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Write a note to your spouse every day

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Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#221

Post by wnolens »

xwdv wrote: post #94
NotTameAntelope wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, it doesn’t feel like work for me. I really enjoy my partner, she enjoys me, and I don’t think we have to do very much “work” to maintain that. If I started writing literal daily notes to my wife, she’d be very concerned something was wrong. Then she’d ask why I’m wasting my time writing a note when I could have done… literally annoying else more productive lol

Not everyone gets so lucky. Some people have to settle for a partner they can love but is not really their ideal match. This is where it takes work. You have to accept the fact every day this is your partner, you have to wrestle with thoughts of perhaps coming across an actual ideal partner some day. You have to learn to love your partner, and do things to make them happy, not necessarily things you want to do. Becau…

> Not everyone gets so lucky. Some people have to settle for a partner they can love but is not really their ideal match.

> This is where it takes work. You have to accept the fact every day this is your partner, you have to wrestle with thoughts of perhaps coming across an actual ideal partner some day. You have to learn to love your partner, and do things to make them happy, not necessarily things you want to do

If this is actually your personal experience, could you share more of it?

I've always ended up dating women who absolutely love me but who I am somewhat ambivalent to after a few weeks. Most of life already feels like work to me, was hoping a romantic relationship wouldn't. But I've thought often of throwing in the towel and settling for the next sane one even if I'm bored. Because wife + kids sounds long term better than fun uncle who ultimately dies alone.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#222

Post by primax »

the_gipsy wrote: post #171
insightcheck wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is the founder, owner, and operator of a company, and from a quick view, is quite successful at his work. Plus, he is in a relationship where his partner is supportive of his dreams and long hours. And he has kids at the same time. That sounds like a great life to me. Not a lot of people get the opportunity, and not very many people can pull it off. I'm sure life will be more relaxed when the kids leave th…

> Plus, he is in a relationship where his partner is supportive of his dreams and long hours. The fact that he needs a servant-wife to be able to support his career is a red flag. Having so many children and spending so much time working also means he can't have meaningful relationships with all of them.

Why do you think that this isn't what she wants also?

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#223

Post by spicyusername »

jordanmoconnor wrote: post #212
spicyusername wrote: post #199

Great post! Thanks for sharing something so personal. Being married and having kids is very rewarding, but also very challenging. Being a good husband or father is not something that is a given. This is especially true in the asymmetric situation where one parent stays at home. Good for you for finding meaningful ways to be there for your partner and sharing it. Sharing our experiences for what works helps us all be…

Author here - that's exactly my thinking. Just sharing my perspective even if it helps one person be a better spouse/parent.

It was a great read :) !

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#224

Post by bobthechef »

astura wrote: post #188
thinkingemote wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The submission is classic Reddit typical, to be fair. So one should expect a HN user to respond appropriately. I expect the submission to be flagged or at least not be visible on the front page in a couple of hours.

Yeah, who wants to take life advice from someone who describes themselves like this - "I’m an Indiehacker with a goal to teach others what I know about niche products, SEO, and making money online."? Certainly not me. The whole idea of communicating via notes rubs me the wrong way because the only people who ever tried to do it with me were toxic, manipulative, and didn't care about me as a person. My healthy relatio…

No post body was provided.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#225

Post by insightcheck »

the_gipsy wrote: post #171
insightcheck wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is the founder, owner, and operator of a company, and from a quick view, is quite successful at his work. Plus, he is in a relationship where his partner is supportive of his dreams and long hours. And he has kids at the same time. That sounds like a great life to me. Not a lot of people get the opportunity, and not very many people can pull it off. I'm sure life will be more relaxed when the kids leave th…

> Plus, he is in a relationship where his partner is supportive of his dreams and long hours. The fact that he needs a servant-wife to be able to support his career is a red flag. Having so many children and spending so much time working also means he can't have meaningful relationships with all of them.

Why do you assume he "needs" her to support his career? Many founders are deliberately single and not in a relationship to focus on their startup, and do perfectly fine.

And how could you call someone a "servant-wife" just for choosing to be a stay-at-home mother? In what universe is that not completely disrespectful to people who choose to be stay-at-home mothers? You are calling a person a "servant" for being a mother and denying her agency by defining her only in relation to her spouse.

By this implication, the opposite of a "servant-wife" is a "working-wife," and it's shocking that you can't define a person independently of a spouse within this framework. The term "mother" doesn't do this, but better yet, it's best to skip negatively judging strangers entirely.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#227

Post by chinupbuttercup »

jordanmoconnor wrote: post #208
chinupbuttercup wrote: post #202

The type of job and how you are wired makes a big difference in how you communicate. Like the OP, I'm someone who has always worked in startups (until the last couple months at a non-profit). I've always been on the product / leadership side and most recently cofounded a company where I had to wear all the hats for 7+ years. Most waking moments were focused on making the company successful and ensuring a stable incom…

Author here - Sounds like you're in a similar situation (just 10 years ahead of me). I think this would work great for you, but you clearly have been doing something right to keep the marriage afloat for that long!

My wife and I want to leave a legacy for our kids and glorify God with our marriage. We've also had many first hand experiences of watching other marriages implode and cause harm to family members and children. It's always better to keep working at it, keep humble, and have fun enjoying life :)

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#228

Post by swat535 »

zwirbl wrote: post #180
shp0ngle wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah of course. The alternative to marrying is living a celibate life, which is seen in Catholic Church as preferable to marriage. Having sex outside of marriage (and, for pleasure only) is of course wrong. As is using contraceptives; as that moves sex to just pleasure.

No wonder the Catholic church is losing members at an unprecedented rate

I attend my parish often and it is true that a lot of people are leaving but to be honest it doesn't bother me much. As Catholics, if we spend our time worrying about "the numbers" then we've lost the purpose of what it means to be a member of a community. It's not about programs it's about people.

In my (entirely anecdotal) observation, boomers were the last generation to be raised with social pressure to appear to be religious, in communities where Catholic traditions and the Church were a central and reasonably respected part of life. They got married relatively young, baptized their kids and maybe sent them to Catholic schools all to keep their own parents happy, but didn't pressure their kids in the same way.

As the boomers got to middle age and figured out their own way to live, they dropped the pretence. In parallel, the church largely retreated from public life, education, politics, healthcare etc.

It's easy to blame this on the Church or the boomers but it's part of a wider trend of community and common institutions losing their hold. People move further away from family, have less friends, participation in community activities is down across the board, the self-sufficient nuclear family has been pushed as the ideal since the 50s and cultural gatekeeping or telling someone what to do in their own home is the biggest sin.

It's all a trade-off for getting rid of some of the genuinely more awful parts of the pre-war era.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#229

Post by anotheruser092 »

alexashka wrote: post #95
anotheruser092 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. Would you be suggesting that truly selfless people don't like to be thanked? If so, I don't understand why that would be a good thing; there's nothing wrong to expect respect or basic appreciation for your help.

We're using the word differently. In the context of this thread, gratitude stands for expressing what you appreciate about your relationship with another. Do you see the problem here? If you like a flower, do you feel the need to thank it? No, right? A flower does what flowers do. So what's different about this scenario? The difference is you're using expression of gratitude as a tactic to manipulate. If you're think…

I heard about the flower metaphor before, so I actually hear what you're saying now.

The last time I heard this metaphor was in the context of avoiding too much flattery or dependence on praise of others. So, a well-adjusted person does things because they want to, or a have a responsibility to, without relying too much on praise.

I think this framing is useful for a person too reliant on others' opinions for happiness, but even within this framework, you can still feel happy when others appreciate you (while not reliant on the emotion). So, it's still a positive to give and receive gratitude, so long as both people have a stable sense of self and aren't reliant on gratitude for happiness.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#230

Post by throwoutway »

3pt14159 wrote: post #210
funklute wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it failed nevertheless. In fact, I was told by her that these notes put her in guilt. Weird. I think you're missing some perspective here. You make it sound like you were the one really trying, and your partner is the one who was weird for not "getting it". I would honestly be pretty freaked out if my partner wrote me daily poems for 400 days. It would come off as very needy and obsessive, and if it continued a…

If my wife were the poem-writing type, I would love a poem a day for 30,000 days, let alone four hundred. But paying attention to people when you give them something is very important. People are different. You may cringe at poems, but I love them. I brought one that someone else wrote for me on my first date with my now wife. We talked about getting married on our first date it went so well. So I guess what I'm also…

> I brought one that someone else wrote for me on my first date with my now wife.

Why would you bring a poem someone wrote you to a first date?

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