I think this is great advice. The key is being genuine and appreciative. Take care of your neediness in other ways. If you don't know how to listen, writing lots of notes can be just another way of monopolizing the conversation. Use the note as a way to maintain the intimacy you already have.
Ps my marriage lasted happily for 37 years until the untimely death of my beloved wife.
The article is certainly well-meaning but it has a bit of a "one weird trick" feel to it. It's written by a 30 year old man who has done something to improve his marriage which is great. It's anyone's guess what kind of article he's going to write when he's 60. He's on a good track, he's learned that regular communication is almost always a win, my own $0.02 is that if there's any one secret weapon, it's that.
But there are also relationships and people where there's nothing that will work, someone is just a rotten apple, or maybe the trust is irreparably damaged. I've had partners who were such supportive, caring human beings that I felt humbled - a little ashamed of my own selfishness by comparison. But I've also had partners who were clearly in it for themselves, seeing what they could milk out of me, and no amount of communication was going to change that. For the latter there was no strategy that was going to fix it - the only right path was to end it and move on.
This year will be my third married and my 10th being in a relationship with my wife. It’s been a tumultuous journey at times because of lack of communication.
In lieu of notes like OP mentioned, my wife and I just check in with each other every morning. And, throughout the day. She’s naturally thoughtful while I’m mostly focused on myself. We had a talk a few months ago and it was revealed that my self-centeredness was a defense mechanism I haven’t needed to deploy for at least a decade.
I could go on and on so I’ll just stop here and co-sign once more; communicate with your spouse. And then do it even more than that.
the behaviors we learn through our experience to protect ourselves are very hard to shake off. quite often we are not even aware of them or understand why. and any new partner will end up working hard trying to break through. but it looks like your partners effort and patience is starting to pay off. good luck to your continued future.
I have come to realize that I am very self centered, but I can’t quite figure out why.
I tend to get very caught up and focused on what is going on in my life and never stop to think about others. It is more that the thought never occurs to me, as opposed to me consciously prioritizing myself over others.
My wife on the other hand is very thoughtful, always checking in on others to see how they are doing. I wish I could be more like that, but would require some external override (eg setting a reminder on my phone) instead of me organically deciding to do so.
I have been married for ~10 years. Ups and downs, but mostly happy to have chosen her. And hoping to get to 37, and past that, and live a long life together. I really hope that.
Words are mine. My assumption is everyone means what they say. I tend to take things too literally sometimes.
It’s been hard to figure that out about each other, but once we did it’s been easier to translate our love into the language of the other person.
My point here is that people have differences in the way they operate and some day you might find the love of your life operates differently too. Keep an open mind about it and seek to understand.
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 commitment, they amplify it.
They do not change lack of commitment into love magically.
Sorry for being the party pooper. I understand where the OP is coming from and I truly respect that. Just wanted to add a bit of more context.
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 after me bringing it up, I could see it as a reason to break things off.
Of course some people might really like daily poems. But from what you wrote, it sounds a little like you've failed to read the room, and are now blaming others for that.
Same. Occasional poem? I'm not necessarily a fan, but it is thoughtful and boy, does that thoughtfulness go a long way. But daily is intense, and I'd much rather daily communication to be fairly direct and daily thoughtfulness being small things that are optional but nice (making me a cup of coffee when I'm groggily heading to the toilet in the morning, for example).
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 trying to get at here is that your contribution of your opinion to the conversation may be valid, but it's more kind if it's not so universal as to be judgemental, since mamoriamohit may take it quite personally even though there is a kernel of useful information in what you're saying.
Imagine having to keep to yourself that you're not really into poems but your partner is doing this. It'd be heartbreaking to piss in those cheerios but how long could you keep it up?
Personally I'd have had to say enough with the poems already at day 6 or so
"I was in a relationship for 2 years and have written a poem every day for 400 days straight to her."
2 years is a lot more than 400 days. Maybe the relationship failed because they stopped.
I'm sure this was a painful lesson to learn, but I hope you took the right thing away from it.
No healthy relationship is going to include 400 daily poems. It makes it seem like the subject of the poems is being put on a pedestal and idealized, not perceived as a real person with flaws.
It comes across as obsessive and, perhaps, insincere -- how can someone have 400 poems' worth of feelings for someone they've known for less than 2 years? And if they don't have those sincere feelings, what are they trying to accomplish?
Read a little bit about "love bombing" (not because I think you love-bombed anyone, but because it might help you understand how the recipient of this behavior might feel about it).
A bold and absolutist claim. The GPs relationship was clearly not healthy, but the idea that no healthy relationship could exist where there is a daily poem is kinda ridiculous?
Watching it as a kid made me think it was a heartwarming ending to the movie, but the older I get the creepier it gets. It is essentially a hostage situation if you think about it.
Anyways, not saying this is what OP did, but I guess it's an example of how seemingly sweet and well intentioned actions can also be overbearing. I can't say I would enjoy having someone write me poems for 400 days straight.
She used to love baking, and would bring round cakes/pastries/bread for us all the time.
It was really nice at first, but also made us feel very awkward/bad that we didn't reciprocate (neither of us really cook much), even though we'd never asked for the cakes.
Eventually we had to ask her to stop, since we just didn't want to eat that much unhealthy food. She took it as a bit of an insult, and ended up being a lot colder to us after that.
It was a shame, but I'm not sure what else we could have done - she was giving us something unasked for (which we felt burdened by, even though she said she never expected anything in return), and got upset when we asked her to stop.
We appreciated the thought, but she would bring so many toys for our daughter it was overwhelming and we didn’t Have that much space.
It was clearly more for my mom than for us, she just likes to give.
So I reciprocated by saying thanks and promptly throwing/donating something older. This allowed my mom to keep giving and us to not have the clutter.
I’m glad to confirm what I already knew by your story. It would have hurt her and damaged our relationship if I would have asked her to stop.
> 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.
Some years later I found my wife and she responds very differently. She would love a note every day. Any attention I give her is welcomed.
I hope things work out for you.
While there may be some people like you enjoying maxed up romantic relationships I would run away in no time from a partner just trying to hard. Imagine getting home everyday to be greeted with a "gift of a day", 10 bullet points in refined calligraphy how much he/she loves me, new scent, yet another laborious make up etc.
Most of us will never be able to match that, be it because of no time/energy or a simple "let me rest after work, read a book/go for a walk". Relationship imho is not an attempt to create a Siamese twins in a mental space. Satisfy the needs of your partner, top it with extra stuff, but do not try to kill it drowning him/her in a waterfall of attention, gifts, questions about everything, etc.
this is part of the problem though. the expectation that the contributions to our relationship should somehow be equal. yes, both partners should contribute something, and it is possible that one (or both) of the partners are not contributing enough, but wanting to limit my partners contributions because i can't keep up is a problem in itself. the proper response is to talk about it, to share how these poems or whatever it is, make you feel. and come to an understanding that both can work with. the most important thing to do is to listen what the partner has to say, and how they feel. as with all these things, it comes down to communication.
If you have an issue with your communication to your partner (either in not producing it consistently or not feeling that it's received consistently), changing it up to something you can generate (and/or your partner can receive in the intended spirit), building a habit that changes up your communication can help. On the other hand, if that habit makes your partner feel inundated, overwhelmed, or drowns out their communication to you, it can make things worse.
This isn't really context it's more a subjective and singular viewpoint from somebody who's relationship failed and perhaps was always going to fail regardless of the poems.
Not trying to be horrible here...just pointing out that this is not context.
I don't want to dunk on the act of writing poems which is perfectly fine, but that's the creation of art. If you look at how he structures his communication, there are active day-to-day issues/problems being addressed that if left unresolved prevent the appreciation of something like a poem.
And as everyone else said, sometimes relationships don't work out and you did your best.
And yes, 400 could easily slip into the category of demonstration, that may be bothersome for the receiving end.
Pure kind words in natural form may be better.
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, since it was probably used on their job at the teambuilding retreat and in academia, but increasingly the love language people have a blind spot for it too
everyone else can just laugh about their consequence-free religions
"Here’s a general outline of what I write:
"Gratitude (for her, her hard work, her amazing looks, etc.)
"What I’m working on today.
"What I’m working towards (goals, deadlines, etc.)
"Anything I’m excited about.
"Anything that’s bothering me (stress, anxiety, pessimism, etc.)
"Ideas that I have (parenting, fixing the home, work related, etc.)
"Transactional stuff (finances, things I need to take care of, stuff I need to remember, etc.)
"Questions (are there any events coming up, are we doing a date night this week, etc.)
"Gratitude (for the life we have, the things we have, the time we have, the kids we have, etc.)
"I don’t write every section every day, but those are the general categories I usually fall into. The note usually takes me just shy of a half-hour if I’m not distracted."
The notes are quite thoughtful: many of these points sound sweet, and several of the prompts could still work for people who aren't in a relationship. The appreciation shown, and the self-reflection, likely both strengthen the relationship.
If writing a note each day is too much work for you, then the daily sacrifices of being in a loving marriage may be too much for you. If that is the case you might want to think about what you're giving up and why. If you are happy with the exchange then great but I think many don't know how great it can be.
It's not what's going to save marriages on it's own, because it is useful in a specific environment.
When I'm away for work, I always make time to call family morning and evening, so we can keep up with our wake up togheter and spend evening togheter kinda routine. It is both specific to the situation, the family and the context. It'd be silly to call home when I'm home, as it'd be silly to say that this will save someone else marriage.
Heck, marriage doesn't even mean the same thing to different people or has the same meaning across cultures or even within the same culture across time!
Normative approaches to marriage are almost always doomed to fail precisely because of this, and that's also why counseling is largely a personalized process/experience.
What is the reward?
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
But it turns out that marriage is really just a partnership and relationship, and all different kinds of people have different styles and interpretations of what that is and how it works for them. Some people need a lot of passion, some people need a lot of stability, some may need both, or neither.
But there is definitely something to the notion that good relationships don't come easy. People are all flawed in different ways, and sometimes people need help to work through those flaws in order to have successful relationships. Plus, a marriage may involve some long term expensive investments, like a mortgage, pets, children. So "saving your marriage" might actually be quite a rational and emotionally intelligent act, if all partners are amenable to it. Best-case scenario: you end up with a long-term loving partnership and a wonderful life; worst-case, you don't. Seems like it's worth saving?
like in karate kid, "wax on, wax off" is not about the wax.
but, you're right, marriage isn't for everyone. but i also don't think TFA is trying to convince everyone to get married.
The person you’d most love to raise a family with (or run a fishing boat with, or whatever), isn’t necessarily the “easy” partner whose super cozy and gets you all the time and never needs you to make a special effort beyond what comes naturally.
But at some point, if it’s what you want to do, you pick a partner for what’s important to you and make good on that choice. Depending on who you are and who you picked, that latter bit of “making good” might benefit from a few contrived gestures and rituals that wouldn’t have been necessary in some other “easy” relationship. But that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong relationship or an unhealthy relationship, it’s just your relationship; and if those things make it better, why wouldn’t you do them?
I want to work to not have to work anymore. I can’t think about a partner because I’m too dead from work to give someone else the commitment they might deserve. Don’t want kids that sounds like work. Nothing is wrong with me just want to be able to relax without commitment.
I see quite a lot of elderly people with health problems. The ones that are completely alone… it’s a pretty wretched existence, frankly. That’s the reality. Not to say all marriages are great obviously, but often even an ex-husband is better than no husband at all.
When they push forward as social animals with no social support network and things eventually take their toll (age/entropy/etc) they will fall back on someone else’s marriage for help - their parents or siblings.
I say this as a late 30’s person with no marriage. I thought I had one and it didn’t work out unfortunately. Now it’s just me and I am in true shit if really anything remotely severe goes wrong.
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.
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?
It doesn't have to work for everyone to be useful.
Also, I feel like far too many people have "holywood" views on what marriage is.
>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 not have that. Maybe I'm naive, but I want to be continuously moving towards being less busy and having more time for my family. Actual time, disposable time. Not time-compressed, high-information-density notes.
Of course, to each their own.
However I suspect this is less about time management and more about communication styles: this person is a writer. They communicate better when writing.
who do you optimize for the old man or the current man
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 better! If this post even helps one other dad be a better father and husband, the world is immeasurably improved.
... it also made me think about one of the interesting balances I have to strike in our evening conversations, where I need to remember to stop rambling about technical details of work I'm excited to tell her about but are selfish to monopolize the conversation with (even though I know she does want to hear sometimes). The idea of transferring aspect of conversation to writing is very interesting, and seems like a good opportunity for self examination on my part to be a better spouse.
Anyway, thank you for writing!
Looks more like a symptom of fatigue or emotional discomfort to me if you don’t want to talk to your spouse. I would start looking Into that before I would fire off random text book romantic gestures to “save my marriage”.
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.
in that case, doing something to break out of that and increase communication again sounds like the right step.
I think this is great, Jordan found something new and novel to reconnect and it worked. Who cares what it is if it worked. Shows affections.
People are different, what makes she happy would be weird for your spouse maybe.
I like it.
Sounds like hell; is this the American Dream?
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 the home after become adults, too.
Is that company that important?
Did we loose the ability to get enough to live and we live to get enough instead?
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.
There is an ancient Greek saying: Not working is the root of all evil.
We (family with two kids under the age of 4) just moved to Texas, been in there ER once, urgent care twice, had stomach flu, ear infection, viral rash, a flat tire, water damage in the house we bought resulting in lots of money flying out the window and a scramble to find temp housing.
All in the past two weeks.
It’s pure hell to the point you laugh instead of cry.
For example, yesterday our kids got into daycare which meant the only thing my wife and I had to do was work. We could finally get a few hours of focus. Not thirty minutes into work the house cleaners I had forgotten about showed up to start cleaning.
Sometimes life seems nonstop.
But when my three year old gives me a kiss on the cheek or my one year old just wanted me to hold him, my world stops for just a moment and I realize how lucky we’ve been to even get to this point.
I guess I’m happy in hell.
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 cherish that ~30 minutes before bed to have a cup of tea, regroup, chat about the kind of things he writes in his note, and so on.
Though he did say that writing the notes has helped their relationship, and they now "talk more than ever (weird, right?)". So if it's working for him, keep it up!
Well I love my kids but I still think in retrospect that it was a shitty decision to have kids. Things aren't mutually exclusive.
Having said that I am not saying anyone ought to regret having kids or that it is a shitty decision for everyone.
Either that or there's multiple multiple births.
If their religion demands they have so many kids so quickly it's unlikely he helps out with the childrearing activities and leaves it to his wife, I'm which case his life is probably not very different than a childless man.
4 kids 6 and younger is one child every two years. My youngest is 6 months. It's an aggressive pace but hardly unreasonable.
We wanted to have all of our kids together so they could be friends. And it makes the parenting window much shorter (25 years until they are all adults and moving out). Some people spread their kids out and have kids in the home for 30-35 years.
With 4 children ... I can't even conceive how that would be. I would probably love them to death but would consider escaping into the wildness every night.
"As human beings, our primary mission in life is to be fruitful and multiply, and take dominion over the earth. If that sounds like Bible talk, it is. This is the creed God gave to Adam and Eve. Genesis 1:28.
That’s our responsibility as human beings."
However here, not knowing any party, from absolutely fly-over perspective feels like (marital) tragedy waiting to happen.
Young (30), working asses off either at work or with 4 young kids, only one person providing, lack of intimacy and something that could be called weekly report instead of partner communicating.
Even this piece feels forced. Maybe it’s me but exposing personal relationship strategy feels like boasting about win, and when relationships becomes a field for wins it doesn’t bode well.
I still don’t know them and know nada, that might work perfectly well, but that’s definitely not something I’d go with for general life advice.
Yet, what I've really missed is the spouse feedback.
The writing focused on "his" expectations and "his" conclusions.
I'm not underestimating this.
Though it would be nice to write this as a duo or share a separate post by your spouse.
Combining "morning" and "fresh" in one sentence sounds like an oxymoron to me.
Are we talking about a post-it note? Are the notes in a physical notebook? Is this done via some sort of mobile app? On a WhatsApp message, perhaps?
I know it will be different for everyone, probably, but I think it is important to know one that is already working for someone.
A newsletter for one could sound exciting.
i am waiting so much........
Physical notes are fine but it feels less natural.
Also, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” is a real thing.
So very bad advice if it’s just one way. That’s actually si*p behavior.
Very good advice if it’s symmetrical.
start here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31713720 and maybe here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29100862
online dating can work, but only if both partners are open to a serious conversation of your respective expectations from a relationship. or of you both accept that building a relationship takes time to get to know each other.
Note to author: please for fuck sake, stop with the false click bait promises. “I wrote a note every day” … then … “Ok, that’s a lie; it’s on weekdays and not everyday”… what the hell? You do you you’re writing and not speaking right? ie. go back and edit your text if you’ve lied, otherwise it’s just clickbait.
If you say things enough, you come to believe in them and act to make them true. Even if you wrote such notes every day, and never gave them to your partner, the act of writing them changes you. Perhaps, even, into a better partner.
