not disturb her, but
| when I mentioned that to her she said "oh I don't mind a
| light on."
|
| Perhaps in the author's example, if he thought he might
| want another more water before running the dishwasher,
| there might be another place he could put his water glass
| that his wife would be fine with. Maybe she'd even be happy
| to check there and put it in the dishwasher before running
| it! Maybe he'd have just had to come to terms with "We got
| 12 glasses at at our wedding and there's only 3 people in
| the house, so I can just get another glass." We will never
| know because these conversations just didn't happen.
|
| 1: The laptop I reserve for emergencies only; I really
| don't want to do anything even slightly work related in
| bed, if at all possible.
| openknot wrote:
| Yeah. I selected a few of the volume descriptions to
| abstract the principles he was trying to communicate.
|
| Overall, it sounds like the divorce was unexpected and out
| of his control, so he's trying to reassert control by
| nitpicking his faults and using emotionally charged, self-
| critical language ("I was a shitty husband").
|
| Some make sense (and all likely contributed). However, Vol.
| 9 and 11 were strong indications that that there were
| broader issues than neglect. In specific for Vol. 9, his
| spouse wasn't willing to respect his want for alone time,
| implying a compatibility issue.
|
| -Vol. 3, don't be neglectful to your spouse at a party: "I
| was at a party and I had a tiny crush on the married
| birthday girl, and I watched her husband ignore her all
| night (and already knew him to be a less-than-ideal
| partner). The whole scene made me sad because it reminded
| me of how I used to treat my ex-wife."
|
| -Vol. 6, remove some of the burden of decision-making: "You
| can destroy your marriage by trying to be "nice." By
| letting your spouse make all the decisions. You think it's
| a nice gesture, letting the other person have their way"
|
| -Vol. 8, don't roast/mock your partner so much: "What
| starts at an early age on playgrounds, turns into a
| relationship killer in adulthood. Men using jokes, sarcasm
| and mockery to belittle their wives and girlfriends both
| privately and publicly."
|
| -Vol. 9, wanting alone time is neglectful (I disagree and
| don't think it's a "guy" thing; it's very possible to be in
| a relationship with an introvert who gets the need for
| alone time): "Guys like "Me"-time. Maybe everyone does. But
| a lot of time when husbands and fathers do it, it looks and
| feels to his wife and children like he isn't interested in
| them or that he'd rather spend time alone than with his
| family. "
|
| -Vol. 11, fixing a marriage is about working on yourself
| (it's plausible, but it sounds one-sided): "I think married
| couples who are sad and angry about their lives and
| relationships make the mistake of trying to "fix the
| marriage." They spend all their time trying to figure out
| how "we" can do things different, and how the other person
| can make changes to make life better. But I think people
| need to work on themselves to fix the marriage. To look
| inside themselves and figure out how they can be their best
| self."
|
| General neglect was a major driver, but there were other
| bigger issues. The lack of respect by his spouse for his
| alone time is a major one, like in the full Vol. 1 article
| [0], where he says a major failure was choosing to see a
| televised once-a-year major golf tournament instead of
| going for a picnic in a park because she loves the
| outdoors.
|
| If he actually skipped the tournament to go out, it's also
| likely he would have become resentful (even if he had the
| best intentions); bottled up, this can cause issues down
| the road. On the other hand, his spouse ended up as a
| person who was resentful, which did lead to issues down the
| road. He suggests the solution was to suppress his own
| wants, but a better solution would be to find some way to
| compromise, because both wants are important.
|
| It's also concerning that he's then offering paid
| divorce/marriage counselling, when I don't think he's
| qualified (to his own admission of lack of formal
| credentials).
|
| [0] https://matthewfray.com/2013/07/03/an-open-letter-to-
| shitty-...
| brimble wrote:
| I'm pretty sure people absolutely do get divorced because
| they disagree about how to handle _several_ trivial things.
|
| Those can be insidious. To the one annoyed by the status
| quo, it can feel like the other person doesn't care about
| them. To the other, it can feel like their partner's trying
| to micro-manage a bunch of little things that barely even
| matter, and that they're "losing" because they find fewer
| of their partner's habits irritating enough to make a stink
| over.
| hn_user82179 wrote:
| Oh, 100%. I think the author just picks out specific
| examples because it's easier to visualize that than general
| unequal distribution of work.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| Wait! There is a book. This article is a sales pitch. Read it
| as fiction. If it's interesting enough. He is monetizing his
| divorce. Well..that's one way..
| openknot wrote:
| He's also selling services in "relationship coaching and
| divorce support coaching."
|
| For what it's worth, I do think he's being genuine, and
| sounds motivated by the want to spare others from his
| suffering. However, I just don't think he's qualified,
| because his solution seems to repeatedly be to care more
| for your partner without compromising (in excess, this can
| lead to a well-documented trait by clinical psychologists
| of "codependency," where one can never do enough for their
| partner).
|
| There has to be a balance between your interest and your
| partner's; it's unhealthy and not noble to completely
| sacrifice your own self-interest for your family's. A
| person ultimately miserable can't support others, and there
| is also inherent value in enjoying the opportunity to live
| for yourself.
| rajin444 wrote:
| Reading that is wild...does he think he'll be able to bear
| the burdens his wife couldn't? He's trying to change himself
| for his partner when he needs to find a different partner. He
| comes off as having lost all respect and confidence in
| himself.
| openknot wrote:
| I read the article and felt sad. There's a lot of
| emotionally charged language (repeatedly: "I was a shitty
| husband"), but stripping away that language, his main point
| is consistent with his Atlantic article. Namely, that while
| he tried to be a good husband for the 'big issues' (e.g.
| never cheating), he was neglectful for the little things,
| and didn't give her enough attention or care.
|
| My interpretation is that the divorce was somewhat
| unexpected as there were no major issues besides the
| 'little things,' but he largely feels that the divorce was
| out of his locus of control. He's then compensating to
| assert that it really was in his control, and also severely
| criticizing himself with emotionally charged language for
| letting the divorce happen.
|
| Given the information at the time, I don't think the
| divorce was avoidable. If anything, the ex-spouse at least
| has an iota responsibility to identify the feelings of
| neglect, rather than pointing out the neglectful habits
| without reflecting on why she was so bothered them.
|
| It would be healthiest for him to let it go, and find
| happiness elsewhere in life (e.g. with another partner and
| pursuit) and move on as much as possible (though it's hard
| as he has a kid). It's hard to see him really make the
| divorce part of his identity, the point where he publishes
| a book about it, writes in The Atlantic, and even offers
| divorce counseling services at the end.
| tbyehl wrote:
| Also the original blog post is much better than the condensed
| original link.
|
| https://matthewfray.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-
| because-i...
| usefulcat wrote:
| > But when youre in a bad situation and the other person isn't
| giving you a good reason to leave sometimes you have to get
| creative.
|
| Why is it necessary for the other person to _give_ you a
| "good" reason to leave? Why not just be honest and say "this is
| not for me, I'm leaving"?
| daveslash wrote:
| And sometimes when you're in a bad situation, it's not because
| of _any _one_ thing_ , or even a _myriad of things_ ~ sometimes
| it 's because _it 's the whole kit and caboodle_. When I was
| younger, I found myself on the side of a breakup asking _" What
| did I do? Tell me and I'll fix it"_, and I've also been asked
| that by someone I was breaking up with.
|
| Breaking up is hard, for both sides. Sometimes it can be
| something singular (e.g. an affair) that can make it easy to
| digest, but sometimes it's so vague, it's such an overwhelming
| collection of things that span such a great amount of time,
| that even trying to enumerate them is a slide backwards. It's
| like death by a thousand pinpricks, but there's no clear
| indication that things are dead until you're already _waaayyy_
| past the point - like a frog being slowly boiled.
| notRobot wrote:
| This is very well said, and true in my experience.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| The glass is a metaphor, he was treating everything in their
| relationship like the glass.
| mbrameld wrote:
| I think what happens when things like a dirty glass by the sink
| get used as the reason for a relationship failing is a little
| more subtle and drawn out. Seeing the glass by the sink
| probably triggers some repetitive negative thought about the
| partner (wtf, why can't they just put the stupid glass in the
| dishwasher??), which leads to a gradual shift of one's attitude
| towards that person in general. That slowly snowballs as the
| slightly more negative attitude comes through in more
| interactions and you start getting frustrated by more and more
| little things your partner does, which triggers more repetitive
| negative thoughts, until you find that you can't stand the
| person you used to love. The final reason for the relationship
| failing wasn't the dirty glass, but it may have been the
| primary catalyst.
| mynameishere wrote:
| Yes, when a woman is in breakup mode, it's every little thing,
| every little thing. She wants out because of A) New lover, of
| B) Bored and smells alimony, C) I can't think of anything else.
| But she's not going to ask for a divorce for A) or B) so it's
| any semi-real problems she can come up with. She probably
| wanted to nag the guy into divorcing _her_. Ka-ching.
|
| Anyway, women will even journal this shit for the lawyer's
| benefit. There are guidebooks sold on the matter.
| treis wrote:
| Projecting a lot, I feel like this guy is just a narcissist.
| Kind of making it all about him but in a way that doesn't
| portray him in a truly negative light. Also, guessing his ex-
| wife probably doesn't want a book about her divorce to be part
| of the national chatter.
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| [..] Also, guessing his ex-wife probably doesn't want a book
| about her divorce to be part of the national chatter.[..]
|
| This. I was thinking the same thing too. Shouldn't there be a
| law against this?
|
| If I were his ex-wife, I would have sued his sorry ass for
| airing marriage laundry. But that's just me.
| op00to wrote:
| No, there should not be a law about this. What possible
| reason would there be for being prevented by law to talk
| about your life? When is it OK to talk, and when is it not?
| raydev wrote:
| Looks like you didn't read the article in full?
| treis wrote:
| I did. Is there a particular point you're trying to make
| here?
| raydev wrote:
| He explicitly talks about his failures at the end. I
| don't think a narcissist would get that far. Although you
| did say you're projecting, so maybe this is not useful.
| treis wrote:
| He talks about his failures in a way that minimizes his
| failings. There's nothing wrong with him. If only he knew
| this one simple trick then he'd have a perfect marriage!
|
| Even if his overall thesis is correct, I bet you that his
| ex would not cite the glass as the top example. There's
| probably much worse stories that make him look like a
| giant asshole.
| InfiniteRand wrote:
| I think a lot of fights (at least based on my experience) are
| really issues in how the spouses are dealing with other things
| that bleed into a minor dispute, and also how the other spouse
| deals with that potential escalation.
|
| For me and my wife, most our fights are when we are tired or
| stressed. When we are relaxed we can more or less shrug off the
| little annoyances, maybe saying a reminder that gets some
| response, but neither of us care enough about the matter to
| pursue it further.
|
| That's not to say we don't have real disagreements, but generally
| we're able to talk real disagreements out to the point where we
| more or less respect each other's point of view.
|
| I think if we were better at dealing with stress, we wouldn't
| have any real fights. But if wishes were fishes, we'd all have a
| feast
| mwattsun wrote:
| It's often the little things that determine the course of a
| relationship. For example, I took my bike into a shop I hadn't
| used before. They fixed the back tire, but failed to place the
| cap on the tube. I may seem like a little thing, but stems leak a
| bit, so it's important. I'm never going back to them.
| [deleted]
| erikstarck wrote:
| If you haven't read "The Five Love Languages" yet and are in a
| relationship, then I highly suggest you do. It might save it
| before it's too late.
|
| And just to make this slightly more startup-related as well: as
| team members, we also have "love languages", ways we communicate
| respect and appreciation to each other. Sometimes we speak
| different languages and don't understand each other. That breaks
| the team.
| bena wrote:
| I'd recommend people don't. Mostly because people read stuff
| like that and extrospect rather than introspect. "How can I get
| my partner to speak _my_ love language? " rather than "What is
| my partner's love language?"
|
| Everything becomes another tool of manipulation. "My love
| language is 'acts of service', so if you don't take out the
| trash, you don't love me." That's just straight up emotional
| manipulation.
|
| Whereas it should be "My husband prepares my coffee and oats
| every morning. This is how he shows he loves me."
|
| In the first, it's all about how one can use a concept to get
| what you want. In the second, it's about recognizing what's
| already being given and what it means.
|
| There should be a rule, where you can learn about this and
| other concepts, but you are never allowed to talk about it with
| people you have a relationship with.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I agree with both the op AND this criticism. It's a pretty
| good tool in a relationship toolbox -- and also this
| definitely happens. Just don't treat it as gospel.
| em-bee wrote:
| if someone is using love as a tool for emotional manipulation
| they will be doing that already before they read the book. at
| best the book helps them to come up with that phrase. but not
| reading it won't prevent them from doing it.
|
| on the contrary, if you both read the book together then you
| will both become aware that this is happening and you can do
| something about it.
|
| _There should be a rule, where you can learn about this and
| other concepts, but you are never allowed to talk about it
| with people you have a relationship with._
|
| that sounds just about like the worst idea i have read in
| this whole thread today. it is exactly the not talking about
| these concepts that will enable the manipulation that you
| fear. to avoid manipulation you need to have this knowledge
| out in the open.
| bena wrote:
| I want the knowledge out there, I just don't want it to be
| used against people. You can learn love languages, you can
| talk about them to people, but you can't use bring it up
| with people you're in a relationship with. Especially in a
| discussion about your relationship.
|
| The point is for people to focus on learning rather than
| weaponization.
|
| And it's not just love languages. It's pretty much every
| psychological and sociological concept. Bringing them up in
| a discussion is almost always an attempt to cut off the
| other person's attempt at communication.
|
| It's like the list of fallacies. No one wonders if they're
| making fallacious arguments, they just use it as a cudgel
| against other people.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| This book is great if you are in a relationship but also if you
| are single. It allows you to learn how you receive love. Often
| you express love in the ways you receive it which is critical
| to understanding if you are struggling to maintain
| relationships.
| greenonions wrote:
| Also recommend this book. It's a simple system to understand
| your relationship easier, and it acts as a starting point.
|
| As an example from the article, if the author recognized from
| the beginning that putting the dishes into the dishwasher made
| his wife feel loved, he would do so, his wife would be happy,
| and he would feel happy, starting a virtuous cycle.
| captaincaveman wrote:
| I don't think it would make her feel loved though, as in her
| view it was the norm, by putting it away you could say she
| didn't feel disrespected by him, however, it could also be
| viewed as it was her having disrespect of him for his
| behaviour ... we of course can only speculate.
| js2 wrote:
| Share this article with your partner. Ask them: "what are the
| dishes I'm leaving by the sink?"
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| But please don't share this with your partner if you fight
| about the dish by the sink. It will come off like you are
| rubbing their face in it.
| Cd00d wrote:
| Why doesn't this article skip down properly?
|
| I use the space bar to page down on longer articles. But on this
| one it scrolls one sentence too far. The scroll doesn't know
| about the top banner....
|
| Surely I'm not some super rare whacky outlier in this, and surely
| the webdevs at The Atlantic are proud professionals - so why
| doesn't it work correctly?
|
| Chrome on Mac.
| rednerrus wrote:
| I wonder what John Gottman would say? My guess is he would
| recommend something like this:
| https://www.gottman.com/blog/manage-conflict-the-art-of-comp...,
| https://www.gottman.com/blog/two-views-every-conflict-valid/,
| https://www.gottman.com/blog/for-better-or-for-worse-conflic...,
| or https://www.gottman.com/blog/overcoming-gridlocked-conflict/.
|
| This is surprisingly, to me at least, a mostly solved problem.
| When I started having conflicts with my wife over similar issues
| I dug into the research and found that most of this is
| surprisingly easy, in principle. In practice it's a lot harder
| but reading a handful of books goes a long way.
| robaato wrote:
| A good therapist is worth it. Over 20 years of marriage, a
| variety of issues to cope with between us (kids etc), and
| difficulty discussing difficult topics. Currently doing an hour a
| month (or so) with a (good for us) therapist, and stuff is
| discussed in those sessions that doesn't otherwise get addressed.
| Work in progress.
|
| Worth it...
|
| (Need to research what is a "good therapist" for both of you - oh
| and doing it on Zoom makes it a whole lot easier to fit into busy
| lives - some benefits of Covid)
| stuckinhell wrote:
| Resentment can compound over small things, but I've also found
| from my friends failed marriages that physical attraction is big
| deal. One or both of the partners let themselves go physically.
|
| Now we can't stop aging, but we shouldn't lie to ourselves that
| physical attractiveness doesn't matter.
|
| The Halo effect is a real thing.
| rhacker wrote:
| Well I think that a lot of people that suddenly divorce and
| marry younger see the following:
|
| Wow this new person is stupid, I miss intelligence.
|
| And often - whoa, she's yelling at me for the same things. It
| wasn't the aging that made her this way, it was me.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| The thing is, it becomes progressively harder to look good as
| you age. And once you start getting out of shape that adds to
| the disadvantage. People hit 40 and this combination of factors
| causes them to just give up.
| retrac wrote:
| > One or both of the partners let themselves go physically.
|
| Exactly. I don't expect my partner to start unbalding. Or to
| shake those last few pounds that start haunting us when our
| metabolisms slow down. But my God, I _will_ leave him if he
| starts wearing stained sweatpants, or adopts the "well I'm
| bald on top so that means the rest doesn't need a haircut" idea
| that some men seem to get.
| carride wrote:
| Last year his original 2016 blog post was mentioned as well
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/parenting/marriage-invisi...
| dkersten wrote:
| I once saw the marriage advice that everybody, no matter how
| great their relationship is, should meet with a
| marriage/relationship counsellor on a regular basis, because,
| that way, any issues the two of you may have gets dealt with
| while its still a small thing and is never given a chance to turn
| into a big deal. Doing it with a counsellor means you have a safe
| space with someone who knows how to deal with issue during which
| you can work out problems, before they turn into real problems.
|
| I'm not married, so I dunno if it works, but it sure sounds like
| sensible advice at least.
| Arubis wrote:
| If you're resourced enough to have access, this is great
| advice. It's like doing regular maintenance: you might be able
| to do it yourself, but bringing in a professional is a good
| idea.
| dkersten wrote:
| > If you're resourced enough to have access
|
| Ah, yes, of course. If you can't afford to do it then you
| can't afford to do it, although I wonder, given the high rate
| of divorce, if a session every so often wouldn't still be
| cheaper in the long run even for people who maybe can't
| afford to do it every other month.
|
| > It's like doing regular maintenance: you might be able to
| do it yourself, but bringing in a professional is a good
| idea.
|
| That's a great way of putting it.
| throw93232 wrote:
| The Marriage Lesson today is not to get married.
| smegsicle wrote:
| women are strong enough to fend for themselves, everyone knows
| marriage was just a crutch to keep them complacent
| throwaway881818 wrote:
| What a painful article.
|
| Reminds me of my relationship with my mother living with her as
| an adult because I got very sick.
|
| She would fight tooth and nail for an apology over things like
| this. Even if it was a minor thing that only happened once. In
| the end, she would consistently make me feel like a horrible
| person even though I _did_ contribute to helping in the house, if
| not perfectly. My emotional hurt was never accepted as valid, but
| anything that would trigger my mom was considered huge. It felt
| so one-sided.
|
| I was eventually asked to leave my parents house. As a single guy
| with health issues that make getting by tough, the sort of
| relationships issues described in this article makes me despair
| about ever getting married, even though it is something I'd very
| much like.
| em-bee wrote:
| you can talk about this with your partner before getting
| married. it could even be worth it for both of you to talk to a
| marriage counselor before getting married. if you are open
| about your experience and your worries for your relationship
| you will be able to find an understanding partner.
| pdimitar wrote:
| It always bothers me when people try to frame a relationship as
| almost a work arrangement, and discuss it as a transaction that
| needs to be optimized. That sounds so cold.
|
| Marriage / long relationships absolutely do need some compromise,
| that is an universal fact. There are some things you just have to
| outgrow and admit that your strong stance on them is not at all
| important. -\\_(tsu)_/- I didn't feel that to be a sacrifice. It
| did, and still does, feel like I grew as a person.
|
| Another fact: never go to bed grumpy with your partner. And I
| really do mean _NEVER_ as in "no but-s". Doesn't matter if you
| haven't slept in 50 hours and did 4 shifts back-to-back and now
| want to die. No. Go get coffee and water and start talking until
| you work it out. Never let negative emotions towards the
| relationship grow inside each of you. Never skip important talks.
| That is what is I think most important in relationships.
|
| Is that what most people mean when they say "marriage is work
| from both sides"? I hope so because if not then their definition
| sounds awfully depressing. But to me it's not work at all; I love
| my woman and would throw myself in front of a speeding truck to
| protect her.
|
| Having to communicate extra when we disagree on something does
| not _feel_ like a sacrifice at all. It feels like investing in
| the relationship to continue thriving. It doesn 't feel like
| removing harmful weeds from your garden (chore); to me it feels
| like putting even better soil nutrients and richer water on the
| plants (nurture). It's chore vs. nurture; to me it feels like the
| latter. Sometimes it's both at the same time.
|
| As some other commenters alluded to, don't look for a "perfect"
| partner in the sense of your own bias about what is "perfect".
| Life and people have millions of ways to surprise you positively.
| Let some more chaos and randomness in your life and you will be
| left flabbergasted why didn't you do it sooner.
| tra3 wrote:
| Me and my wife set aside about half an hour each week to "check
| in". I hate to compare it to a stand up, but it's kinda what it
| is. The goal is to focus 100% on each other and talk about the
| week and do some sort of a "marriage exercise". It's been
| immensely helpful to take the "temperature" of my spouse and our
| relationship.
|
| This week, I've been reading "How we love" [0]. I'm only on the
| first chapter, but it has resonated with me:
|
| > Every marriage has nagging problems calling for our attention.
| Many people end up thinking their relationship is difficult
| because they married the wrong person. But the fact that many
| people are on to their second and third marriages proves that no
| marriage is tension free. Sometimes our marriages seem to run
| fairly smoothly--until we hit a crisis or face difficult
| circumstances. Stress always makes underlying problems more
| apparent.
|
| The authors talk about "core behaviours" (such as leaving the
| glasses by the sink in the article) that trigger conflict in a
| relationship:
|
| > A core pattern is the predicable way you and your spouse react
| to each other that leaves each of you frustrated and
| dissatisfied. Some are married a few years before it is apparent,
| but sooner or later couples can readily identify the same old
| place where they get stuck. Maybe it's the same complaints that
| come up again and again without ever getting resolved or a
| familiar pattern of fighting, no matter what the topic.
|
| They then tie in your behaviours to how you were treated in
| childhood and I believe (I haven't gotten there yet) help you
| understand? alleviate? the sources of conflict.
|
| > Marriage is the most challenging relationship you will ever
| have, and to think otherwise is to live in denial. When you are
| with someone day in and day out, you can't hide. Your weaknesses
| become quite visible, and old feelings from the distant past are
| stirred. The physical nearness of your mate triggers old feelings
| as you look to him or her to meet many of the needs your parents
| were originally supposed to meet.
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Love-Expanded-
| Discover/dp/0735...
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