It’s very simple. If something is minor for you but your partner prompts you extensively that it triggers them - change yourself.
The willingness to listen and change yourself is what signals your love. Because everything else is much easier.
The willingness to listen and change yourself is what signals your love. Because everything else is much easier.
If it is actually a problem, then yes, insist on it being fixed. If it is actually minor, maybe adjust your expectations and get over it.
After all, that's also a form of listening and adjusting yourself. It's important to know that in relationships you can't expect to get your way all of the time, and that you don't automatically get your way just because you're the one with a grievance.
this is only possible if both partners respect and care for each other and are willing to listen and support each others needs.
in the article when the author says that he'd want to agree to disagree he was not respecting his wife. he was basically saying: you are wrong, but i don't want to fight over this. that doesn't help. you need to work it out until there is an actual solution that both can agree with.
once you have solved one problem like this, it opens the door to approach more problems. i think it helps to start with smaller problems where the actual outcome doesn't matter. like it doesn't matter who gets their way with putting away the dishes. what matters is that each partner gets to share their feelings about the issue and that those feelings are being respected.
So, you know, be smarter than I've been. When she says that something bugs her, don't filter her statement through what bugs you or through what you expect to bug people. Instead, listen.
Saying “i love you” is easy. Making these little sacrifices on your ego that show the other person you care about them can be much harder, but shows your feelings much more.
However: there must always remain a perception of fairness in the relationship. I am very intentionally not saying “the equal amount of sacrifice” because the dynamics are different for everyone.
Sounded like the wife was the one with the issue. And it doesn’t sound like the problem really was over a glass on the counter at the root of it.
The only thing I got out of the article was that he was married to a control freak who liked to keep them off balance all the time.
With some (minor) exceptions, what people are getting in their relationships is at least 50% result of their own choices, and not owning that only prolongs the effects.
Edit-add: also, I think “being with a person who never triggers a negative response in you” is just plain impossible. On some days I trigger a negative response with myself :-)
But based on my limited experience of two 10+ years relationships, I can say life is so much easier and fun when you have less things to disagree about.
But I also acknowledge that this is how I am wired - for some, fights are stimulating. Hence my initial reply with shibari. There exist rather interesting pathways to happiness.
I can’t think of a better goal than to be with somebody so compatible that you have minimal friction and minimal issues.
This is the very reason why you never give a bully or a narcissist a single inch. What they are trying to do is keep you off balance, make you walk on eggshells and create a bubble of control.
If it's genuinely something that is causing a problem that is completely different from the typical needling/whining/unnecessary argument escalation over trivial bullshit that an emotional abuser will mete out.
If you are married to the person surely the goal should be to find some middle ground.
On the one hand, I think this can lead to ruin in its own way. It cedes all ground to the most neurotic or controlling partner. It breeds resentment in the one who has to make all the concessions. Instead, I would suggest that these conflicts should be resolved explicitly and deliberately. Sometimes that will lead to one person reminding themselves to put the glass in the dishwasher. Sometimes it will lead to the other person reminding themselves that it doesn't matter. Either way, as long as it's a resolution that is mutually agreed and balanced with all of the other minor concessions that each is making, I think it's OK.
On the other hand, a variant of this is a good rule even in non-intimate relationships. If something takes you trivial time or effort, and means a lot to someone else, DO IT. Even for a total stranger. It increases the total "good karma" (but without the moral weight) in the system. Sooner or later, if enough people keep doing it, some of that will come back to you. Something that might have seemed onerous becomes less so because of someone else's minor generosity. IMO the fact that this isn't a common habit, that it's even discouraged by the dominant "everything should be strictly transactional" dogma (ignoring actual results from game and complexity theory), degrades life a bit for everyone.
P.S. Lest anyone claim I'm being inconsistent, changing yourself is hard. It's not a minor effort, like taking one moment to do someone a small favor. They're very different scenarios.
Then they express gratitude, and before you know it, you’ll get a favor like that back on something you really care about.
That is not at all guaranteed. Personally, I'd by surprised if it were commonly correct.
As others have said in other comments here, "you can't keep score". I'm still working on making sense of this too.
Do you keep changing yourself to meet their every whim, maybe they should just let it go, it's just a glass?