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A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem

theatlantic.com

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Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem

#271

Post by steveBK123 »

The glass near the sink instead of in the dishwasher thing I kind of get - it's like going halfway to solving the problem. If you want to use a dish again, don't put it into the gray zone near the sink. Leave it on your desk or the kitchen table or whatever you were using it or might use it again. If you are done, wash it or put it in the dishwasher to be washed. Leaving dirty stuff near the sink is ambiguous - easy to get mixed in with the clean dishes while you are emptying dishwasher to put them away.

Mostly it reeks of asking the other partner to finish the job. I'd wager this guy didn't do the dishes more of than not either. A lot of men genuinely don't help out around the house and don't understand why it upsets their wife so much.

From a gender roles inversion perspective this would be like if your wife bagged up the trash from the bin and then just left it next to the bin instead of taking it out. So now you have a dirty bag of garbage on the floor until someone decides to take it out. Almost a worse situation than just leaving the bin full.

Regardless of whether an issue is petty or not, if a spouse indicates it bothers them for whatever reason, and the other spouse just basically ignores it, this is a recipe for disaster.

Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem

#272

Post by em-bee »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #245
em-bee wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem with hired help is that is severely reduces the privacy of your home because you always have someone around who is not family. depending on your culture this can be a serious dampener on things like intimacy in your relationship. my understanding is that in india you don't even show intimacy in front of your children, so this part is very much limited to your bedroom. which means the hired help is rarely…

Define ‘intimacy’.

intimacy is very different culturally. but generally it is any physical interaction with your partner.

to give you an example, i have heard from an indian friend that they would not touch their husband in front of their kids. no holding hands, hugging or kissing of any kind. i don't know if that is common in indian culture. i am not trying to generalize.

the point that matters is that i feel very restrained in how i act when our housekeeper is present.

Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem

#273

Post by jelliclesfarm »

em-bee wrote: post #205
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It is not ‘always women’. Men are also rankled by such things. 2. Women have to deal with the pressure of feminism. For example: I like to cook. I love feeding people and don’t think of it as chore that oppressed women, but I have friends who will not cook(and I know they don’t hate cooking) because they have to make a feminist point. 3. I grew up in India and there is a very vibrant food culture. To be able to co…

the problem with hired help is that is severely reduces the privacy of your home because you always have someone around who is not family. depending on your culture this can be a serious dampener on things like intimacy in your relationship. my understanding is that in india you don't even show intimacy in front of your children, so this part is very much limited to your bedroom. which means the hired help is rarely…

I have never heard display of intimacy being connected to the decision to employ hired house help before. I am revisiting this just to register my marvel at the perception dreamed up about india in the rest of the world. East and west, they will never meet. I am going with the assumption that you were sincere, but this gross generalization can be construed as a little odd. I never imagine how the westerners are intimate or conflate that to regular way of life even though I have lived in both sides of the cultural world. Thanks once again for opening up my mind to acknowledge the differences between the east and the west.

Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem

#274

Post by mise_en_place »

pdimitar wrote: post #171
toomuchtodo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't recommend this book enough on the topic. TLDR Women are more picky then Men in the courtship marketplace, and finding a partner with matching values is most important to growing and staying together. People expect a fairy tale, when they're signing up for a job (relationships require work and effort). A quote from the author 10 years post publishing: “I think the book is really, ironically, about having highe…

> People expect a fairy tale, when they're signing up for a job. Nope. BS. And I am saying this as a guy with one failed marriage and now with a super happy one going stronger than before even, 8 years down the line. Stop perpetuating work ethic when it comes to feelings and partnership, please. Relationships can be beautiful in literally every way. Maybe just keep looking and don't generalize because that makes you…

It's not so much work ethic as it is mental discipline. If you have not mastered yourself when it comes to the dishes, you cannot master yourself in tough periods of life, and so on. You have to be present in each moment, regardless of whether it's doing dishes or having the best day of your life.

Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem

#275

Post by a_puppy »

rhacker wrote: post #251

This is how I read this. The wife may have long ago brought up some argument that was "banned". In other words - bread winner conversations. Bread winners often have this trait: I make all the money, and I can only do that by working my butt off. So you need to take care of all the other things. No questions. This is why the dishes is such a huge deal now: Since the ACTUAL conversation is banned (by the man) the only…

This is an interesting point of view. I don't know enough about their relationship to know whether that's what was going on. But, I do want to point out something else in your comment:

> She now has to wash and put away the glass.

No she doesn't. She can just leave it there. She can leave her own glasses there, too.

The pressure to keep the counter clean isn't coming from the husband. He doesn't give a damn how many dishes are on the counter. It's coming from an expectation of femininity that she's internalized: "a wife is supposed to keep the counter free of dishes". The husband isn't helping her meet this expectation, but he isn't imposing the expectation on her, either.

I'm not married, but I see this theme in a lot of fights over household chores: it's not that the husband expects his wife to do all the chores, it's that he doesn't actually believe the chores need to be done.

Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem

#276

Post by treis »

raydev wrote: post #228
treis wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Projecting a lot, I feel like this guy is just a narcissist. Kind of making it all about him but in a way that doesn't portray him in a truly negative light. Also, guessing his ex-wife probably doesn't want a book about her divorce to be part of the national chatter.

Looks like you didn't read the article in full?

I did. Is there a particular point you're trying to make here?

Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem

#277

Post by openknot »

rajin444 wrote: post #137
hn_user82179 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He digs into his marriage a lot more in later blog posts: https://matthewfray.com/an-open-letter-to-shitty-husbands/ . I don't think she used it as an excuse at all, but he's more using this one frequent occurrence as a metaphor for the marriage.

Reading that is wild…does he think he’ll be able to bear the burdens his wife couldn’t? He’s trying to change himself for his partner when he needs to find a different partner. He comes off as having lost all respect and confidence in himself.

I read the article and felt sad. There's a lot of emotionally charged language (repeatedly: "I was a shitty husband"), but stripping away that language, his main point is consistent with his Atlantic article. Namely, that while he tried to be a good husband for the 'big issues' (e.g. never cheating), he was neglectful for the little things, and didn't give her enough attention or care.

My interpretation is that the divorce was somewhat unexpected as there were no major issues besides the 'little things,' but he largely feels that the divorce was out of his locus of control. He's then compensating to assert that it really was in his control, and also severely criticizing himself with emotionally charged language for letting the divorce happen.

Given the information at the time, I don't think the divorce was avoidable. If anything, the ex-spouse at least has an iota responsibility to identify the feelings of neglect, rather than pointing out the neglectful habits without reflecting on why she was so bothered them.

It would be healthiest for him to let it go, and find happiness elsewhere in life (e.g. with another partner and pursuit) and move on as much as possible (though it's hard as he has a kid). It's hard to see him really make the divorce part of his identity, the point where he publishes a book about it, writes in The Atlantic, and even offers divorce counseling services at the end.

Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem

#278

Post by brimble »

giantg2 wrote: post #125
hn_user82179 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He digs into his marriage a lot more in later blog posts: https://matthewfray.com/an-open-letter-to-shitty-husbands/ . I don't think she used it as an excuse at all, but he's more using this one frequent occurrence as a metaphor for the marriage.

To be honest, it feels like a lot of the descriptions of the volumes on that page are strawmen or cherry picked bad examples. Nobody gets divorced for leaving a dish by the sink. They might get divorced because they just don't do anything around the house (aka unequal distribution of work/chores).

I'm pretty sure people absolutely do get divorced because they disagree about how to handle several trivial things.

Those can be insidious. To the one annoyed by the status quo, it can feel like the other person doesn't care about them. To the other, it can feel like their partner's trying to micro-manage a bunch of little things that barely even matter, and that they're "losing" because they find fewer of their partner's habits irritating enough to make a stink over.

Re: A dirty dish by the sink can be a big marriage problem

#280

Post by incomingpain »

rhacker wrote: post #251

This is how I read this. The wife may have long ago brought up some argument that was "banned". In other words - bread winner conversations. Bread winners often have this trait: I make all the money, and I can only do that by working my butt off. So you need to take care of all the other things. No questions. This is why the dishes is such a huge deal now: Since the ACTUAL conversation is banned (by the man) the only…

I read this and feel like I'm the bad guy and I don't understand how.

I'm the breadwinner. I pay 100% of the bills, excluding the 'I went to buy potato chips and ice cream'

I WFH so I also tend to do the majority of chores. Which when I get burnt out or get sick I don't get as many chores done and the house goes to shit. Only ending up punishing myself really.

I also have to 100% of the time decide what's for dinner and either order or cook it. My partner's incapable of making decisions.

My areas of the house(my office for example) are kept orderly and clean. I try my best to keep the rest of the house clean.

But when I leave a pot on the stove over night, I'll hear about it.

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