501–510 of 812 posts
I'd suppose the thing I'd warn here: Remember that, by definition, this article was written by a failure -- meaning that the likelihood that they fully understand the situation even now is still pretty low; especially since they're still likely in a sense seeking validation by writing the article. Ideally, you'd like to hear from a success. And at the risk being the horn-tooter, (married for 15+ years), when I read t…
A lot of folks are misinterpreting this article, or just using it as a jumping off point to get something off their chest. This article is not literally about the dirty dish. It's not even about compromise. Rather, the article is really about having healthy communication with your partner. The author's wife was trying to communicate to him: "when you do X, I feel like Y, and it hurts me." But he wasn't hearing it. No…
Thanks for writing this. I have a question for you, since my marriage ended for reasons similar to this author's. Why is the wife's desire more important than his? In other words, why must the husband live the way the wife wants and compromise is not acceptable (especially if they share cleaning responsibilities) -- compromise could look like "sometimes I do it her way, sometimes I do it my way." Why can't a partner…
If it instead is important to both of you, then you have a fundamental problem that you need to sit down and work through.
Maybe there is a compromise that will leave both of you happy. Maybe one of you is willing to try changing. Or maybe you have an irreconcilable difference and need to split up.
Honestly if you are both ready to consider divorce before you change your dishwashing behavior, that’s a pretty big warning sign that things aren’t on the right track.
An example: I don’t give a shit about clothes on the bedroom floor. No one but me and my wife ever sees them. But it bothers her. It costs me very little to dump the clothes in a hamper, and makes her much happier. So I put my clothes in the hamper as much as I can remember to, and she gives me grace the times I forget. Happily together for 20 years so far.
A lot of folks are misinterpreting this article, or just using it as a jumping off point to get something off their chest. This article is not literally about the dirty dish. It's not even about compromise. Rather, the article is really about having healthy communication with your partner. The author's wife was trying to communicate to him: "when you do X, I feel like Y, and it hurts me." But he wasn't hearing it. No…
Edit: I'll add, after a moment of reflection, that it's possible that the wife herself did not really understand the reason why the dirty dish irritated her so much. So all that occurred to her to do was complain about it and dig in her heels. The real reason might be that she feels doubts about her husband's commitment to her, and that manifests in being angry about dirty dishes.
So often we are taught that men and women are not different, but they are. This could be taught in high school in a personal relationship unit in health class. But it isn't. To the extent it's discussed, it is mostly focused on physical abuse. Mothers can also teach it to their sons, but I'm not sure many do. Mine certainly did not, and I had to learn it the hard way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hear you and I'm afraid of the answer. I am extremely conflict averse. I sit at the dinner table hoping to talk every night. She's busy scrolling facebook. Yes sometimes I end up on my phone as well, but I actively make the effort to be there to talk. >you are undervaluing your partner's contributions I am a big believer in legitimate praise and even giving compliments to strangers. Though obviously stearing clear…
In my opinion, you should reevaluate whether or not your current relationship is worth continuing. Everything you've written so far sounds like your wife is simply a parasite. Just being blunt because it sounds like you're being too hard on yourself; going through married life caring for the equivalent of an adult child the entire time is not something anyone should be expected to do. Feel free to just think of me as…
Nope, I appreciate the advice. From another post I think I discovered the approach. No splitsville needed.
A lot of folks are misinterpreting this article, or just using it as a jumping off point to get something off their chest. This article is not literally about the dirty dish. It's not even about compromise. Rather, the article is really about having healthy communication with your partner. The author's wife was trying to communicate to him: "when you do X, I feel like Y, and it hurts me." But he wasn't hearing it. No…
communication and compromise and all that stuff is a two way street. I mean this in romantic relationship, society, work relationships, just...everything. We've come to accept the one who professes "hurt" must always be bowed to. And at first this makes sense. We SHOULD be empathetic to other's pain, suffering, annoyances and irritations and we should try our best to smooth out relations and get along. But this dynam…
I choose to take the author in good faith: his relationship fell apart, he learned something from it, and he's sharing it as a way to help others avoid the same mistake. He's owning his part of the failure. Maybe his wife made mistakes she regrets too. That's a different article for her to write.
I mean, sure, capitalism, everyone wants to make a buck. But I just don't seen any value in interpreting and commenting on this article cynically like that. The article only contains value if read in good faith. $0.02.
It’s very simple. If something is minor for you but your partner prompts you extensively that it triggers them - change yourself. The willingness to listen and change yourself is what signals your love. Because everything else is much easier.
Do you keep changing yourself to meet their every whim, maybe they should just let it go, it's just a glass?
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This isn't about the dishes. The dishes are just a symptom of the unequal divide of emotional labour in most relationships. Even in relationships where both parents work full time more often than not the majority of the mental and physical burden of running the house tends to fall onto the woman. Of course this isn't an absolute, but it does tend to hold true. You can see this at the outbreak of COVID where many wome…
"Even in relationships where both parents work full time more often than not the majority of the mental and physical burden of running the house tends to fall onto the woman." I'd love to see the data on this.
(Mostly joking. But only mostly.)
About 10 years ago, I had a internship at Newell Rubbermaid. As part of the experience, the entire group of interns across all the brands got to have lunch with the CEO and basically ask him anything we wanted. At some point, someone asked about his biggest regret. We all expected some business blunder, but he said that he was offered an executive position by Kraft to lead their Asian segment, and that his wife reall…
I appreciate you sharing this. Reminds me of a class I took at the University of Illinois, it was a seminar in entrepreneurship for engineers, if I remember correctly. I believe a CEO of a $100M+ company came in and gave a speech. His first slide had a PowerPoint, on which he put something like, "3...2...1." Then he said, "3 wives, 2 divorces, and 1 heart attack. That's the real cost of entrepreneurship." I've rememb…
Plenty of people who were never entrepreneurs suffer the same or worse.. and do so while earning a tiny pittance of what CEOs make.
Lack of money causes all sorts of additional stress on families as well... including health issues from not being able to afford health care, or only getting poor quality healthcare, or not being able to afford preventative care, eating poorly, living in dangerous/polluted areas, not being able to afford to send your kids to college, not being able to afford vacations, etc..
Not to mention the stress of being treated like shit or replaceable cogs by the people above you in work environments that are unhealthy or unsafe.
CEOs have it easy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's ironic to me when women choose successful ambitious men to marry and then complain these same keep striving to climb up the corporate ranks.
Marrying a successful, ambitious man does not, in any way, mean that a woman should defer completely to every single career decision a man makes. I'm sure this executive's schedule was already plenty demanding without the burden of moving to another country.
You're making a straw man argument here... none of the comments above say "defer completely" or "every single decision".
Am I missing the point?