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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

#641

Post by geophile »

nradov wrote: post #589
jimkleiber wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Mark Cuban had a different perspective when he was younger. “I went through girlfriends (who threatened) — ‘It is your business or me,'” the Shark Tank investor recalled. “And I was like — ‘What is your name again?’ It was just non-stop.” https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/shark-tank-star-mar... I'm not endorsing that comment. I just thought it was interesting to see how a notable entrepreneur approached relati…

Mulva?

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

#642

Post by shard »

pmoriarty wrote: post #631
solveit wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably said CEO wasn't in much danger of poverty though. The entrepreneurship caused his troubles. That other things also could is beside the point.

"The entrepreneurship caused his troubles." Did it, though? That sort of misfortune can and does happen even without entrepreneurship, and might well have happened to him anyway.

Well, we can quote statistics and cite studies, but the point is that the entrepreneur himself attributed his failed marriages and heart attack to the entrepreneurship.

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

#643

Post by op00to »

dwaltrip wrote: post #612
op00to wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that a well compensated, educated adult can't survive without an extensive support structure for a few years is questionable. Hell, I haven't had a support system at all - my family was actively abusive and antagonsitic to me, and yet I was able to successfully build a career, family, and so on. It's just as likely codependancy as it would be support.

It's not that they "can't survive". Their life just might be substantially worse.

My life got substantially better when my “support system” died out.

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

#644

Post by phatfish »

maweaver wrote: post #490
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of men complaining about their female partners being untidy with household things except in the case where they simply do nothing (and that's rare), is that common where you are. My father did all the washing up in our house growing up, and mum did most of the cooking, but he never once annotated me for leaving dirty dishes whilst my mother regularly would complain. Almost every married woman I know…

I am have found that since I started working from home due to covid, a neat house is much more important to me. It makes me anxious being in a house all day that is a mess. And I have become the one who bugs my wife to please pick up after herself more. I wonder if women traditionally spending more time at home is the cause of this gender difference.

My guess is there is a "feng shui" side to cleanliness, tripping over clothes or having a sink full of dishes is more likely to affect you if you are in contact with it more often.

But also i think there is a biological reason. Mothers notice dangers to young children more, as on an evolutionary time scale they were responsible for protecting a child from birth, when the child is most vulnerable.

Keeping things clean stops any nasty avoidable accidents.

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

#645

Post by nobodyandproud »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #633
nobodyandproud wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Marrying someone with ambitions doesn't mean the ambitious spouse gets full control over where the other partner lives and the relationships the other partner can have. Not the OP nor GP, but I think the person who sought after an ambitious spouse is equally responsible for understanding the trade-offs. The term “married to their career/job” was an old term when I was a child growing up in the 1970 and 1980s. That…

> how many spouses are willing to live far beneath their means, to accommodate for a better work life-balance? Approximately zero spouses who complain about glass-dishwasher-alignment will sacrifice by lifting the breadwinner's burden. Sorry, folks. Everyone is entitled to self-realization and higher meaning, however, if you're being supported by someone who works 40, 50, whatever hours per week, suck it up and move…

> Approximately zero spouses who complain about glass-dishwasher-alignment will sacrifice by lifting the breadwinner's burden.

There, the fault lies with the provider in either choosing the wrong spouse; they should have been pickier.

Or being an unaware jack-ass. For the latter, it helps to list out the responsibilities, to make sure the division of labor is equitable.

Or marriage counseling.

> however, if you're being supported by someone who works 40, 50, whatever hours per week, suck it up and move the glass.

An ambitious worker—the topic I’m responding to—isn’t putting in a mere 40 hours a week. More like 60 to 80 hours if not more.

Those workers also face divorce for being inattentive, but they’re also playing catch-up for the house; car; private schools and the general lifestyle that comes so easily to compensate for the extra income.

There is no “sucking it up” unless you have a time machine or don’t need to sleep.

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

#646

Post by llbeansandrice »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #539
gleenn wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did mention that he would never care to change his behavior and had two reasons to continue doing it. I guess that doesn't mean it's the hill he would go to die on. I do struggle with the same thing, at what point is it something that's no longer a conversation, you should just change because the other person decided they cared enough about it. Having the wife end a marriage over it also seems ridiculous. If peopl…

> If I just sit around and say everything is "important", does that mean I get to have it my way all the time? This is my question, and i would like to hear from OP, married 33+ years, on his attitude about this.

This is an extreme example/edge case and if that's truly the case you are either not participating in good faith or would likely benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy. You're approaching the topic of a healthy marriage from game theory where your spouse is another player/opponent, not from empathy and good-faith participation or even just as a team with a common goal.

Is your goal to "have it your way all the time", or is it to have a healthy and loving marriage with your spouse? If you approach it from the latter perspective, the question doesn't really make any sense.

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

#647

Post by pmoriarty »

shard wrote: post #642
pmoriarty wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The entrepreneurship caused his troubles." Did it, though? That sort of misfortune can and does happen even without entrepreneurship, and might well have happened to him anyway.

Well, we can quote statistics and cite studies, but the point is that the entrepreneur himself attributed his failed marriages and heart attack to the entrepreneurship.

"the entrepreneur himself attributed his failed marriages and heart attack to the entrepreneurship"

Of course he did, as it made his enormous wealth seem like the result of great sacrifices.

You see this all the time.

Why do the rich deserve all their money? Because they made such great sacrifices and took all those tremendous risks. It's self-aggrandizement and self-justification.

Low wage workers make sacrifices and take risks just as great (or greater) all the time, but no one is going to pay hundreds of dollars a plate to hear them give a keynote speech humblebragging about how they worked so hard they had 3 heart attacks during their minimum wage jobs (from which they probably got fired for having to miss work), or how their marriages broke up... which happens all the time.

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

#648

Post by hresvelgr »

js2 wrote: post #445

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…

Yeah, this is just about communication, full stop. I do the same thing with my partner but I also have ADHD so I genuinely get distracted by something else and forget a lot of the time. When I do remember, I do the right thing and put them away (most of the time). I didn't used to but I make a better effort nowadays

When it was initially brought up I said: "I know it bothers you, but there is something up with my brain where I will know to do it, get distracted and completely forget as if the thought had never entered my mind. However, whenever I do remember, I will." Granted this allows me leeway when I just cannot be bothered but I avoid pushing the envelope and I'm pretty good the majority of the time.

I'd also like to mention that author speaks with such a staggering lack of empathy that I'm willing to bet it was a lot more than just the dishes. I wouldn't confuse cognizance of the issue with having addressed it.

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

#649

Post by KerrAvon »

jimkleiber wrote: post #638
nradov wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark Cuban had a different perspective when he was younger. “I went through girlfriends (who threatened) — ‘It is your business or me,'” the Shark Tank investor recalled. “And I was like — ‘What is your name again?’ It was just non-stop.” https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/shark-tank-star-mar... I'm not endorsing that comment. I just thought it was interesting to see how a notable entrepreneur approached relati…

I appreciate this comment. Something I've currently struggled with is the tension between a private life (romance, family, etc) and a public life (running a business, podcast, politics). I find that sometimes a private life wants me to care about those few people more than all the other people and a public life wants me to care about all people equally. Maybe that story of the CEO stuck with me and has added to the f…

The people I know who have been successful at both simultaneously have extremely rigid boundaries between their business and personal lives, to the point of being different people at work and at home. Even they almost universally eventually discover they're not as available to their children as they thought they were, however. Caveat emptor.

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

#650

Post by nobodyandproud »

watwut wrote: post #450
nobodyandproud wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Marrying someone with ambitions doesn't mean the ambitious spouse gets full control over where the other partner lives and the relationships the other partner can have. Not the OP nor GP, but I think the person who sought after an ambitious spouse is equally responsible for understanding the trade-offs. The term “married to their career/job” was an old term when I was a child growing up in the 1970 and 1980s. That…

This does not sound like trade off for ambitions. More like ignoring her strong preference and then being shocked it turned out to be straw that broke camels back.

If you mean putting the dishes into the dishwasher, the comment thread morphed past that.
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