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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

#61

Post by pfix »

benhoyt wrote: post #45
the_gipsy wrote: post #29

> I’m a husband who is 30. I also have 4 kids, ages 6 and under. I’m the sole-provider for the family (though my wife works harder). Between the job, the kids, and extrafamilial obligations, there’s not a lot of time for communication with my wife. We’re on the go from sun-up to sun-down, and at the end of the day we drop into bed exhausted to get just enough sleep for the next day. Very often in the past, a week or…

It does sound hectic, but it's not hell, because he loves what he does, and clearly loves his wife and kids. That sacrifice (on the part of him and his wife) is for those they love. I do think it's kinda weird to write his wife a daily note -- presumably it takes him 15-30 minutes to write the note. Why not spend that time talking face-to-face with her instead? For me and my wife (I'm in a similar stage of life) we c…

My interpretation of this is in the context of four kids and his wife still asleep when he's writing the notes. Experience tells me there's not much space for intimate conversation as soon as the kids are up and about.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#62

Post by lbrito »

zwirbl wrote: post #48
lbrito wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>marriage is not for everyone For quite a long time this was a very obvious and common sense statement. That is literally the traditional view of the Catholic Church on marriage, for example. Things changed only very recently.

> That is literally the traditional view of the Catholic Church on marriage Can you elaborate on that? Living as an unmarried couple is not very catholic AFAICT, and when not in a relationship, how should you marry?

Yes, needless to say an unmarried couple is not what I was referring to. I'm saying that for a long time people have known that not everyone is cut out for marriage, and that it has never really been seen as "the only path". I don't understand your other remarks.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#63

Post by jimbob45 »

the_gipsy wrote: post #29

> I’m a husband who is 30. I also have 4 kids, ages 6 and under. I’m the sole-provider for the family (though my wife works harder). Between the job, the kids, and extrafamilial obligations, there’s not a lot of time for communication with my wife. We’re on the go from sun-up to sun-down, and at the end of the day we drop into bed exhausted to get just enough sleep for the next day. Very often in the past, a week or…

Getting what you want is often unpleasant. Accomplishing nothing is quite often very pleasant. The trick is to find a happy medium between those two.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#64

Post by _carbyau_ »

lbrito wrote: post #38

I'm in a very similar demographic as the author so I empathise with how hard things can be, but this: >there’s not a lot of time for communication with my wife. We’re on the go from sun-up to sun-down, and at the end of the day we drop into bed exhausted to get just enough sleep for the next day. Oh boy. That sounds awful . Rather than trying to work around that busyness, personally I would go out of my way to just n…

That's was one thing that seemed odd to me. Take 15-45 minutes to write a note. Or, y'know, be present for 15-45 minutes right there in person.

However I suspect this is less about time management and more about communication styles: this person is a writer. They communicate better when writing.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#65

Post by spoonjim »

the_gipsy wrote: post #29

> I’m a husband who is 30. I also have 4 kids, ages 6 and under. I’m the sole-provider for the family (though my wife works harder). Between the job, the kids, and extrafamilial obligations, there’s not a lot of time for communication with my wife. We’re on the go from sun-up to sun-down, and at the end of the day we drop into bed exhausted to get just enough sleep for the next day. Very often in the past, a week or…

Life with 4 kids under 6 is exhausting as hell but feels like heaven.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#66

Post by Gigachad »

zwirbl wrote: post #50
namecheapTA wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marriage isn't perfect, especially not with today's divorce law and family court system, but the idea of joining into a union with a new person and creating a new family unit, even if without kids, is probably the best system for most people. Single people have a way of going feral IMO.

What's bad about divorce laws? People's view on divorce and divorce laws of the past seems to be much more awful

Being in a relationship opens yourself up to a huge amount of financial risk which can last a very long time after the breakup/divorce. In most countries you are exposed to this risk even if you don't marry as you automatically enter a de facto which is pretty legally similar to a full marriage.

This all made sense when you had a man working and a woman at home looking after the house and kids, but in a modern society where both work and responsibilities are mostly shared, it doesn't make sense that the person who earned the most is now at huge risk despite the relationship not reducing the others earning potential in any way. This risk is a real discouragement to even enter a relationship. You might be open to the emotional risk of things not working out but not be willing to put your house and future income on the line.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#67

Post by em-bee »

yieldcrv wrote: post #54
em-bee wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is probably related to the effect of different ways we perceive love. see the five love languages. we need to talk to our partners about that and try things to find out what makes them feel our love. and also tell them how we receive them.

love languages are bullshit, but it is useful to know if someone doesn't like physical touch but don't worry, I play along with that, myers briggs, astrology, angel numbers, ambiguous western spirituality, and I'm a great listener (because I'm too dumbfounded to know what to say and I don't mind being an enabler, for sex) unlike the others, its only the myers briggs people that take their belief system seriously, sin…

it is possible to take these things to seriously. i didn't read the five love languages book end to end. it was enough for me to know that there are different ways to express love and that we have different preferences in what ways we notice love from others. that is the core that matters here, and is what helped me understand our relationship better.

same for MBTI. i don't know what specific MBTI type i am supposed to be, and i don't really care, but understanding the different aspects that MBTI is based on does help me understand myself better and let's me explain for example why i enjoy company some times and not at other times.

there used to be a time when astrology and astronomy where the same thing. astrology is pure nonsense, but the astronomy it is based on is not. in the same way MBTI may be nonsense, but the aspects it is based on probably are not.

to be a great listener it takes a few things, to listen, to give positive feedback and to help the other person work out what they want to say. listening itself makes up the biggest part. pretending to be a great listener may work in the short term, but someone will eventually figure out that you don't actually care about what they say.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#69

Post by swatcoder »

0x008 wrote: post #44

Is it just me or does anybody else think having to “do” something to want to talk to each other is weird? I feel like the trust between these two was very broken at this point. Usually when both parties have a healthy emotional well being and they like each other (and have kids also, so they have a lot in common I guess?) it would only be normal to want to talk with each other. Looks more like a symptom of fatigue or…

Relationships exist for a lot of reasons simultaneously, and long ones will become more and less about different reasons at different times.

For people raising kids together, the relationship can often become dominated by the practical partnership of family-rearing because it’s so consuming. You do that parenting thing all the time and you love your partner for what they add to it and that feels like plenty. That project becomes so fundamental and sufficient that a lot of other parts of the relationship can quietly fade even while the relationship as a whole is very strong.

Consciously investing in sharing (or romance, or sex, or travel, or career encouragement, or business partnership, or whatever) can help revive and sustain the multidimensionality of the relationship, and keep it strong and richly satisfying as various other parts wax and wane.

Of course, you can also just have a great relationship that rides a “no (conscious) effort” vibe and it can be a long and exciting and rich relationship too. It’s not like there are rules.

There’s just no reason to question the OP’s relationship just on the grounds of them choosing to put in some extra effort.

Re: Write a note to your spouse every day

#70

Post by gexla »

mamoriamohit wrote: post #13

I have had an opposite experience. Daily notes makes no difference. I was in a relationship for 2 years and have written a poem every day for 400 days straight to her. But it failed nevertheless. In fact, I was told by her that these notes put her in guilt. Weird. Gestures like these amplify whatever the relationship there is to start with. If there's a lot of love, they amplify it. If there's a lot of lack of commit…

From the article...

> Though, I’ve set that expectation, and she holds me accountable to it, so I do it very often.

This is a shared ritual, which I feel is powerful in any type of relationship. You have rituals at work and with your friends. These rituals are an ingredient in the glue which give relationships meaning.

They need that shared sense of importance to work though. Other parts of the relationship should be healthy. Good communication is a must. Did she tell you that the notes made her feel guilty during this 400 day stretch? If not, then maybe communication was off.

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