We are always told "Accept your significant other rather than trying to change them." Why does not that apply here?
I found the article really well written and I think a lot of people will be able to relate to it. Consideration for our partners and compromise is a tricky and interesting domain. I'm realizing more and more that there can be a lot of complexity behind benign everyday situations like a dirty cup beside the sink. Like how can a dirty dish even perturb somebody so much in the first place? Is it related to some trauma or childhood conditioning? Can it be addressed somehow?
Start a notes checklist on your phone of what you could have done to prevent the situation in the first place.
It will grow to probably over 40-50 things over the course of two months. And you will start to realize as you read the list the types of themes that are upsetting and stressful to her.
This has helped but your mileage may vary, it is illuminating though…
If you are not the one with the issues, then it sounds like your wife may be an Obsessive Compulsive Personality Type - this type of personality has a need for orderliness, neatness, perfectionism and mental and interpersonal control. Basically, their thinking is that they have "figured out" a process for doing something, and if that process is not followed to the dot, it will not result in the desired optimal / perfect result (this causes them anxiety, which makes them feel that they are losing control over their life / relationship, and they become even more obsessed and compulsive to "regain" control).
They are a bit difficult to live with, even if they can be really wonderful, caring and loving human beings. Often some counselling for anxiety (consider cognitive behaviour therapy), and insights into how their unrealistic expectation and actions can be troubling in a relationship can often make them more empathetic to the other person in a relationship, and smooth things over.
(Be wary, as my assumptions about your wife could be quite wrong. Best to consult a therapist).
I feel like it's generally under control and we mostly have a good balance/compromise established, but I could be totally wrong, just like the article author!
> Like how can a dirty dish even perturb somebody so much in the first place? Is it related to some trauma or childhood conditioning? Can it be addressed somehow?
Well, yes, sometimes "irrational" things are indicative of a deeper issue, e.g. Dad told me Mom left because I was messy, and if I keep things tidy I can keep people from leaving me and I will be OK.
Perhaps she's going through a rough patch, and this "I need a tidy environment" is how she's able to express it. Maybe she feels ignored/neglected/etc, and this is how she's able to express it. And it could be that you've dictated that things must go your way in other areas of the house/relationship, and here is where she feels comfortable asking that she not need to walk on eggshells, for things to be her way for once.
One thing to remember is that each of us has "irrational" requests when seen from the outside, regardless of how logical and reasonable they seem to us. Having a heart-to-heart where you both sit down with the mindset of "us vs the problem" could determine the root, which is the first step towards finding a true solution.
I don't understand the complaint here. It sounds like your wife is trying to get you, incrementally, to act like a responsible adult. This is what a good partner does.
The more interesting question is why you want to remain living like a slob in a messy environment?
The fundamental conflict is that the person and their wife's goals are not aligned.
If the husband does not want to develop into a "responsible adult" in this respect, their goals are not aligned. A good partner can help the other achieve their goals, but but if there is no alignment on the who one partner wants to be and work towards, this will always be a source of conflict.
1. As the author already mentions, why put a cup into the dishwasher if you plan on using it again?
2. Why fold and put away my pants if I wear the same pants everyday for a week?
3. Why hang my jacket if I know I'm leaving again in an hour
4. Why make the bed at all ever? (making the bed is its own topic of insanity IMO)
Etc etc etc
I think I just value and emphasize what I consider efficiency (perhaps laziness?).
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.
If your partner needs to have their way in all things, then there may be a deeper trust issue to resolve and/or they might not be ready for a committed relationship.
Edit: rereading above I can see it coming off as a little flippant. At the core I believe we all have things we do and feel that are not rational. I don’t think you can reason your way out of them. You can’t rationally argue away a feeling. You can do therapy to try to change it, or you can remove the negative stimulus.
This is my question, and i would like to hear from OP, married 33+ years, on his attitude about this.
It means you're being manipulative dishonest. Which I hope we can agree is not a strong foundation for a relationship.
The upshot of the article, IMO, is that they were no longer in love.
And that lack of love became most apparent by observing all the tiny acts of service that people in love do for each other, and people who are merely co-habitating and perhaps also co-parenting, do not give a flying fuck about and use as a safe thing to argue about instead of admitting the truth.
People's desire to shape the relationship (and hence their partner's) is asymmetrical.
In your example, you don't mention what _you_ made her change to compromise with something _you_ felt was important (and i don't want any answer, as it's something private). It just that it sounded like the classic "married with children"/"the simpsons" premise...
A's happiness depends on a certain degree of order in the shared space, and B is oblivious to that degree of order. Or more likely, it requires a conscious exercise of effort to perceive the degree of order.
If B is unwilling to make that effort, they are discovering that they care less about A's happiness than the relative effort required. Eventually, A figures out how low their value is, and takes their relationship elsewhere.
Sometimes, I ask my partner to make a call. Most times, she doesn't do it within the agreed upon time period. I either do it myself, she gets to it E V E N T U A L L Y, or it doesn't get done. I used to fight about this because it really isn't "fair" for her to not get this stuff done when she said she'd do it. However, I realized it just wasn't a big deal for me to make the phone calls and deal with this stuff. I'm the one getting pissed over my partner's inaction, not my partner.
Since I just stopped sweating it, making the calls when I felt it was important, and leaving my partner be when the calls are not important, I'm a lot less pissed off about calls. I'm sure my partner appreciates not being bugged over this.
I guess another solution to this could be getting divorced, but that really says to me that the husband wasn't really the problem here and the regret he feels shouldn't be lodged against his own actions.
My husband has a thing about making phone calls. I've got other crap I put off for similar reasons, but phone calls are not an issue for me. So when a call needs made and I have the information needed, I'll do it and save him the stress. Not a big deal for me at all, but it takes something off his plate that he doesn't like to do.
(Married 20 years) there definitely needs to be awareness that A might just prioritize something before B gets to it. It's not that B would never do it or doesn't care. Everything is priorities. (I'm talking within the same day or two, not leaving for weeks on end of course.)
And your demonstration can be flipped easily : if A's happiness degree is so strongly correlated to the way laundry is processed to the point that changing B's natural way of doing things seems a crucial matter, then perhaps B should figure out how low his value is.
> 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 let go of the little things and accept that living with another person (spouse or roommate) means you don't get to set all the rules on how both of you live?
I don't think the author's relationship failed due to lack of compromise or at least that's not communicated by the article. I take the key line in the article to be this one: "My wife communicated pain and frustration over the frequent reminders she encountered that told her over and over and over again just how little she was considered when I made decisions."
We don't know anything else about their marriage. We don't know who cleaned, shopped, did the finances, budgeted, had a job. All we know is that the author treated his wife in such a way that she didn't feel respected or heard.
I also infer that his wife didn't effectively communicate to him what was really bothering her based on this: "If I had known that this drinking-glass situation and similar arguments would actually end my marriage—that the existence of love, trust, respect, and safety in our marriage was dependent on these moments I was writing off as petty disagreements, I would have made different choices."
Without more detail about the disagreements, we just don't know whether she told him why these things were bothering her and he ignored her, or if she just didn't surface the reasons for her upset.
We also don't know whether they saw a marriage counselor. That would be an interesting detail.
One other point I'd add, with apologies to Tolstoy: “All happy marriages are alike; each unhappy marriage is unhappy in its own way.”
Marriages fail for all sorts of reasons. This article is just one example. The author just wants to warn us: this thing that seems trivial to you but annoys your partner may be a metaphor for a larger issue.
My original comment was more in response to other comments on HR that the article itself, I guess. It seems that many are quick to condemn the author rather than question why someone would place such great importance on the location of a single glass. If she Is so concerned about that one glass, it seems perhaps a signal that there are other ways in which she’s difficult to live with (meaning not easy and relaxed but fastidious and precise).
Second, its can often be about preference weights. If A cares heavily about something, and B doesnt have a strong preference, then perhaps B should take A's preference into account.
Now, should A have a strong preference for a trivial thing? Maybe not. But that doesnt change anyone's preferences and only breeds resentment.
