Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 812 posts

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

#331

Post by incomingpain »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #318
incomingpain wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This sounds like the overfunctioning & underfunctioning relationship pattern. It's not fun to be on either side.

>This sounds like the overfunctioning & underfunctioning relationship pattern. It's not fun to be on either side.

Thanks I'll look into this. Never heard of this.

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

#332

Post by em-bee »

olyjohn wrote: post #305
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…

I mean, I live alone and just pay someone to come in once every two weeks. You don't need someone living there full time. Just outsource some of the major chores. Folding laundry, scrubbing toilets and tubs, cleaning the floors. Cleaners bust through that stuff in a couple of hours and then you've got all your privacy back.

with kids the primary help needed for busy parents is actually making dinner. and laundry gets done every other day. the result is that the helper is around every evening which is the main time the family is at home.

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

#333

Post by brimble »

LegitShady wrote: post #84
NortySpock wrote: post #48

"Is this hill worth dieing on?" is a question I occasionally ask myself. Other ways to put it: "Would taking 10 seconds to do this now make my wife 1% less stressed?" (If so, do the thing to make her less stressed.) "Is it worth starting a fight vs spending the same time just fixing the problem?" "Would spending $COST_OF_THING make my wife happy for a day / make a fond memory of us together?" (Hence why I encourage m…

> "Would taking 10 seconds to do this now make my wife 1% less stressed?" An addition to this unrelated to marriage - if it takes 10 seconds, why isn't it already done instead of considering whether to do it or not? I have a personal rule that unless I have another issue that requires attention right now (like working from home being work time, etc) If it take 5 minutes or less to do it I just do it right away and ne…

> An addition to this unrelated to marriage - if it takes 10 seconds, why isn't it already done instead of considering whether to do it or not?

"I might re-use it" is in the article. It's a matter of preference, and who's more willing to make A Thing out of it, not objective right and wrong. I, for one, think dishes-in-sink (if they can't fit in the dishwasher but it's also not full enough to run yet, or if it's running, or if it's clean and you're in too big a rush to empty it right that second) is worse for a whole list of reasons, unless you have very limited counter space, but we do it anyway, because I don't care enough to insist on doing it my way, and my wife does. Whatevs.

I do wonder how many quietly-very-slightly-suffering spouses there are out there, over this exact issue.

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

#334

Post by SteveGerencser »

I stopped doing dishes and generally cleaning around the house years ago. To start, I started in the restaurant business as a kid and my idea of cleaning a kitchen is wildly different than hers. While I was in restaurants she was in the USAF having other people do things like clean.

After many years of me watching her take everything I washed or put away out and redo it, even emptying the dishwasher just to reload it and wash the dishes became a 'normal' thing. I gave up trying and just leave dishes in the sink or next to it because no matter what I do, she will redo it.

I wait till she's out of town and do a deep clean on the kitchen just so I know it's finally cleaned the way it should be.

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

#335

Post by openknot »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #293
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.

Wait! There is a book. This article is a sales pitch. Read it as fiction. If it’s interesting enough. He is monetizing his divorce. Well..that’s one way..

He's also selling services in "relationship coaching and divorce support coaching."

For what it's worth, I do think he's being genuine, and sounds motivated by the want to spare others from his suffering. However, I just don't think he's qualified, because his solution seems to repeatedly be to care more for your partner without compromising (in excess, this can lead to a well-documented trait by clinical psychologists of "codependency," where one can never do enough for their partner).

There has to be a balance between your interest and your partner's; it's unhealthy and not noble to completely sacrifice your own self-interest for your family's. A person ultimately miserable can't support others, and there is also inherent value in enjoying the opportunity to live for yourself.

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

#338

Post by aidenn0 »

giantg2 wrote: post #162
orwin wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should learn to cook new dishes together. To each their own, especially in their own home, but cooking have inherent value itself for multiple reasons, and teach a lot of soft skills. And cooking together is great, if your wife agree to let you be slow and let you mess up. If you have kids especially: some of my best memories are my parents learning to cook weird asian dishes and fail or succeed together.

I enjoy cooking new stuff. She's completely uninterested in learning.

It's funny, my wife has literally zero interest in learning computer programming in any way. I found that a bit odd, as I'd like to at least learn enough about anything she spends more than, say, 20 hours a week doing so that I can nod in the right places when she complains. Talking with my friend group, nobody found it even the slightest bit odd.

You say your wife has no interest in cooking and everybody loses their mind. Doubly ironic because I would wager on HN, people are probably better programmers than cooks, on average.

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

#339

Post by mwattsun »

It's often the little things that determine the course of a relationship. For example, I took my bike into a shop I hadn't used before. They fixed the back tire, but failed to place the cap on the tube. I may seem like a little thing, but stems leak a bit, so it's important. I'm never going back to them.
Post reply on HN