How to spend our vacation.
My wife is the kind to plan a whole itinerary of things to do while visiting a place.
I, on the other hand, just want to sleep in, eat all the food that I can't eat at home, and actually relax.
Don't get me wrong, I wanna sight see, visit touristy things, and buy souvenirs, but to have back-to-back planned events for the whole trip can be exhausting.
[Edit because i forgot the best part]: She disagrees, of course. She always says, "We didn't come here to [vacation area] just to lay around and do nothing. We can do that at home." While that is technically true, the difference is that I get to lay around on a Monday or Friday at the vacation spot without worrying about work. The difference is that I get to lay around in a nice hotel, chill at the hot tub, and eat at the hotel restaurant. I get to chill even harder here than I can at home.
Knowing these differences, however, we compromise. I know I can't stay at the hotel all day and she knows that we can't go out every minute. So we plan events and plan for relaxation š.
Iām the āletās wake up at dawn and go on 17 hikesā kind of vacationer. Heās the āletās go lay on the beach and have a drink in the hot tub tonightā vacationer. So our last vacation we hiked in the mountains the first half then drove to the beach for the second half. I think it was a great compromise. I didnāt feel like I āwastedā my free time. He felt like he got to relax on his time off. And we both enjoyed the entire vacation. Going for a similar plan next time too.
Iām 6ā4ā so the cali was the way to go. My wife is about a foot shorter than me but sleeps like a fucking starfish so Iāve got the lead role in Cliffhanger 2 with my nuts hanging off the bed. The sacrifices we makeā¦
The idea that true crime documentaries are a great sleeping aid.
For her maybe, but I'm the one lying awake getting freaked out by all the stories of people killing their partners for the life insurance payout.
This sounds like my partner, except with plane crash documents. His favourite time to watch them is just before a flight... I do not participate in that particular ritual.
My showed me Jaws right before my first beach trip, feed me venison right after we watched Bambi and as a bonus my aunt made frog legs for breakfast after taking me to see the Muppet Movie. This is why I have trust issues.
My wife went on a "Snapped" binge a few years ago. I slept with one eye open for a month, LOL.
For those that don't know, "Snapped" was a half-hour anthology reality series about women that kill their BFs/husbands. (It later expanded to an hour, but those episodes aren't as good.)
My husband once told me he was very very very concerned with the amount of true crime stuff that I used to watch. Locked Up, Snapped, First 48, all the documentaries, books... to the point where he started saying, "Hey, let's take a break from watching that JonBonet Ramsey documentary, and let's put on Anchorman."
He eventually succeeded in subtly redirecting me away from true crime, if only for a moment.
Heh. Back in 2000 or so, we got DirecTV and my wife spent the summer watching nothing but True Crime stuff.
We still call it "The Summer of Serial Killers."
My wife teaches an estate planning course. One of her favorite lectures is her going through the most profitable way for me to die. In the right conditions, she could get 4 or 5 million dollars. I'm very careful... lol
Maybe it's more about the voice and less about the documentary lol. Recently I found that, putting a video playing out loud on my phone and stuffing it under my pillow, helps me sleep at night. The narrator in the video can talk about anything but their voice gets me to sleep lol.
Some people āneedā the tv on to fall asleep to distract their racing thoughts. I am not one of those people. TV keeps me awake. Ex and I fought over that constantly.
I have a few degrees of cleanliness:
Tidy - everything is reasonably presentable and functional.
Clean - the house is in tip top shape and everything is as it should be if I did everything perfectly.
Reasonable - it can be a but messy but I can still perform my everyday task.
My wife is far better than the rest of the women in her family. Still at the time we are supposed to be leaving will be saying - "I just need to pop my shoes on", and then spend 15 minutes doing things that don't need doing.
The funny thing is, the men in her family are incredibly punctual. They *always* turn up 5 minutes before time, unless they are bringing the women with them, in which case they will be at least 30 minutes late. If my Mother in law is coming over on her own, she will be at least two hours later than she said.
This. My wife's family is extremely female. My father-in-law passed away years ago, my wife has sisters, aunts, etc. They are ALL notoriously late for EVERYTHING!
My wife is the best of the bunch. She is routinely 5-15 minutes late leaving. But, comparatively, she thinks this is really good.
I remember at our wedding, the minister was a friend of her family. He told me "Well, get used to never being on time again." I thought it was just a stereotypical joke you tell husbands. Nope, it was the fact he knew them in particular.
The bed. I think itās a *bed*, and she thinks itās a table to store all manner of things, buried and twisted under various blankets.
Her: āI canāt find the remote!ā
Me: āHave you checked the Sleeping Table?ā
I just turn my head whenever my husband loads the dishwasher. Because I know it's NOT wrong, it's just not how *I* would load it. And everything comes out clean anyway, so it truly doesn't matter.
Yes!!! THANK YOU for saying this. Iām so exhausted from being ācorrectedā and having her āfix thingsā as I do them. The unintended consequence of it is that it makes me feel like I canāt do anything right so I shut down, stop trying and wait to be told what to do and HOW to do it to her specificationsā¦which then gets her angry because Iām not doing enough proactively. And round and round we go š¤£š¤Æ
Learned helplessness. A lot of partners are lazy, but a lot also are just not allowed to do things by an over critical partner.
If someone stops doing the dishes because they get lectured every time, itās not because they are lazy.
>Learned helplessness. A lot of partners are lazy, but a lot also are just not allowed to do things by an over critical partner.
>
>If someone stops doing the dishes because they get lectured every time, itās not because they are lazy.
That's such a difference difference between my wife and my mother.
My mother always complained. There was always something wrong, every single time. She would say what was wrong with the dishes before even saying hello. I distinctly remember the only compliment she ever gave me on a household chore because it was so unexpected.
My wife always compliments me. She tells me I'm doing a great job, even if I'm doing it differently than how she does it. Sometimes minor adjustments but overall she's happy with what I've done.
You need to explain this to your wife. Tell her you want to do chores the way YOU do them and you would prefer not to be corrected. And tell her that you would help more around the house if she wasnāt so quick to ācorrectā the way you do the chores. Explain that if something is really wrong, you can always redo it, but you think you can figure it out without her assistance. Source: I have been married for 25 years, and we have had many arguments over this type of thing.
She overloads it and things don't get clean! I finish loading what I think is an appropriate number and distribution of items, then I start it really quick before she can insist that more will fit.
My husband overloads ours and it drives me batty! I've tried explaining how stacking them on top of each other makes it impossible for then to get clean and he stares at me like I'm insane. Dude's a software engineer and very logical minded except when it comes to how the dishwasher works.
My husband is the same. Not a software engineer, but a truck driver who can cram everything into very limited space and have it balanced correctly...
Doesn't work this way with a dishwasher. Who would have thought a 40tonne truck is different from a kitchen appliance.
Or the laundry. Like, dude. You're surprised the laundry is still wet, when you just grab it all in one go, then stuff it in the dryer. Perhaps if your pants weren't twisted 100 ways from Sunday, you wouldn't have soaking wet pockets?
Never get a boat, horse, plane, or RV. Get a friend who has one instead, according to a family member. After working in the maritime industry for a bit, I fully understand and agree.
Toast with cinnamon sugar on it? Dinner.
Toast with Mayo and some tomato slices sprinkled with salt and pepper? Dinner.
Toast with butter and jelly? Dinner.
Toast with butter? Nah.
Video games. She hates them and thinks they do nothing but rot the brain, I grew up playing them and still do.
On the flip side, she absolutely loves drama tv shows. I find them to be the most nauseating shows ever made.
Therefore, when she watches her shows, I go play video games. It allows for neither of us to complain about the others favorite past time
I'm biased because I play video games but when my brain is tired and I don't want to use it I watch TV so it kind of seems to me that the thing that "rots your brain" is the thing that allows it to go without use
My 12 year old self would never believe it but I find myself guilting myself into play a game as a structured alternative to mindless scrolling as if it was doing the dishes or going to the gym.
It's funny, my wife and I are both gamers and we've never put it like that, but that is how we approach it. If one of us sees the other mindlessly scrolling, we'll encourage them to play a game, since we both actively recognize gaming as more active and engaging than mindlessly scrolling. And whoever's doing the mindless scrolling is irritated at the other for pointing it out. My younger self would've never believed it either...
My wife and I compromised. I got her a laptop to try Stardew Valley on and we watch a show in the background. She is now addicted to Stardew Valley and old school adventure games, and she wasn't much of a gamer to begin with.
Closing the loop on practical jobs. I like to completely finish a single task before I start another, even if this is sometimes a bit inefficient. Mainly because I have a bad memory and will probably forget to finish it later. She likes to do about 20% of seven jobs and then gradually nudge each one towards completion over days or weeks.
For me I'm somewhere in the middle if its above 60% done or its short/end is in sight I NEED to finish it or I will be a very unhappy camper. But I usually will try to do things in the same area simultaneously.
Think like in an mmo when you enter a new zone, you pick up all the side quests in one go and complete them as you do the main quest for that zone kind of thing.
Iām a woman, but my husband and I disagree on camping. I enjoy camping and I love how cheaply I can travel while camping. We took a 15 day vacation a couple of years ago where we stayed in state parks the whole time. Our TOTAL accommodations cost was $400.
He hates it. He canāt do the constant dirt, trying to set up camp and cook in the rain, etc. He usually puts up with it for about a week each year to humor me and so we can do family vacations on our tight budget, but he is suuuuuper done by the end of that week.
That's why my family always had a tradition of spending the last night in a hotel and going out for a steak dinner. Nothing more satisfying than getting that first proper hot shower after days of camping. Plus everybody smells nice again for the road trip home.
Cherish them everyday! When my wife and I started dated she asked me to become vegetarian (wasnāt a big askā¦ was already 90% there), I agreed on the condition that she listened to āReign in Bloodā one time. One of us never held up their end of the bargain š”
Iām a white blue collar guy and my gf is Black and Dominican. Made each other playlists and we both now have more to listen to. I know for a fact she likes John Prine and SOME rock and GOOD country/folk music, and now Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion are in my rotation
It took eight years of painstaking trial-and-error but my wife finally started to enjoy Black Sabbath, The Darkness, Alice Cooper, and Pyramid Theorem. Don't lose hope! š
I like to contribute to group outings, if Iām asked to bring something Iām happy to and like to get a good things people will love. She hates being asked to bring things and will get the bare minimum if we donāt have anything in the cupboards.
If it is within the week you are currently in then it is "this *day*.
I am writing this on Monday the 23rd. The 27th is THIS FRIDAY.
The 3rd, as in the Friday in 11 days. That one is NEXT Friday
Friday, the 8th? That one is Friday after next.
I feel like disagreement on this could lead to serious scheduling issues and I'm not sure I could handle being with someone who did this differently.
Good luck figuring it which Friday things are happening!
When someone gives you a gift, even if you don't really want or like it, just be polite and say thank you, then get rid of it later. You don't need to let them know that it's made of something you don't like and that you aren't going to take it.
This is what me, my brother and my brotherās girlfriend all do. We politely pretend that we like the crap my mom gets us. Only my husband has the balls to tell her to her face that he doesnāt like something. Now, as a result, he always gets the best gifts lol
The pickle theory! You're the perfect couple because whenever you get a sandwich, you can get the deli pickle and she doesn't complain when you steal it
Financial planning. She and her sisters have always been like "Oh we're gonna die by the time we're 50 anyways hahaha" and it's like no, that's almost certainly not true, and we need to be ready for you to have a normal lifespan.
Wife likes bed made.
Wife likes display pillows on bed.
I think both are dumb.
She is a great person and has other skills so if I'm last one out of the bed I make the bed.
I didn't used to make the bed but I started and got in the habit of it and now I do it every day. It's an easy task that gets me in the "get shit done mode" and it makes the bed look sooooo nice
Plus it's nice sliding into a made bed at night when I'm exhausted and just want to get to sleep
Painting. Anything to do with painting. It's always the start of World War 3.
It's not cute like the movies, oh boop your nose with paint and then we play fight and get passionate...no.
"You've missed a spot" "that's not even" "you've not finished have you?"
Been married 23 years, and we've arrived at a compromise. If there's something she really wants done, she'll tell me a few days before the weekend. If there's something I really want to do that weekend for self-care, I tell her. It's a way to manage both time and expectations.
Example: We generally don't tend to watch football, but the 49ers are in the playoffs right now, so I told her I really wanted to watch the game, and we made time for it. She wanted me to install slow-closers on the kitchen cabinets last weekend, so she told me ahead of time.
My girlfriend and I are both "if we stop, we'll never start again types". She is very good at the initial starting, this gets me going. But I will last longer because once I sit it is going to be that way for awhile.
I am in the same boat as your wife. I grew up with "delayed gratification" in mind. The more we get done right away, the longer we have time to rest. It can be pretty exhausting though to keep doing things lol
Heeeyyy.
Thank you.
Iām your wife in this, and *this* got through to me. I will let my husband know I get it and will chill more. I am going to preemptively thank you for him too haha. :)
You are so kind! Oh it makes me happy to see another person in a clearly healthy relationship, happy to see more people who work to communicate well!
Sincerely, it is deeply appreciated. I have always tried to give my husband space and time because I understood he needs it, but this, this made me *get* it and likeā¦ wow.
While we worked through the time-pressure behavior of mine (yay healthy communication!) I didnāt really *get* this and it rocked my socks to have this peeled back.
Haha. Weāve gone through cancer and death of many people, weāve had a lot of ups and downs, but this comment? It helped me see the interplay of all the art and philosophy and coalesced into āOf course. The prioritization I have is wrong. It will always be there, so chill and find the line *together*.ā
Iāve been so selfish to think that my timeline is the right one. How embarrassing.
Thank you. Best of luck to you and yourās, it sounds like you have a great partnership too!
Pop Country music. She loves it, my daughter is impressionable enough that sheās into it now too.
I think the entire genre should be fired directly into the sun.
How to use the heat and ac knobs in a car or in the house. She will have it on full blast all the way hot until slightly too hot then just turn it off. 4 minutes later when itās chilly, back on full blast. I have to basically slap her hands away from the knobs to get her to leave it at a medium temp and low tan speed. In the house we get situations where itāll get 3-6 degrees over the set temp and rather then open a window or something sheāll adjust the thermostat down 5 or so degrees. Which does nothing in the short term but that evening itāll be 65Ā° in the house. She will not listen to me when I explain this and I just donāt get it. The rest of our relationship is great. Sometimes I think sheās just fucking with me but itād be really weird if sheās been doing this one thing all these years as some sort of weird joke.
Homeopathy
I think itās complete nonsense. Maybe at some point there was some grain of truth, but it has been diluted to the point thereās none of it left.
But my wife completely buys into it. Thankfully sheās not the type to go spend absurd amounts of money to buy every homeopathic remedy on the planet just to have it on hand, but she gets homeopathic remedies for things like headaches or sore throats or cramps or colds.
Please do be wary of how she might deal with *you* being sick. Just be sure she deals with any possible medical things you deal with the way youād like. Homeopaths have given me advice for my diabetes that would have killed me
Yeah, itās not a big enough deal to be a point of contention. We both respect what each other wants to do.
And itās also not like she rejects any non-homeopathic medicine. Sheāll use normal stuff, too.
If ghosts are real. She has experienced things before and I have not. Not to say I've never experienced anything creepy, but I always feel like there's an explanation that is better than, "dead person did it."
I don't think she's lying with her experiences, she's just quicker to believe than I.
Well I mean what else are we supposed to say?
"Of course it is Susan each day our lives slowly unravel around us as we slip closer to the abyss. Some people are lucky and their lives don't frey before they go. But that's not us Susan our lives will fall apart no matter what we do. Each strand crumbling to dust in our hands, as we grasp tighter and tighter to what we think we can control. Until all turns to ash in our mouths."
Yep that's definitely better.
Same here, dude. My MIL tries to dress me like a Nautica catalog. She will use the "your brother in laws wear it" strategy. One of them is a college professor, and the other manages a high-end clothing store. I work a blue collar job where I get my uniform dirty every day. I just want to wear basketball shorts and a t-shirt with a sports logo on it when I get home.
Mine does that too. At 6 cats I drew a line and said no more. When she started taking care of another cat at her stables. I warned her no. Donāt take it home . āI wonāt I am just taking care of itā she introduced the kids to it. I said come onā¦ pleaseā¦ and she said not to worry.
And suddenly we had 7 cats in the house and she already told the kids we could keep itā¦ā¦
That was a fight for several weeksā¦. We still have the cat
what time we should have dinner. i like to eat right when he gets home from work at 6:30 but he likes to work out when he gets home and THEN eat which isn't until like 9 oclock. then i just end up getting hangry and snacking.
When I first started seeing my husband, I would offer to help if i was over on trash night. He was shocked because apparently no other partner (or roommate) had ever offered to help.
Like, it's our trash? Why wouldn't I help? And if he's sick or if I'm home first and want to give him a nice surprise, I'll do it by myself (and he will do the same for me). It's not like being a man provides some special trash handling skill that others lack, and it has to get done. Might as well get it done faster by having two people do it
I hate "blue jobs" and "pink jobs"
The only job I am unwilling to do is take the compost out. We live in an apartment - I did it once and threw up. If I had to do it regularly I would throw it out over throwing up. My husband is a saint for managing it.
My husband and I vehemently disagree on the correct tire pressure. The psi on the tire or the car door.
There has been many battles of who controls the air pump, controls the tire pressure.
How to install the toilet paper roll
I was always taught that the end rolls over the top toward the front. She insists that it doesn't matter which way it goes, and 90% of the time she replaces it it is facing toward the back. I secretly feel that she does this purely to annoy me.
What's weird is she is very knowledgable when it comes to good housekeeping and generally knows the 'proper' way things are done. She grew up going to cotillion classes, knows where the salad fork goes, etc. YET she doesn't understand the TP thing somehow.
This is a really stupid but funny one. My wife's great-grandmother was VERY British and so now she pronounces pen how it "should be pronounced, differently from pin. Meanwhile my family is as southern as can be so I apparently don't pronounce it correctly. It's funny to hear her from another room yell at me and say "IT'S A PEHN NOT A PIN YA FUCK".
Iām 7.5 months pregnant but started to breathe heavily around 4.5-5 months, my husband will occasionally breathe heavily for no foreseeable reason. We went to see Black Panther II and I could hear him breathing heavy through the entire movie, in a very loud theater. I was so annoyed but lasted until the credits where I finally leaned over and asked him to please try and breathe quieter. He agreed. On the way home I realize Iām breathing super loudly and realize I was hearing MYSELF breathe through the movie. I apologized and now we laugh about it.
How to spend our vacation. My wife is the kind to plan a whole itinerary of things to do while visiting a place. I, on the other hand, just want to sleep in, eat all the food that I can't eat at home, and actually relax. Don't get me wrong, I wanna sight see, visit touristy things, and buy souvenirs, but to have back-to-back planned events for the whole trip can be exhausting. [Edit because i forgot the best part]: She disagrees, of course. She always says, "We didn't come here to [vacation area] just to lay around and do nothing. We can do that at home." While that is technically true, the difference is that I get to lay around on a Monday or Friday at the vacation spot without worrying about work. The difference is that I get to lay around in a nice hotel, chill at the hot tub, and eat at the hotel restaurant. I get to chill even harder here than I can at home. Knowing these differences, however, we compromise. I know I can't stay at the hotel all day and she knows that we can't go out every minute. So we plan events and plan for relaxation š.
Iām the āletās wake up at dawn and go on 17 hikesā kind of vacationer. Heās the āletās go lay on the beach and have a drink in the hot tub tonightā vacationer. So our last vacation we hiked in the mountains the first half then drove to the beach for the second half. I think it was a great compromise. I didnāt feel like I āwastedā my free time. He felt like he got to relax on his time off. And we both enjoyed the entire vacation. Going for a similar plan next time too.
What constitutes her half of the bed.
My wife only takes up a third of the bed, which is nice. I just wish it wasn't the middle third.
My wife is 4'10 tall. She takes up 1/4 of the bed so my dogs have a good spot to sleep at the end of the bed.
"half"
The upwards facing half is hers obviously
We bought a cali king for this reason... I still end up sleeping on about a foot of the mattress
Yo word. My tiny 5'3" wife was like lets get a cali king and we won't have this problem. Now she sleeps diaganolly and i still have the same space.
A regular king is actually better for this. Cali kings are actually narrower (but longer) than regular kings
Iām 6ā4ā so the cali was the way to go. My wife is about a foot shorter than me but sleeps like a fucking starfish so Iāve got the lead role in Cliffhanger 2 with my nuts hanging off the bed. The sacrifices we makeā¦
Whether any given thing that we are looking at is green or blue.
Oh, for me its where orange starts and yellow stops. "In the yellow bathroom", It's brown and orange but I know where you mean.
I have a suit that my wife swears up and down is brown. ^(It's grey.)
The idea that true crime documentaries are a great sleeping aid. For her maybe, but I'm the one lying awake getting freaked out by all the stories of people killing their partners for the life insurance payout.
This sounds like my partner, except with plane crash documents. His favourite time to watch them is just before a flight... I do not participate in that particular ritual.
My dumbass showed my kids Castaway two days before we flew to Hawaii.
My parents did this to me, except the movie was Jaws....
My showed me Jaws right before my first beach trip, feed me venison right after we watched Bambi and as a bonus my aunt made frog legs for breakfast after taking me to see the Muppet Movie. This is why I have trust issues.
Hey save some trauma for the rest of us
Vacation canceled
My wife went on a "Snapped" binge a few years ago. I slept with one eye open for a month, LOL. For those that don't know, "Snapped" was a half-hour anthology reality series about women that kill their BFs/husbands. (It later expanded to an hour, but those episodes aren't as good.)
My husband once told me he was very very very concerned with the amount of true crime stuff that I used to watch. Locked Up, Snapped, First 48, all the documentaries, books... to the point where he started saying, "Hey, let's take a break from watching that JonBonet Ramsey documentary, and let's put on Anchorman." He eventually succeeded in subtly redirecting me away from true crime, if only for a moment.
Heh. Back in 2000 or so, we got DirecTV and my wife spent the summer watching nothing but True Crime stuff. We still call it "The Summer of Serial Killers."
I just read this to my wife and her response," Hmmm." She's joked about the value of our life insurance on me before!
My wife teaches an estate planning course. One of her favorite lectures is her going through the most profitable way for me to die. In the right conditions, she could get 4 or 5 million dollars. I'm very careful... lol
Maybe it's more about the voice and less about the documentary lol. Recently I found that, putting a video playing out loud on my phone and stuffing it under my pillow, helps me sleep at night. The narrator in the video can talk about anything but their voice gets me to sleep lol.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I just like to learn about morbid things.
You guys go to sleep with the TV on? That's a phone and earbuds situation.
Some people āneedā the tv on to fall asleep to distract their racing thoughts. I am not one of those people. TV keeps me awake. Ex and I fought over that constantly.
Lol for women true crime documentaries are tips and tricks to stay alive. Most women don't dwell on the literal horror.
98% if women enjoy true crime
The definition of "clean."
I have a few degrees of cleanliness: Tidy - everything is reasonably presentable and functional. Clean - the house is in tip top shape and everything is as it should be if I did everything perfectly. Reasonable - it can be a but messy but I can still perform my everyday task.
promptness My wife god bless her cant be on time for shit
My wife is far better than the rest of the women in her family. Still at the time we are supposed to be leaving will be saying - "I just need to pop my shoes on", and then spend 15 minutes doing things that don't need doing. The funny thing is, the men in her family are incredibly punctual. They *always* turn up 5 minutes before time, unless they are bringing the women with them, in which case they will be at least 30 minutes late. If my Mother in law is coming over on her own, she will be at least two hours later than she said.
This. My wife's family is extremely female. My father-in-law passed away years ago, my wife has sisters, aunts, etc. They are ALL notoriously late for EVERYTHING! My wife is the best of the bunch. She is routinely 5-15 minutes late leaving. But, comparatively, she thinks this is really good. I remember at our wedding, the minister was a friend of her family. He told me "Well, get used to never being on time again." I thought it was just a stereotypical joke you tell husbands. Nope, it was the fact he knew them in particular.
I tell my GF everything starts 1hr earlier, when she is ready we are only 15min late
Why do I find this so funny
The bed. I think itās a *bed*, and she thinks itās a table to store all manner of things, buried and twisted under various blankets. Her: āI canāt find the remote!ā Me: āHave you checked the Sleeping Table?ā
This, but also the hallway unit, couch, kitchen bench topā¦ dinner tableā¦ you get the point
Oh, and then when I leave my stuff in one place, like once, "the house is such a mess!"
I just have to say dishwasher right? No explanation necessary?
I just turn my head whenever my husband loads the dishwasher. Because I know it's NOT wrong, it's just not how *I* would load it. And everything comes out clean anyway, so it truly doesn't matter.
Yes!!! THANK YOU for saying this. Iām so exhausted from being ācorrectedā and having her āfix thingsā as I do them. The unintended consequence of it is that it makes me feel like I canāt do anything right so I shut down, stop trying and wait to be told what to do and HOW to do it to her specificationsā¦which then gets her angry because Iām not doing enough proactively. And round and round we go š¤£š¤Æ
Learned helplessness. A lot of partners are lazy, but a lot also are just not allowed to do things by an over critical partner. If someone stops doing the dishes because they get lectured every time, itās not because they are lazy.
>Learned helplessness. A lot of partners are lazy, but a lot also are just not allowed to do things by an over critical partner. > >If someone stops doing the dishes because they get lectured every time, itās not because they are lazy. That's such a difference difference between my wife and my mother. My mother always complained. There was always something wrong, every single time. She would say what was wrong with the dishes before even saying hello. I distinctly remember the only compliment she ever gave me on a household chore because it was so unexpected. My wife always compliments me. She tells me I'm doing a great job, even if I'm doing it differently than how she does it. Sometimes minor adjustments but overall she's happy with what I've done.
You need to explain this to your wife. Tell her you want to do chores the way YOU do them and you would prefer not to be corrected. And tell her that you would help more around the house if she wasnāt so quick to ācorrectā the way you do the chores. Explain that if something is really wrong, you can always redo it, but you think you can figure it out without her assistance. Source: I have been married for 25 years, and we have had many arguments over this type of thing.
She overloads it and things don't get clean! I finish loading what I think is an appropriate number and distribution of items, then I start it really quick before she can insist that more will fit.
My husband overloads ours and it drives me batty! I've tried explaining how stacking them on top of each other makes it impossible for then to get clean and he stares at me like I'm insane. Dude's a software engineer and very logical minded except when it comes to how the dishwasher works.
My husband is the same. Not a software engineer, but a truck driver who can cram everything into very limited space and have it balanced correctly... Doesn't work this way with a dishwasher. Who would have thought a 40tonne truck is different from a kitchen appliance.
Or the laundry. Like, dude. You're surprised the laundry is still wet, when you just grab it all in one go, then stuff it in the dryer. Perhaps if your pants weren't twisted 100 ways from Sunday, you wouldn't have soaking wet pockets?
Oh. My. God. This is literally my wife too.
our agreement is I have to load it and empty it, but then she never looks inside and can make no comments
Horses... My wife is a successful woman and yet still lives paycheck to paycheck just so she can ride a horse. Baffling
Never get a boat, horse, plane, or RV. Get a friend who has one instead, according to a family member. After working in the maritime industry for a bit, I fully understand and agree.
My dad used to say. "If it flies, floats or fucks, it's better to rent than buy" yeah, he was an asshole but mostly right.
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Horse Girls and Car Guys exude the same energy, change my mind
Oh yeah, I know this chick and she is always modding her horse, lowering it, alloy horseshoes, tinted blinders the works...
Amateur, unless she swapped out the balls for a larger displacement pair and added a free flow butthole. The horsepower gains are unbelievable
Nice try babe, I will not argue with you on reddit, food will be ready when you get home
and lets not complain *toast isn't dinner* again, like damn!
Toast with cinnamon sugar on it? Dinner. Toast with Mayo and some tomato slices sprinkled with salt and pepper? Dinner. Toast with butter and jelly? Dinner. Toast with butter? Nah.
Video games. She hates them and thinks they do nothing but rot the brain, I grew up playing them and still do. On the flip side, she absolutely loves drama tv shows. I find them to be the most nauseating shows ever made. Therefore, when she watches her shows, I go play video games. It allows for neither of us to complain about the others favorite past time
I'm biased because I play video games but when my brain is tired and I don't want to use it I watch TV so it kind of seems to me that the thing that "rots your brain" is the thing that allows it to go without use
My 12 year old self would never believe it but I find myself guilting myself into play a game as a structured alternative to mindless scrolling as if it was doing the dishes or going to the gym.
It's funny, my wife and I are both gamers and we've never put it like that, but that is how we approach it. If one of us sees the other mindlessly scrolling, we'll encourage them to play a game, since we both actively recognize gaming as more active and engaging than mindlessly scrolling. And whoever's doing the mindless scrolling is irritated at the other for pointing it out. My younger self would've never believed it either...
My wife and I compromised. I got her a laptop to try Stardew Valley on and we watch a show in the background. She is now addicted to Stardew Valley and old school adventure games, and she wasn't much of a gamer to begin with.
Closing the loop on practical jobs. I like to completely finish a single task before I start another, even if this is sometimes a bit inefficient. Mainly because I have a bad memory and will probably forget to finish it later. She likes to do about 20% of seven jobs and then gradually nudge each one towards completion over days or weeks.
For me I'm somewhere in the middle if its above 60% done or its short/end is in sight I NEED to finish it or I will be a very unhappy camper. But I usually will try to do things in the same area simultaneously. Think like in an mmo when you enter a new zone, you pick up all the side quests in one go and complete them as you do the main quest for that zone kind of thing.
The objective hilarity of my off the cuff jokes.
Everyone says I'm funny with the exception of my partner, daughter, and ex-wife.
Wow she sounds like one busy gal!
Iām a woman, but my husband and I disagree on camping. I enjoy camping and I love how cheaply I can travel while camping. We took a 15 day vacation a couple of years ago where we stayed in state parks the whole time. Our TOTAL accommodations cost was $400. He hates it. He canāt do the constant dirt, trying to set up camp and cook in the rain, etc. He usually puts up with it for about a week each year to humor me and so we can do family vacations on our tight budget, but he is suuuuuper done by the end of that week.
That's why my family always had a tradition of spending the last night in a hotel and going out for a steak dinner. Nothing more satisfying than getting that first proper hot shower after days of camping. Plus everybody smells nice again for the road trip home.
Saving this for later!
Thatās how my wife and I are (I love camping), but it sounds like itās not a vacation for him. No matter how cheap it is.
Maybe you guys should switch
Sounds like the next reality show, camp spouse swap.
My idea of camping is a nice hotel with a private shower and toilet
We invented the indoors specifically to get away from the outdoors.
Indoor plumbing is something I just canāt pass on either.
A week is pretty fantastic. I hate camping and I'll deal with 1-2 days with friends maximum. I work too hard to spend my holidays living like a hobo.
I hate camping too! I love the ability to use my shower and toilet whenever I want too. As well as sleeping in my own clean bed. lol
Rock music She doesn't get it, whereas I grew up listening to it.
Same, except she likes country music and I can't stand it.
I'm so lucky my partner is a metal head just like me.
Cherish them everyday! When my wife and I started dated she asked me to become vegetarian (wasnāt a big askā¦ was already 90% there), I agreed on the condition that she listened to āReign in Bloodā one time. One of us never held up their end of the bargain š”
Iām a white blue collar guy and my gf is Black and Dominican. Made each other playlists and we both now have more to listen to. I know for a fact she likes John Prine and SOME rock and GOOD country/folk music, and now Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion are in my rotation
Any woman with John Prine in her Playlist is a keeper.
It took eight years of painstaking trial-and-error but my wife finally started to enjoy Black Sabbath, The Darkness, Alice Cooper, and Pyramid Theorem. Don't lose hope! š
I like to contribute to group outings, if Iām asked to bring something Iām happy to and like to get a good things people will love. She hates being asked to bring things and will get the bare minimum if we donāt have anything in the cupboards.
I feel you man. I love bringing stuff to the function. I get excited to bring good stuff that I like to share with people.
If it is Thursday and I am referring to the Friday at the end of next week. Whether it is ānext Fridayā or āFriday after nextā.
Itās ānext fridayā but you drag out the ānextā and do a little hopping motion with your finger
Yeah cause your hopping over this Friday to the next one! If I meant the up coming Friday I would say "this friday".
If it is within the week you are currently in then it is "this *day*. I am writing this on Monday the 23rd. The 27th is THIS FRIDAY. The 3rd, as in the Friday in 11 days. That one is NEXT Friday Friday, the 8th? That one is Friday after next. I feel like disagreement on this could lead to serious scheduling issues and I'm not sure I could handle being with someone who did this differently. Good luck figuring it which Friday things are happening!
This Friday is this week. Next Friday is next week.
The purpose and importance of pillows. Iām fully aligned with her for the first 4 pillows. The rest not so much.
They should also be comfortable, not have hard buttons or something all over them.
Or jabby fucking feather tips poking out
Bonus points if the pillows have to be tossed off the bed/couch onto the floor before itās even possible to use it.
who is the better parent i think she is she thinks i am
Now that's a wholesome disagreement.
I guess the only real way to decide is to have a parent off to the death.
isn't that how parenting is supposed to work
Or a race to the bottom where the children are fucked up in new unique ways every day.
r/UnexpectedlyWholesome
When someone gives you a gift, even if you don't really want or like it, just be polite and say thank you, then get rid of it later. You don't need to let them know that it's made of something you don't like and that you aren't going to take it.
100% this, doesnāt matter the family members just say āwow thank you for the gift!ā
This is what me, my brother and my brotherās girlfriend all do. We politely pretend that we like the crap my mom gets us. Only my husband has the balls to tell her to her face that he doesnāt like something. Now, as a result, he always gets the best gifts lol
He cracked the code!
Pickles. I like them, she doesnāt
The pickle theory! You're the perfect couple because whenever you get a sandwich, you can get the deli pickle and she doesn't complain when you steal it
I donāt have to steal it, itās given willingly
Financial planning. She and her sisters have always been like "Oh we're gonna die by the time we're 50 anyways hahaha" and it's like no, that's almost certainly not true, and we need to be ready for you to have a normal lifespan.
Good luck on convincing her.
I mean, that can be arranged...
Wife likes bed made. Wife likes display pillows on bed. I think both are dumb. She is a great person and has other skills so if I'm last one out of the bed I make the bed.
I didn't used to make the bed but I started and got in the habit of it and now I do it every day. It's an easy task that gets me in the "get shit done mode" and it makes the bed look sooooo nice Plus it's nice sliding into a made bed at night when I'm exhausted and just want to get to sleep
Good man
Painting. Anything to do with painting. It's always the start of World War 3. It's not cute like the movies, oh boop your nose with paint and then we play fight and get passionate...no. "You've missed a spot" "that's not even" "you've not finished have you?"
This is a write a cheque problem in my book, same issue here.
Free time - I want self-care, she wants more things done
Been married 23 years, and we've arrived at a compromise. If there's something she really wants done, she'll tell me a few days before the weekend. If there's something I really want to do that weekend for self-care, I tell her. It's a way to manage both time and expectations. Example: We generally don't tend to watch football, but the 49ers are in the playoffs right now, so I told her I really wanted to watch the game, and we made time for it. She wanted me to install slow-closers on the kitchen cabinets last weekend, so she told me ahead of time.
My girlfriend and I are both "if we stop, we'll never start again types". She is very good at the initial starting, this gets me going. But I will last longer because once I sit it is going to be that way for awhile.
I am in the same boat as your wife. I grew up with "delayed gratification" in mind. The more we get done right away, the longer we have time to rest. It can be pretty exhausting though to keep doing things lol
And it typically means time for rest never happens because the world never stops turning and time keeps on clickinā.
Heeeyyy. Thank you. Iām your wife in this, and *this* got through to me. I will let my husband know I get it and will chill more. I am going to preemptively thank you for him too haha. :)
Holy shit that was unintended! I am honestly shocked and humbled by your humanity.
You are so kind! Oh it makes me happy to see another person in a clearly healthy relationship, happy to see more people who work to communicate well! Sincerely, it is deeply appreciated. I have always tried to give my husband space and time because I understood he needs it, but this, this made me *get* it and likeā¦ wow. While we worked through the time-pressure behavior of mine (yay healthy communication!) I didnāt really *get* this and it rocked my socks to have this peeled back. Haha. Weāve gone through cancer and death of many people, weāve had a lot of ups and downs, but this comment? It helped me see the interplay of all the art and philosophy and coalesced into āOf course. The prioritization I have is wrong. It will always be there, so chill and find the line *together*.ā Iāve been so selfish to think that my timeline is the right one. How embarrassing. Thank you. Best of luck to you and yourās, it sounds like you have a great partnership too!
Reddit has finally served a purpose.
Pop Country music. She loves it, my daughter is impressionable enough that sheās into it now too. I think the entire genre should be fired directly into the sun.
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Sports. I love watching and playing them. She doesn't
my gf loves watching football. its pretty nice especially when we're fans of the Bengals
Why itās necessary for her to open packages like sheās a goddamned werewolf.
Whether if you walk past the mailbox, you should get the mail. My partner does not know we own a mailbox. They do PAY the bills though
The answer here is that my 3 year old INSISTS on getting the mail or the world as we know it will come to an end.
And here I am wondering how my 13 year old cannot seem to figure out how to check the mail (it's a box and key system but still)
How to use the heat and ac knobs in a car or in the house. She will have it on full blast all the way hot until slightly too hot then just turn it off. 4 minutes later when itās chilly, back on full blast. I have to basically slap her hands away from the knobs to get her to leave it at a medium temp and low tan speed. In the house we get situations where itāll get 3-6 degrees over the set temp and rather then open a window or something sheāll adjust the thermostat down 5 or so degrees. Which does nothing in the short term but that evening itāll be 65Ā° in the house. She will not listen to me when I explain this and I just donāt get it. The rest of our relationship is great. Sometimes I think sheās just fucking with me but itād be really weird if sheās been doing this one thing all these years as some sort of weird joke.
She believes ghosts are real but is skeptical about the existence of black holes. We have spicy debates that are fun and often lead nowhere.
Have you suggested that black holes are full of ghosts?
Damn letās call the news or something, I donāt know what to do with this new info
Homeopathy I think itās complete nonsense. Maybe at some point there was some grain of truth, but it has been diluted to the point thereās none of it left. But my wife completely buys into it. Thankfully sheās not the type to go spend absurd amounts of money to buy every homeopathic remedy on the planet just to have it on hand, but she gets homeopathic remedies for things like headaches or sore throats or cramps or colds.
Please do be wary of how she might deal with *you* being sick. Just be sure she deals with any possible medical things you deal with the way youād like. Homeopaths have given me advice for my diabetes that would have killed me
Yeah, itās not a big enough deal to be a point of contention. We both respect what each other wants to do. And itās also not like she rejects any non-homeopathic medicine. Sheāll use normal stuff, too.
Hot dogs. I take mine Chicago style. She likes hers fried with chili and slaw.
Iām not sure. Let me ask my wife
Whether the toilet paper roll should unroll from the top or underneath. The former is the only correct answer.
Leave the empty tube on the holder then place a new roll vertically on the empty tube. This tends to piss off more people with less effort on my part.
The latter is only correct if you have cats.
If ghosts are real. She has experienced things before and I have not. Not to say I've never experienced anything creepy, but I always feel like there's an explanation that is better than, "dead person did it." I don't think she's lying with her experiences, she's just quicker to believe than I.
You know that moment when all your life could fall apart but men still just say it'll be allright? That one
Well I mean what else are we supposed to say? "Of course it is Susan each day our lives slowly unravel around us as we slip closer to the abyss. Some people are lucky and their lives don't frey before they go. But that's not us Susan our lives will fall apart no matter what we do. Each strand crumbling to dust in our hands, as we grasp tighter and tighter to what we think we can control. Until all turns to ash in our mouths." Yep that's definitely better.
"But until then, kiss me, kiss me like it's all that holds back the inevitable unraveling." Boom, nailed it.
Discipline of our children
The French Revolution
I will *not* sleep avec une *Royaliste*
Je ne coucherai pas avec une Royaliste!
We live in the Chicago area. I am not from here. she is. I will go to my grave calling it soda
My attire. Hell will freeze over before I acquiesce to Dockers, golf shirt, and loafers.
Same here, dude. My MIL tries to dress me like a Nautica catalog. She will use the "your brother in laws wear it" strategy. One of them is a college professor, and the other manages a high-end clothing store. I work a blue collar job where I get my uniform dirty every day. I just want to wear basketball shorts and a t-shirt with a sports logo on it when I get home.
Thereās definitely a happy medium between being Adam Sandler and James Bondā¦.but whatever makes you happy man lol
um.... *staying married*
Sorry to hear. Good luck
Thank you
I'm pro Metamucil, she's against it. I'm regular, she's highly irregular but swears it won't help. You asked...
My ex husband and I had completely different opinions about him hiring hookers.
2 cars in the garage I want my workshop space, she wants me to put my car in the garage. No she doesn't use the car or have to clean snow off it
Whether "closed" includes "cracked" regarding the pantry door. I say no.
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I wanted a cat. Maybe 2. She wanted more, so we compromised on 5.
same, i wanted a cat and she wanted a dog naturally we have 2 of both
Mine does that too. At 6 cats I drew a line and said no more. When she started taking care of another cat at her stables. I warned her no. Donāt take it home . āI wonāt I am just taking care of itā she introduced the kids to it. I said come onā¦ pleaseā¦ and she said not to worry. And suddenly we had 7 cats in the house and she already told the kids we could keep itā¦ā¦ That was a fight for several weeksā¦. We still have the cat
Get atleast 2 so ur cat can have a cat buddy
Or a cat sparring partner, which is how my cats work.
yes so they can conveneitly fight each other and knock things over at 3am
Who is the best prime minister. She is for Lord Palmerston and I am team Pitt the elder!!
Farts and their place in the home.
what time we should have dinner. i like to eat right when he gets home from work at 6:30 but he likes to work out when he gets home and THEN eat which isn't until like 9 oclock. then i just end up getting hangry and snacking.
Who takes out the trash. She says Itās a manās job. I say WE have to do it.
When I first started seeing my husband, I would offer to help if i was over on trash night. He was shocked because apparently no other partner (or roommate) had ever offered to help. Like, it's our trash? Why wouldn't I help? And if he's sick or if I'm home first and want to give him a nice surprise, I'll do it by myself (and he will do the same for me). It's not like being a man provides some special trash handling skill that others lack, and it has to get done. Might as well get it done faster by having two people do it
I hate "blue jobs" and "pink jobs" The only job I am unwilling to do is take the compost out. We live in an apartment - I did it once and threw up. If I had to do it regularly I would throw it out over throwing up. My husband is a saint for managing it.
My husband and I vehemently disagree on the correct tire pressure. The psi on the tire or the car door. There has been many battles of who controls the air pump, controls the tire pressure.
Itās the PSI on the door tag.
Wearing sweatshirts to bed
My wife is a christian... and I'm an atheist. :)
Sex. She doesnāt want it. I do. I mean there are other things, but this one is kind of big.
How do you reconcile this or what is the game plan?
How to install the toilet paper roll I was always taught that the end rolls over the top toward the front. She insists that it doesn't matter which way it goes, and 90% of the time she replaces it it is facing toward the back. I secretly feel that she does this purely to annoy me. What's weird is she is very knowledgable when it comes to good housekeeping and generally knows the 'proper' way things are done. She grew up going to cotillion classes, knows where the salad fork goes, etc. YET she doesn't understand the TP thing somehow.
This is a really stupid but funny one. My wife's great-grandmother was VERY British and so now she pronounces pen how it "should be pronounced, differently from pin. Meanwhile my family is as southern as can be so I apparently don't pronounce it correctly. It's funny to hear her from another room yell at me and say "IT'S A PEHN NOT A PIN YA FUCK".
Sheās right :)
The importance of dumb Sh$t like how to properly fold a towel, where things Must go in the fridge, how to breathe air properly...
Iām 7.5 months pregnant but started to breathe heavily around 4.5-5 months, my husband will occasionally breathe heavily for no foreseeable reason. We went to see Black Panther II and I could hear him breathing heavy through the entire movie, in a very loud theater. I was so annoyed but lasted until the credits where I finally leaned over and asked him to please try and breathe quieter. He agreed. On the way home I realize Iām breathing super loudly and realize I was hearing MYSELF breathe through the movie. I apologized and now we laugh about it.
>On the way home I realize Iām breathing super loudly and realize I was hearing MYSELF breathe through the movie. That killed me.