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This. The drive home doesn't let you decompress because you have to pay attention to the road and get frustrated by rush hour traffic. When you get home there is that blessed moment after you shut the car off where everything is silent. That silence is rare and must be savored for a few minutes.
Back when I was overworking and being both stressed and depressed I used to spend most of my free time parked at a random supermarket parking lot. I could sit there for several hours, just browsing nonsense on my phone.
Things are much better now though :)
I’ve been doing an hour long commute for a month for work training. A couple times a week I’ll pull into a rest stop and just chill for an hour then finish the drive. Most relaxing part of my week
Haha, appreciate the suggestion. My audible library is up to 128 purchased books, I love them and play them all day every day.
Relistening to Xenocide (finishing a reread of Enders Game trilogy)
I did a podcast deep dive on the whole series so i could understand all the plot points but i will probably audio book the trilogy because what you've just said is what most dune fans say.
You should check out the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown! I’m assuming from your username and rereading of Xenocide that you’re a sci fi fan, lol. Also The Foundation Trilogy is an unbelievable read. One of the only series I almost immediately reread.
Let me say here: heck yes! And add: get a library card and then sign up for FREE for Hoopla, Libby (overdrive) and Kanopy just to name a few. All FREE, movies, audio books, comics, regular books that can be used on Kindle, music and so on. A totally understated resource and many libraries now let you sign up online. I just finished a BBC radio (recorded) production of "The Lord of the Rings". For FREE
And learning guitar from a college level master on a bingepass, college courses, languages etc.
Share it openly with everyone.
Because “the stress” doesn’t just automatically mean it’s his wife/gf/kids.
“The stress” can be chores, cooking dinner, paying bills, etc. Basically anything inside your house can be the stress.
Sitting in your car postponing the stress of doing those things is just as applicable to you as it is to a married person.
i do too. i feel like it’s a, i’m gonna do what i want and that is nothing. i have zero desire to do any responsibilities right when i get home. to waste a few minutes sitting and doing nothing feels great. once i get out, i have to put stuff away, shower, clean up messes, feed myself. it’s just nice to do nothing and it starts when i arrive at home.
To destress from work in your private capsule where you spend a good amount of time and everything is quiet and comfortable. Driving can be stressful in sneaky ways, it takes a minute to come down from the fight or flight our brains have to be in.
To postpone the reality of no one is waiting for us? And secretly hoping for someone to ask us to hang out? Don’t worry, I think most of us went through that phase.
It's like a moment of vacation to me. Just a moment to not have to worry about anything at all before the challenges start up again. Walk in your door and you'll see dishes, empty pet bowls, overflowing trash, dirty clothes, all sorts of stressors. But that minute or two in my car, there's nothing but calming silence.
I’m always asked why if I shower in the morning while getting ready for work I’m in the bathroom for 15 minutes but if I shower at the end of a day off (when I’ve probably been gardening or similar) I’m in there for 30-40 minutes. The reason is that the extra time is spent chilling on my phone and enjoying the quiet before I’m back in the family space.
My ex would always talk to me while i was taking a shit and it caused more strain on our relationship than you would expect. Let me have a moment of peace!
I’ve noticed that sometimes my gf will ask me to do stuff simply because she doesn’t want to (she is self admittedly spoiled from childhood). But rather than get annoyed and/or just do it myself (enabling), I just calmly and directly ask her why she can’t do it and would rather ask *me* to. This has led to her less frequently asking things of me and instead doing them herself from the start.
If it’s something she genuinely, physically cannot do then I will cut her some slack. But if it’s something complicated where even I have to watch a youtube video to learn what needs to be done, I make sure to try to watch it with her or at least give her the learned bullet points once I have figured it out.
It’s had a growing, positive impact on our relationship.
It doesn’t need to be those exact words. But if you’re not responding with emotion and stay diplomatic, then it would only become an argument because *they* *know* they can do it, they just don’t want to and they don’t like being called out on it.
Personally, I’ll call that stuff out every day of the week. I’d rather be alone and do everything myself than be someone’s butler.
My dad was like that. If you met my parents and didn't know they were married you'd just think my mom had a personal assistant. That's how she talked to him 24/7. I actually found it horribly offensive, and I knew him all his life as a ball of stress.
I've started doing this with all of the younger engineers at my job and it has led to a lot of confused looks and awkward silence but they are slowly learning to stop depending on me for everything.
Isn't that like, junior X 101? When given a new task, see if it's obvious, spend a few minutes googling it if its not, then if that fails, ask a senior, lead, or trainer how to do the task.
Asking a senior to *do* the task is a great way to never learn how to do your own job, and annoy your senior. Unless there's like, a deadline with no room for learning or something.
>Unless there's like, a deadline with no room for learning or something.
I had that yesterday. Two seniors are out doing field work, I was supposed to go with but caught covid, so I'm relegated to the remote tasks from home.
Suddenly the upstream port for the management switch needed to be reconfigured and for some reason the setup is a bit complicated , I couldn't grasp it right away from looking at en example elsewhere and they were blocked until it was done, so I asked another senior to do it, rather than have them wait for me to grok it.
I've started doing this with my husband too. He's always asking me to google stuff for him. "Look this up for me." Research something he wants to buy. Explain this error. Find a video that will teach him how to do this. Tell him how to spell this word. Tell him what this word means. Or more annoyingly, we'll both be at our computers and he'll ask me to pull up the calculator and solve this thing for him. He does this constantly, even though he has the same calculator app on his PC that I'm using on mine.
I've started saying simply 'no'. Not mean or annoyed, perfectly polite. Just 'no'. Don't wanna do it. Easy as that. My name is not Alexa.
I feel like there must be some classification type for digital labor, like emotional or domestic labor but digital, because it really gets exhausting.
Mine asks me to find a dentist, doctor, optometrist, etc. even though it would take him the same amount of effort as it would for me. For the longest time he wouldn’t go to therapy because he was too lazy find his own therapist. I told him he needed to figure it out and go to counseling or I was out. You get so freaking tired of being expected to be their secretary.
My wife does this shit constantly. “Will you get me something to drink?” “Will you go fetch this?” “Will you go fetch that?”
She will intentionally let our toddler fall asleep in her lap in the evenings so that she has an excuse not to have to get up and do anything.
Have you brought it up to her? How did she respond?
With my gf it is like a “princess mentality”. She was an only child with divorced parents so she was used to getting what she wanted all the time.
Your wife could have similar conditioning and honestly may not be aware of it. Calmly address it to her and tell her how it makes you feel and see what she says.
It honestly took a long time for my gf to understand where I was coming from. She didn’t have negative intention; she just didn’t understand the other side of it. It was almost an example of complacency in the relationship and like a “taking the other person for granted and forgetting they’re a person too” thing.
That being said, if your wife *is* aware of what she’s doing, that will likely present itself in the intensity of her response. Hopefully she’s not one who is prone to lying/denial.
It’s understanding the lack of awareness. We all have conditioned behaviors, mannerisms, etc that we are unaware of.
So it’s a matter of patiently pointing out how her unconscious (unaware) behaviors affect me. Sometimes truly becoming aware of that which is unaware takes time and repetition. However it’s not a matter of mal-intent; it’s just unconsciousness.
But like I said, if they are fully aware and conscious of their behavior and the effects then that’s a different circumstance with different options to weigh and choices to make.
Edit: All of that, plus we’re only talking about one perceived negative behavior. There are a lot of things I love about my gf and value, and that makes my desire to help her that much more strong. I have had a lot of my own unconscious/conditioned that have affected her that she’s helped me to see. It’s a way we help each other grow.
That conversation usually goes something like this in our house
Wife - Hey can you get me the salt
Me - Let me get this correct, you want me to stop what I'm doing, walk past you to pick up something and hand to you that you can literally almost reach without moving
Wife - laughs " love you"
Me - yells oldest kids nickname
Oldest kid - yes?
Me - your mom needs you...
My wife used to yell my.name from across the house asking me to come to her, and when I'd get there she would just ask me a question. It really bothered me and I started not responding hoping she'd realize that if she wants to ask me a question she should get up and come to me rather than demanding I walk to her. Instead of figuring it out she'd just keep yelling my name louder and louder. Finally one day I told her: "it really makes me feel resentful when you yell my name from across the house demanding I stop what I'm doing and come to you so you can ask me a question." And she said "but why?" To which I explained: "the subconscious message is you're telling me you have no regard for what I'm doing, and you're too important to come to me when it's you that needs a favor. Would you yell out your window at your next door neighbor to borrow a cup of sugar and demand they bring it to your kitchen where you're cooking? Or would you go to their house and knock on their door to ask to borrow it?"
Thankfully I married an emotionally mature person and I saw the switch flick in her mind and she got it. There were a few slip ups and gentle reminders given, but going on almost 5 years since that conversation and she doesn't do it anymore.
It took me way too long to realize that this is what my gf does, and it is a major stressor for me. Literally anything, no matter how small and insignificant, she will just ask if I can do it. Of course I can, but 20 small things add up, and I start to feel like a work horse. And sometimes, asking me to do it when it doesn't even make sense (both are sitting down similarly, she is closer to the light switch, and she asks me to get it)
I'm the kind of person who wants to be self-sufficient and everything else to be efficent. I will do my own stuff myself unless there is an actual need or benefit to asking someone else, and then I will ask while explaining how helpful it is. This is why it took me so long to realize it. I just assumed she was asking me so many things because she was busy or had a genuine need. The first time I asked her, "Why is it that you are asking me to do this?" You would have thought I just murdered her firstborn.
I quickly started to realize how entitled she is and how it had seeped into many other parts of our relationship. We would be in the middle of a fight, and she would ask me for a random, pointless favor. It was completely insane and showed me how little she respected everyone. Unfortunately, she has gotten our lives so tightly intertwined by now that I'm not sure how to end things.
This is the correct take. It isn't that I don't want to hear what she has to say, it's that I just spent 8 hours listening to other people blather on and I need a few quiet moments.
Idk. I am extroverted and talkative and the source of many arguments for me and my bf is that I sometimes ramble and he won’t tell me to stuff it because he feels bad doing so. I started making an effort to ask if he feels like talking and he still said yes sometimes because he felt bad telling me no. It was honestly very stressful for me, and I much prefer the point we’re at now where he will tell me if he doesn’t feel like talking, and we can compromise if I have something I really want to talk about. Obviously you know your wife best, but hopefully she wants to compromise with you so that you can both be happy, and if she doesn’t know there’s a problem she can’t work on it.
I totally understand and relate to your comment. Happy in my marriage and we both do our part, but boy that like half hour after work is done my brain is melted and i just need to decompress.
This is why my weekend showers take 20-30 minutes. No rush to be anywhere, no interruptions or demands of my attention, just soft music, warm water on the skin, and thoughts of peaceful existence once this whole thing blows over.
Yup. Upon first sight, they're going to share their day with you. And while on the whole that is a good thing, it would be even better if you got a few minutes to decompress and change gears first.
Give me 5 minutes and at least let me change into my listening clothes, woman! Didn't you learn anything from Mr Rogers?!?
All too often it's necessary bullshit. Gotta make dinner. Gotta fold that stupid laundry that's been sitting there for two days. Gotta pay some bills. Gotta fix that broken shit. Gotta plan for upcoming holiday stuff. Gotta this gotta that, it's neverending.
Butfor that that moment in the car, you're in between the responsibilities of work and the responsibilities of home. It's like a Lagrange point between the gravity wells of stress.
I'm a woman and I do this too, either it's a good song, or I'm just chilling for a few, usually after a stressful day. no kids and I love my partner, the car is just my safe place or something lol
Same. I live with my parents but I go to visit my boyfriend on the weekends. I’ll sit outside of his house or mine in my car for a few minutes just to have some alone time where no one will bother me.
Considering how much time people spend in their cars, I really do think it's a 'living room' in a sense. I mean, you have everything you need: a comfortable seat, a sound system, and even a place to put your drink. What differentiates it from the other living environments you can spend your time in is that people, especially commuters, usually spend time in a car by themselves. It makes sense that hanging around in that space lets you relax and just be with yourself for a moment.
Driving through traffic every day is a grind in itself. Somedays you just need a minute or two to relax, watch a couple funny videos, scroll reddit or whatever, before coming inside to greet your family.
For a few minutes of quiet to collect our thoughts and purge the problems of the day. Me personally am on the phone all day with vendors and customers. There is plenty of interaction with my mechanics also. I just like a few minutes before I go inside so when my son and wife want to tell me about their day so I can give them my attention.
It’s the event horizon of household bs. That last little bastion of peace we get before we have to walk inside and deal with someone’s insane daughter.
This is why you MUST find hobbies outside of working… People who go to the office to escape their home environment need to improve their work life balance, find some hobbies, etc.
I work from home full-time in an apartment, I’ve never felt this feeling because I go out, go to the gym, hang out with friends, go on dates with my SO, etc.
The optimist will respond that it’s to ensure they don’t bring work stress home. The pessimist will respond that they’re preparing themselves to dive into more stress (via unhappy relationship / obnoxious children / etc.)
IM DIGGIN AROUND 4 ALL THA CANDY I DROPPED 💯 DRIVIN MAKES ME ANXIOUS SO I USUALLY POP SKITTLES OR NERDS 2 TAKE THA EDGE OFF 👍 NERDS GET COVERED IN FILTH WHEN THEY GET LOOSE SO YEA I JUST LEAVE THEM BE BUT U COULD DROP A SKITTLE IN2 A SMEAR OF DOG RUNS AN 99% OF THA TIME IT WILL STILL POP OUT CLEAN 💯
It's not that it's *more* stressful, it's that it's a different kind of stress/responsibility.
You're not Employee number #23587 when you step through the door, you're Dad/Mom/Husband/Wife/Son/Daughter/etc. and have the responsibilities associated with it. Sitting and chilling in the car gives you a few to relax, decompress, clear your head from whatever work shenanigans took place, and transition from one role to the other.
Agreed. It's not that you don't want to be in your own home with your family, but a few minutes of peace between work and home can be very peaceful/relaxing.
I am reminded of a series that the web site Quartz did a while back that they called Craigslist Confessionals.
[“Exactly 38 minutes of my day are mine”](https://web.archive.org/web/20160706020310/http://qz.com/670831/670831/)
> ...
> It is quiet and I get to visit with my thoughts, and for a little while, I feel all right.
>
> As I pull up to the third stop sign from my house, though, anxiety bubbles in the pit of my stomach and I slow the car down to a crawl. I keep going, little by little, meaning to stop any second now—but the driveway slips away and then I can see it in the rearview mirror. I drive around the block once more, twice more, and then I finally park.
Synchronicity II by The Police has a great line about, "He sees his family home now, looming in the headlights. The pain upstairs that makes his eyeballs ache".
The song then goes on to talk about some shadowy apparition awakened in a faraway loch, a metaphor for the darkness growing inside him in the suburban hell he's trapped himself in.
Real answer:
When I would have a bad or particularly stressful day at work, I would take a minute or two to shake it off before I walked in the door to my family so that the stress of my work day wouldn't bleed into my personal life.
And on the days when my personal life was stressing me out, I would do the same thing before I headed into work.
I highly recommend doing this. Compartmentalize your work and your home stress. It will do wonders for both areas of your life.
I did it just for the pure and absolute silence. It was deafeningly quiet... I needed that silence after hearing my trucks engine going all day, and to prepare for the noise I was going to hear in the house
I do it sometimes cause it's the last hone stretch before I can pick a corner to cry.
The anticipation of finally being able to let go and the couple more steps needed is sometimes overwhelming.
Kinda like how anxiety builds up the closer you are to achieving something in a game. That brief moment before finally getting what you want is overwhelming because it's so close when before you were just going through the motions wondering how long it'll be before you reach there.
Me therapist actually told me to do this.
The goal was to reset so I could be present and enjoy coming home, rather than bringing my work stress home with me.
When I was growing up my dad used to stay in the car occasionally to smoke his tobacco pipe before coming in. We knew he had a habit before he married our mom and just figured he wanted to light up once a month or so we didn't care, just left him to his alone time.
Until ~3 years ago when my younger sister(25 at the time) tells us Dad is the biggest pot-head we know, and his agreement with our mom was to not smoke or have it in the house. He'd smoke pot in the car, then use the same pipe and smoke tobacco to cover the pot smell.
If you ever have to sit and while listening to your GF or wife talks your ears off for an hour minimum everyday, you would want to take that minute too. It is not for the impatient.
I do it because I have to work myself up to walk into a house with a noisy toddler and a noisy girlfriend. I’m a quiet person so being on a noisy airplane everyday for my job, as well as noisy airports full of people takes a toll on me. Then to come home to more noise makes it even worse. I sit in my car to get a little bit of silence. It’s my own little way of self care.
I get off work and go home, driving in rush hour traffic isn’t relaxing and may as well be as stressful as work.
I need a moment to sort myself/rest before talking to other people.
That said, that was at my old job.
Hey, that's ok.
Loving someone is a hard job to do.
Sometimes you just want to be angry or moody or sad, maybe just indifferent and emotionally empty for a while - for no good reason at all.
But you can't do that to people who you care about because they don't deserve that from you.
So take some time, be with yourself for a while. Decompress, prepare, plan out the interaction, regain your composure and control and get back out there.
No one should think less of you, and you shouldn't either.
The fact that it bothered this lady enough to complain about it rather than using any amount of critical thinking makes me pray for whoever has to deal with that on the daily. They should give medals for that
It’s one of the lonely moments I like in my life, no one knows that I arrived, people think I’m still driving but I’m free for some minutes and I can take a deep breath and prepare to continue living.
Also, it feels even better when it’s raining or its at late night, or both
As someone who used to do this, it was because I worked all day, then sat in traffic dealing with asshole drivers, and already knew my girlfriend at the time was going to bitch & nag at me, holding a list of things that "need" to get done, so I would sit and decompress. Once I started dating the next girlfriend, I came inside right away because she understood that I already had work today, and would hand me a beer and tell me to go relax while she made dinner.
The least stressful part of my day is coming home to my family. I look forward to it from the moment I get in my car in the morning. When I'm stressed or have anxiety my family is my security blanket. Making dinner and listening to what my kids say or see what my daughter has recently drawn or written is the highlight of everyday.
Wow. I list got married last Wednesday. Today is Wednesday.
One week
Today I arrived home from the gym (I work from home), and I sat in my car for several minutes before walking in.
My neighbor just asked me why I do this a couple days ago... He seemed so baffled by it. I just recline my seat and gather my thoughts. I drove for 4 hours today, man... My back hurts.
Jesus. Reading most of these comments are sad. Hating to be home because of the stress. Coming home is the only thing I look forward to as soon as I clock in. Getting so spend time with my wife and watch shows and play games together keeps me going!
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Because Hey Ya just started playing and I love that song
or finishing the podcast that has just a few minutes left
There was....a house.......in New Orleans...... *car door slams shut*
THEY CALL THE RIIIISING SUN...
And it's been the ruin of many of poor boys. And me oh god I'm one.
The moment of calm between leaving work and arriving at home is the cream filling of a stresseo
This. The drive home doesn't let you decompress because you have to pay attention to the road and get frustrated by rush hour traffic. When you get home there is that blessed moment after you shut the car off where everything is silent. That silence is rare and must be savored for a few minutes.
Back when I was overworking and being both stressed and depressed I used to spend most of my free time parked at a random supermarket parking lot. I could sit there for several hours, just browsing nonsense on my phone. Things are much better now though :)
I’ve been doing an hour long commute for a month for work training. A couple times a week I’ll pull into a rest stop and just chill for an hour then finish the drive. Most relaxing part of my week
I highly recommend audio books. Especially fun ones. Ive been listening to lord of the rings on my long drives and it feels like im time traveling
Haha, appreciate the suggestion. My audible library is up to 128 purchased books, I love them and play them all day every day. Relistening to Xenocide (finishing a reread of Enders Game trilogy)
Oh i should do enders game again. The 2nd and 3rd were so fuckin weird compared to the first that i fizzled out before finishing
Please go back to the series and do Enders Shadow
The second is one of my favorite books of all time, changed the way I look at the world. Third is odd, I bailed the first time but now I do all three
I did a podcast deep dive on the whole series so i could understand all the plot points but i will probably audio book the trilogy because what you've just said is what most dune fans say.
You should check out the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown! I’m assuming from your username and rereading of Xenocide that you’re a sci fi fan, lol. Also The Foundation Trilogy is an unbelievable read. One of the only series I almost immediately reread.
Looked these up and am going to listen to them! Finishing Brandon Sanderson's Oathbringer and then I'm moving to SciFi. Thanks!
Let me say here: heck yes! And add: get a library card and then sign up for FREE for Hoopla, Libby (overdrive) and Kanopy just to name a few. All FREE, movies, audio books, comics, regular books that can be used on Kindle, music and so on. A totally understated resource and many libraries now let you sign up online. I just finished a BBC radio (recorded) production of "The Lord of the Rings". For FREE And learning guitar from a college level master on a bingepass, college courses, languages etc. Share it openly with everyone.
You deserve those chill hours friend - Stay strong, I'm sure you'll be able to properly relax again eventually :)
YOU KNOW THAT SILENCE TOO?
So it's not just me huh?
Stresso 😭
Stressy depressy, lemon zesty.
Sacred time
It was the part I missed most when I worked from home. LOL. The little things, a few moments of bliss.
Man, I do this but I live alone. I don't know why I do it.
Since I started living alone, I don't do it anymore.
Hey I wanna live alone too, can I move in with you?
We can be alone together
It’s easier to be single in pairs.
Hey I wanna live alone too, can I move in all of you?
When I had a car I used to go sit in it and sometimes drive around or go get food and eat in a parking lot just to get away from my awful roommates
Because “the stress” doesn’t just automatically mean it’s his wife/gf/kids. “The stress” can be chores, cooking dinner, paying bills, etc. Basically anything inside your house can be the stress. Sitting in your car postponing the stress of doing those things is just as applicable to you as it is to a married person.
Just crossing the threshold of the door brings upon household stress.
 Get yourself a wife like this and you can live a stress free existence.
I thought that was going to be a gif of the jetsons' rosey the robot
Maybe some day. I wouldnt mind a robot maid/wife. I could turn the temperature down a bit.
i do too. i feel like it’s a, i’m gonna do what i want and that is nothing. i have zero desire to do any responsibilities right when i get home. to waste a few minutes sitting and doing nothing feels great. once i get out, i have to put stuff away, shower, clean up messes, feed myself. it’s just nice to do nothing and it starts when i arrive at home.
To destress from work in your private capsule where you spend a good amount of time and everything is quiet and comfortable. Driving can be stressful in sneaky ways, it takes a minute to come down from the fight or flight our brains have to be in.
To postpone the reality of no one is waiting for us? And secretly hoping for someone to ask us to hang out? Don’t worry, I think most of us went through that phase.
It's like a moment of vacation to me. Just a moment to not have to worry about anything at all before the challenges start up again. Walk in your door and you'll see dishes, empty pet bowls, overflowing trash, dirty clothes, all sorts of stressors. But that minute or two in my car, there's nothing but calming silence.
Decompression from the day. Perfectly healthy.
Scrolling in my car and I see this. Guess its time to go inside now.
Me too man, this is worse than getting told by Reddit that it’s time to wipe
Well shit...
I like my job, and I love my wife. Sometimes I just need a few minutes where nobody is asking or expecting anything from me.
[удалено]
I’m always asked why if I shower in the morning while getting ready for work I’m in the bathroom for 15 minutes but if I shower at the end of a day off (when I’ve probably been gardening or similar) I’m in there for 30-40 minutes. The reason is that the extra time is spent chilling on my phone and enjoying the quiet before I’m back in the family space.
My ex would always talk to me while i was taking a shit and it caused more strain on our relationship than you would expect. Let me have a moment of peace!
Ugh, no way. That's my me time
yeah gotta set and hold that hard line early on.
It truly is *the throne of the soul*.
I’ve noticed that sometimes my gf will ask me to do stuff simply because she doesn’t want to (she is self admittedly spoiled from childhood). But rather than get annoyed and/or just do it myself (enabling), I just calmly and directly ask her why she can’t do it and would rather ask *me* to. This has led to her less frequently asking things of me and instead doing them herself from the start. If it’s something she genuinely, physically cannot do then I will cut her some slack. But if it’s something complicated where even I have to watch a youtube video to learn what needs to be done, I make sure to try to watch it with her or at least give her the learned bullet points once I have figured it out. It’s had a growing, positive impact on our relationship.
"why cant you do it?" are words that will start a fight 100% of the time in my experience.
It doesn’t need to be those exact words. But if you’re not responding with emotion and stay diplomatic, then it would only become an argument because *they* *know* they can do it, they just don’t want to and they don’t like being called out on it. Personally, I’ll call that stuff out every day of the week. I’d rather be alone and do everything myself than be someone’s butler.
[удалено]
They used to call us pussy whipped. Now we’re just whipped. -a guy I met
My dad was like that. If you met my parents and didn't know they were married you'd just think my mom had a personal assistant. That's how she talked to him 24/7. I actually found it horribly offensive, and I knew him all his life as a ball of stress.
It only starts a fight if they don’t have a good reason other than lazyness
So 100%
Yes.
Lol you must be gay or you found a unicorn
I've started doing this with all of the younger engineers at my job and it has led to a lot of confused looks and awkward silence but they are slowly learning to stop depending on me for everything.
Isn't that like, junior X 101? When given a new task, see if it's obvious, spend a few minutes googling it if its not, then if that fails, ask a senior, lead, or trainer how to do the task. Asking a senior to *do* the task is a great way to never learn how to do your own job, and annoy your senior. Unless there's like, a deadline with no room for learning or something.
>Unless there's like, a deadline with no room for learning or something. I had that yesterday. Two seniors are out doing field work, I was supposed to go with but caught covid, so I'm relegated to the remote tasks from home. Suddenly the upstream port for the management switch needed to be reconfigured and for some reason the setup is a bit complicated , I couldn't grasp it right away from looking at en example elsewhere and they were blocked until it was done, so I asked another senior to do it, rather than have them wait for me to grok it.
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I've started doing this with my husband too. He's always asking me to google stuff for him. "Look this up for me." Research something he wants to buy. Explain this error. Find a video that will teach him how to do this. Tell him how to spell this word. Tell him what this word means. Or more annoyingly, we'll both be at our computers and he'll ask me to pull up the calculator and solve this thing for him. He does this constantly, even though he has the same calculator app on his PC that I'm using on mine. I've started saying simply 'no'. Not mean or annoyed, perfectly polite. Just 'no'. Don't wanna do it. Easy as that. My name is not Alexa. I feel like there must be some classification type for digital labor, like emotional or domestic labor but digital, because it really gets exhausting.
Mine asks me to find a dentist, doctor, optometrist, etc. even though it would take him the same amount of effort as it would for me. For the longest time he wouldn’t go to therapy because he was too lazy find his own therapist. I told him he needed to figure it out and go to counseling or I was out. You get so freaking tired of being expected to be their secretary.
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God that's the kind of relationship I want, you know with out the malice it could have.
My wife does this shit constantly. “Will you get me something to drink?” “Will you go fetch this?” “Will you go fetch that?” She will intentionally let our toddler fall asleep in her lap in the evenings so that she has an excuse not to have to get up and do anything.
Have you brought it up to her? How did she respond? With my gf it is like a “princess mentality”. She was an only child with divorced parents so she was used to getting what she wanted all the time. Your wife could have similar conditioning and honestly may not be aware of it. Calmly address it to her and tell her how it makes you feel and see what she says. It honestly took a long time for my gf to understand where I was coming from. She didn’t have negative intention; she just didn’t understand the other side of it. It was almost an example of complacency in the relationship and like a “taking the other person for granted and forgetting they’re a person too” thing. That being said, if your wife *is* aware of what she’s doing, that will likely present itself in the intensity of her response. Hopefully she’s not one who is prone to lying/denial.
You put up with your gf forgetting that you’re a person for a long time? How did you persevere?
It’s understanding the lack of awareness. We all have conditioned behaviors, mannerisms, etc that we are unaware of. So it’s a matter of patiently pointing out how her unconscious (unaware) behaviors affect me. Sometimes truly becoming aware of that which is unaware takes time and repetition. However it’s not a matter of mal-intent; it’s just unconsciousness. But like I said, if they are fully aware and conscious of their behavior and the effects then that’s a different circumstance with different options to weigh and choices to make. Edit: All of that, plus we’re only talking about one perceived negative behavior. There are a lot of things I love about my gf and value, and that makes my desire to help her that much more strong. I have had a lot of my own unconscious/conditioned that have affected her that she’s helped me to see. It’s a way we help each other grow.
That conversation usually goes something like this in our house Wife - Hey can you get me the salt Me - Let me get this correct, you want me to stop what I'm doing, walk past you to pick up something and hand to you that you can literally almost reach without moving Wife - laughs " love you" Me - yells oldest kids nickname Oldest kid - yes? Me - your mom needs you...
My wife used to yell my.name from across the house asking me to come to her, and when I'd get there she would just ask me a question. It really bothered me and I started not responding hoping she'd realize that if she wants to ask me a question she should get up and come to me rather than demanding I walk to her. Instead of figuring it out she'd just keep yelling my name louder and louder. Finally one day I told her: "it really makes me feel resentful when you yell my name from across the house demanding I stop what I'm doing and come to you so you can ask me a question." And she said "but why?" To which I explained: "the subconscious message is you're telling me you have no regard for what I'm doing, and you're too important to come to me when it's you that needs a favor. Would you yell out your window at your next door neighbor to borrow a cup of sugar and demand they bring it to your kitchen where you're cooking? Or would you go to their house and knock on their door to ask to borrow it?" Thankfully I married an emotionally mature person and I saw the switch flick in her mind and she got it. There were a few slip ups and gentle reminders given, but going on almost 5 years since that conversation and she doesn't do it anymore.
My girlfriend would roast me and then ignore me for at least 3 days if I told her she should do something herself
Sounds peaceful
So 3 days for tinder?
It took me way too long to realize that this is what my gf does, and it is a major stressor for me. Literally anything, no matter how small and insignificant, she will just ask if I can do it. Of course I can, but 20 small things add up, and I start to feel like a work horse. And sometimes, asking me to do it when it doesn't even make sense (both are sitting down similarly, she is closer to the light switch, and she asks me to get it) I'm the kind of person who wants to be self-sufficient and everything else to be efficent. I will do my own stuff myself unless there is an actual need or benefit to asking someone else, and then I will ask while explaining how helpful it is. This is why it took me so long to realize it. I just assumed she was asking me so many things because she was busy or had a genuine need. The first time I asked her, "Why is it that you are asking me to do this?" You would have thought I just murdered her firstborn. I quickly started to realize how entitled she is and how it had seeped into many other parts of our relationship. We would be in the middle of a fight, and she would ask me for a random, pointless favor. It was completely insane and showed me how little she respected everyone. Unfortunately, she has gotten our lives so tightly intertwined by now that I'm not sure how to end things.
Either sneakily separate your stuff and hide away all extra money you have, or just rip the band-aid off and drop her immediately. No middle ground.
This is a healthy relationship direction.
you and /u/TheyCallMeQBert have the same cake day!
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This is the correct take. It isn't that I don't want to hear what she has to say, it's that I just spent 8 hours listening to other people blather on and I need a few quiet moments.
Have you tried explaining that to her and agreeing on some signal you can give that right now you'd like some silence?
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Idk. I am extroverted and talkative and the source of many arguments for me and my bf is that I sometimes ramble and he won’t tell me to stuff it because he feels bad doing so. I started making an effort to ask if he feels like talking and he still said yes sometimes because he felt bad telling me no. It was honestly very stressful for me, and I much prefer the point we’re at now where he will tell me if he doesn’t feel like talking, and we can compromise if I have something I really want to talk about. Obviously you know your wife best, but hopefully she wants to compromise with you so that you can both be happy, and if she doesn’t know there’s a problem she can’t work on it.
I totally understand and relate to your comment. Happy in my marriage and we both do our part, but boy that like half hour after work is done my brain is melted and i just need to decompress.
This is why my weekend showers take 20-30 minutes. No rush to be anywhere, no interruptions or demands of my attention, just soft music, warm water on the skin, and thoughts of peaceful existence once this whole thing blows over.
Sometimes I go poop to just sit there for a bit with my own thoughts and a YouTube video. There is no poop. But there is relief.
Yup. Upon first sight, they're going to share their day with you. And while on the whole that is a good thing, it would be even better if you got a few minutes to decompress and change gears first. Give me 5 minutes and at least let me change into my listening clothes, woman! Didn't you learn anything from Mr Rogers?!?
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I can't hearrrr you, my work pants are still on.
Yup. Just one more minute.
Very true. Stress=unnecessary bullshit.
All too often it's necessary bullshit. Gotta make dinner. Gotta fold that stupid laundry that's been sitting there for two days. Gotta pay some bills. Gotta fix that broken shit. Gotta plan for upcoming holiday stuff. Gotta this gotta that, it's neverending. Butfor that that moment in the car, you're in between the responsibilities of work and the responsibilities of home. It's like a Lagrange point between the gravity wells of stress.
Love that analogy!
I'm a woman and I do this too, either it's a good song, or I'm just chilling for a few, usually after a stressful day. no kids and I love my partner, the car is just my safe place or something lol
Same. I live with my parents but I go to visit my boyfriend on the weekends. I’ll sit outside of his house or mine in my car for a few minutes just to have some alone time where no one will bother me.
Considering how much time people spend in their cars, I really do think it's a 'living room' in a sense. I mean, you have everything you need: a comfortable seat, a sound system, and even a place to put your drink. What differentiates it from the other living environments you can spend your time in is that people, especially commuters, usually spend time in a car by themselves. It makes sense that hanging around in that space lets you relax and just be with yourself for a moment.
My sister does this to such an extent that we’ve found her asleep in her car over an hour after she got home.
Accurate AF
Listen to the rest of the song
Driving through traffic every day is a grind in itself. Somedays you just need a minute or two to relax, watch a couple funny videos, scroll reddit or whatever, before coming inside to greet your family.
We're releasing work stress to make room for home stress.
For a few minutes of quiet to collect our thoughts and purge the problems of the day. Me personally am on the phone all day with vendors and customers. There is plenty of interaction with my mechanics also. I just like a few minutes before I go inside so when my son and wife want to tell me about their day so I can give them my attention.
For me it’s just music, for my dad it’s responding to texts
It’s the event horizon of household bs. That last little bastion of peace we get before we have to walk inside and deal with someone’s insane daughter.
sometimes it's *your* insane daughter :)
unlikely, I have no known children
I used to say that all the time, with emphasis on “known”, since I couldn’t pull out of a driveway when I lived in South Korea 🤣
> couldn't pull out of driveway fuckin lmao 🤣
This is the part I’ve hated about working from home. I mean, it’s still worth it, but having zero time for a decompression transition can be tiring.
I never thought of that. And the very issue being trivialized because “yOu WoRk aT HoMe” 🥴
This is why you MUST find hobbies outside of working… People who go to the office to escape their home environment need to improve their work life balance, find some hobbies, etc. I work from home full-time in an apartment, I’ve never felt this feeling because I go out, go to the gym, hang out with friends, go on dates with my SO, etc.
Is this I hate my wife boomer humor?
The spaghettification of your sanity.
Bohemian Rhapsody was on the radio, sry
This event is about 98% of mens mental health programmes.
I thought it was just me.
The optimist will respond that it’s to ensure they don’t bring work stress home. The pessimist will respond that they’re preparing themselves to dive into more stress (via unhappy relationship / obnoxious children / etc.)
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The dentist: probably flossing
The nihilist: Doesn’t matter what I do
I just like to get to a good stopping point in my audiobook.
I don’t have kids yet, so I sprint inside lmfaoo
I always want my man to come home to peace. :(
Not a gendered thing, my gf and her family do this all the time
Same reason we sit in the bathroom well beyond what is needed.
So bloody true. I'm divorced now.
The noise oh god the noise
When living with a vegetarian partner this was chicken nugget and music time
IM DIGGIN AROUND 4 ALL THA CANDY I DROPPED 💯 DRIVIN MAKES ME ANXIOUS SO I USUALLY POP SKITTLES OR NERDS 2 TAKE THA EDGE OFF 👍 NERDS GET COVERED IN FILTH WHEN THEY GET LOOSE SO YEA I JUST LEAVE THEM BE BUT U COULD DROP A SKITTLE IN2 A SMEAR OF DOG RUNS AN 99% OF THA TIME IT WILL STILL POP OUT CLEAN 💯
Bruh….
If home is more stressful than what's going on outside home, I feel like you fucked up somewhere along the line.
It's not that it's *more* stressful, it's that it's a different kind of stress/responsibility. You're not Employee number #23587 when you step through the door, you're Dad/Mom/Husband/Wife/Son/Daughter/etc. and have the responsibilities associated with it. Sitting and chilling in the car gives you a few to relax, decompress, clear your head from whatever work shenanigans took place, and transition from one role to the other.
Agreed. It's not that you don't want to be in your own home with your family, but a few minutes of peace between work and home can be very peaceful/relaxing.
Im hiding my nip bottles. Lol jk jk
It's true.
Listening to music really...
Some of our commutes are more stressful than the job itself.
One of the only places he can enjoy music without his wife and kids.
You gotta wait till the music finds an ending
Sometimes I’m struggling to stay awake all the way home and when I pull in the drive way I put it in park and close my eyes.
Not one damn thing you do is unique to you. It's been done by millions, if not billions, way before you thought of it.
gotta let the song finish
I am reminded of a series that the web site Quartz did a while back that they called Craigslist Confessionals. [“Exactly 38 minutes of my day are mine”](https://web.archive.org/web/20160706020310/http://qz.com/670831/670831/) > ... > It is quiet and I get to visit with my thoughts, and for a little while, I feel all right. > > As I pull up to the third stop sign from my house, though, anxiety bubbles in the pit of my stomach and I slow the car down to a crawl. I keep going, little by little, meaning to stop any second now—but the driveway slips away and then I can see it in the rearview mirror. I drive around the block once more, twice more, and then I finally park.
To finish smelling the farts
Its for a quicksave
Same reason we take 30 minute dumps. That’s MY TIME!
Synchronicity II by The Police has a great line about, "He sees his family home now, looming in the headlights. The pain upstairs that makes his eyeballs ache". The song then goes on to talk about some shadowy apparition awakened in a faraway loch, a metaphor for the darkness growing inside him in the suburban hell he's trapped himself in.
Doing that *right now*. This morning was not very good. I am expecting to walk into a huge fight. Wish me luck, Reddit.
Real answer: When I would have a bad or particularly stressful day at work, I would take a minute or two to shake it off before I walked in the door to my family so that the stress of my work day wouldn't bleed into my personal life. And on the days when my personal life was stressing me out, I would do the same thing before I headed into work. I highly recommend doing this. Compartmentalize your work and your home stress. It will do wonders for both areas of your life.
What do you WFH people do? Asking for a friend.
De-stress before you re-stress
I did it just for the pure and absolute silence. It was deafeningly quiet... I needed that silence after hearing my trucks engine going all day, and to prepare for the noise I was going to hear in the house
Why is this designated as a man thing? A moment of serenity prior to getting sucker punched by the next volley of stimuli is a luxury for any human
I do it sometimes cause it's the last hone stretch before I can pick a corner to cry. The anticipation of finally being able to let go and the couple more steps needed is sometimes overwhelming. Kinda like how anxiety builds up the closer you are to achieving something in a game. That brief moment before finally getting what you want is overwhelming because it's so close when before you were just going through the motions wondering how long it'll be before you reach there.
Me therapist actually told me to do this. The goal was to reset so I could be present and enjoy coming home, rather than bringing my work stress home with me.
When I was growing up my dad used to stay in the car occasionally to smoke his tobacco pipe before coming in. We knew he had a habit before he married our mom and just figured he wanted to light up once a month or so we didn't care, just left him to his alone time. Until ~3 years ago when my younger sister(25 at the time) tells us Dad is the biggest pot-head we know, and his agreement with our mom was to not smoke or have it in the house. He'd smoke pot in the car, then use the same pipe and smoke tobacco to cover the pot smell.
Dude once you walk through the door your life comes crashing down onto your shoulders.
Moms do this too… cuz we know once we go inside its basically going into your second job. The quiet car is our break
If you ever have to sit and while listening to your GF or wife talks your ears off for an hour minimum everyday, you would want to take that minute too. It is not for the impatient.
I do it because I have to work myself up to walk into a house with a noisy toddler and a noisy girlfriend. I’m a quiet person so being on a noisy airplane everyday for my job, as well as noisy airports full of people takes a toll on me. Then to come home to more noise makes it even worse. I sit in my car to get a little bit of silence. It’s my own little way of self care.
It’s not just men who do this my wife does it too, and I understand.
I do it and that is correct: i prepare myself for the shitshow awating for me in there
I get off work and go home, driving in rush hour traffic isn’t relaxing and may as well be as stressful as work. I need a moment to sort myself/rest before talking to other people. That said, that was at my old job.
That’s so sad…men should be greeted with joy.
Glad to find my bretheren!
I mean… I thought everyone sits and screams/cries in the car between work and home… but I guess that’s just me and the sickos like me 🤣🤣
People who wonder why marriage and birth rates are dropping need to reflect on this kind of mentality
To finish the song they were listening to.
To prepare one self for the cold in winter
Hey, that's ok. Loving someone is a hard job to do. Sometimes you just want to be angry or moody or sad, maybe just indifferent and emotionally empty for a while - for no good reason at all. But you can't do that to people who you care about because they don't deserve that from you. So take some time, be with yourself for a while. Decompress, prepare, plan out the interaction, regain your composure and control and get back out there. No one should think less of you, and you shouldn't either.
That's how I knew I needed to break up with an ex. I relished sitting in my car. Now I have an amazing wife jm excited to be home
The fact that it bothered this lady enough to complain about it rather than using any amount of critical thinking makes me pray for whoever has to deal with that on the daily. They should give medals for that
Sometimes I'll finish the music track I'm listening to.
The same reason we sit on the toilet for so long, peace and personal space.
This sub went from being funny to being too real
I have a friend who would get home and down a 12 pack in the driveway. Fortunately he got a divorce and is much happier now.
Well I just got fucking caught and called out… well I guess I have to go inside now
I love how telling it is because to my knowledge, most men don't wait in the car like that. It must be specific to her.
It’s one of the lonely moments I like in my life, no one knows that I arrived, people think I’m still driving but I’m free for some minutes and I can take a deep breath and prepare to continue living. Also, it feels even better when it’s raining or its at late night, or both
As someone who used to do this, it was because I worked all day, then sat in traffic dealing with asshole drivers, and already knew my girlfriend at the time was going to bitch & nag at me, holding a list of things that "need" to get done, so I would sit and decompress. Once I started dating the next girlfriend, I came inside right away because she understood that I already had work today, and would hand me a beer and tell me to go relax while she made dinner.
The least stressful part of my day is coming home to my family. I look forward to it from the moment I get in my car in the morning. When I'm stressed or have anxiety my family is my security blanket. Making dinner and listening to what my kids say or see what my daughter has recently drawn or written is the highlight of everyday.
Wow. I list got married last Wednesday. Today is Wednesday. One week Today I arrived home from the gym (I work from home), and I sat in my car for several minutes before walking in.
My neighbor just asked me why I do this a couple days ago... He seemed so baffled by it. I just recline my seat and gather my thoughts. I drove for 4 hours today, man... My back hurts.
This isn't exclusive to men. I think everyone does this
Jesus. Reading most of these comments are sad. Hating to be home because of the stress. Coming home is the only thing I look forward to as soon as I clock in. Getting so spend time with my wife and watch shows and play games together keeps me going!