Repair and Remain (2022)
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I get this, and will call a handyman for some jobs, but I try to do repairs and "upgrades" myself when the work seems manageable to me.
Perhaps a downside of becoming halfway proficient as a handyman is all the people asking for your help. But you can see it as an upside as well, if they are friends and you enjoy helping them out.
I had two reactions to this -
The first is that's part of why I like working on low-stakes physical projects - especially when I'm working in my garden, I'm almost aggressively improvisational, just trying to use whatever's on hand to do the job and fixing things as I go. Because the garden is mine and just an absolute hobby, I get to play around, and the feeling of satisfaction I get from cobbling something together to solve a problem easily matches delivering a carefully-done plan.
The second is that undo button makes us sloppy. I noticed this the first time I went into management - the hardest part of the job was I had no idea if I'd done something right and no way to do it again if I didn't. It's made me sloppy a few other places as well, where I've found myself staring at something and thinking "well shit, there's no undo here, is there?" I think spending some time with some things that have stakes and can't be undone is healthy, and I think programming somehow makes us both sloppier and more risk-averse by its almost unbounded undo-ability.
I would emphasize both that the undo-ability is very freeing and that the compiler/tests guardrails let one focus on the novel part rather than the routine part.
Completely agree! The number of people I know who I think would struggle to know whether to hold the plastic or metal end of a screwdriver is depressing to me. I want my kids to grow up with a basic knowledge of mechanics, mechanisms, repairs/maintenance, and experience the world as things that can mostly be understood (and created) rather than things that are conceived and made by others and merely consumed by "normal people".
It also has saved a fair amount of money over the years, but the mindset is more important to show my family than the dollars.
If it's not going to be a quick or easy fix, I then do the calculation of whether or not I want to trade time that I would normally spend on myself or my family for the project. These days there aren't many things that meet that bar. I guess I would frame it as "spend your time wisely because you are rapidly running out of it".
My dad died a few years ago and I've never once wished he had spent more time working on stuff around the house. We would occasionally get in the car and drive somewhere inconsequential talking the entire time. That's what I wish I had more of. All the other stuff I can get from YouTube.
With my kids (who are in college now), there's no way they are going to sit around while I try to fix the sink. If I want to spend time with them, I have to give some consideration to their preferences.
Working on my tractor in the summer, when it mostly sits idle anyway? A pleasure, I can tinker with it a few hours every now and then and bring it all back into working order before I need it. It almost feels like meditation, being focused on fixing a very real problem rather than optimizing some abstract piece of code.
If it is in the middle of winter, freezing inside the shed and I NEED it to be working by next morning in order to clear the snow, thus enabling the kids to get to school and my wife and I to work?
Not quite as enjoyable.
But, as you say - with the proper mindset and a can-do attitude, it is incredible what tasks you can figure out how to do by studying the problem, asking for a little help, looking stuff up on the 'net.
Experience? That is recognizing the tasks you had better leave to someone else. :)
Rejetting carbs on your motorcycle that you use for commuting, goes from a fun weekend project to 1AM Monday morning nightmare really quick. :)
I almost believe myself.
I likewise care for an acre, and fix as much as I reasonably can — from the small to the large. I once avoided a “dominos” problem when a built-in fridge died, which they no longer made parts for, and was a different size than today’s so the cabinetry would need redone, which would make the rest of the kitchen look worn, which would make the wood floors look worn (all in all, I was facing lots of zeros).
Then I thought for a while and decided to test all the capacitors on the PCB (in place, which required buying a tester). About $150.08 and two days later the fridge was working (the eight cents was for the bad cap).
That said, I know my limits and call in the “pros” for jobs I don’t relish or wouldn’t trust my own work (e.g. car brakes).
Knowing how to repair things doesn’t mean one always has to.
I truthfully can't imagine caring about how my yard looks that much. It will get mowed when it gets too long but otherwise I let whatever wants to grow, grow, and spend maybe an hour tops on it every couple of weeks. My family would much rather do things with me than see me toil away on a green hellscape.
Overall it was just a huge waste of time and money for everyone involved. At least the tractor had a plow attachment that was useful for clearing the driveway of snow in the winter, so it wasn't a single-task purchase. Then again, if we had a smaller plot of land, the driveway would have been short enough to handle with shovels, so...
As an adult, now we have a house out in a mountainous area where there's snow on the ground for as long as 5 or 6 months out of the year. Grass doesn't really survive there, so most of the land is just dirt or whatever strange weeds/plants will grow on it on their own. Much easier to deal with.
“My family gets to see me swear at my old cars that get 10mpg that I insist on owning and somehow justify by imagining they’re learning anything beyond another datapoint as to why we shouldn’t all own and maintain lifeless landscapes and pollution machines that only serve to stroke our fragile egos”
For others interested in alternative options to maintaining an otherwise lifeless lawn Re:wild is an organization dedicated to finding solutions to bring pollinators and biodiversity back to our cities and neighborhoods.
Shoot.
I get that you want to do it yourself, and that you've made different value judgments over the various aspects of doing it yourself vs. having someone else do it. But understand that others of us have also made different value judgments, and our situations aren't always the same.
0_o
Why are you doing 10 oil changes a year lol? Most people do ~2
IDK, I'm a fan of 'do it yourself at least once to understand what's involved', but I'm totally okay outsourcing it based on cost+time+risk otherwise.
You might not find it messy, but I do. I don't like doing it. And it costs me the same amount of time and money if I have my mechanic do it, so that is why I outsource it.
And I luckily have a mechanic that I fully trust with my car. They are specialised in my make and model. Even have the correct socket for the oil plug, which I do not have.
Edit: Meaning that the Jiffy Lube guy has to pay income tax on what he earns at his job, but you don't have to pay tax on the labor expense to you.
I expect very few people to report this to the authorities, unless, of course, you are going to do something which is significant enough to require you to apply for a building permit.
PS: I am sure this isn't the case, but I am having this funny image in my head of a handyman giving you "work" so you don't mess with his stuff, like a parent gives their kids some mock work when they are too small to actually help.
PPS: Don't do this with your kids for too long - they can figure out at a pretty young age if they are just playing or actually helping.
Electrical on the other hand I find to be a blast. It's more a hobby than a chore, although there are some things I won't touch, like running conduit for lv or installing a sizable solar system. The pros are just so good at it.
Cars too - I'll change every fluid, do brake jobs, install short shift kits, dashcams, even got a windows VM running so I could use old software to read OBD-I codes on my old car. But timing or a top-end rebuild.. I leave that to the pros.
I think there's something to be said for doing like 80% of the things yourself even when you can afford more. It's so gratifying to do even a simple job and when it's done, it's done. It's so unlike most of our day-to-day that's full of multi-month efforts that depend on other people.
If I hire someone to do something, and they do a bad job, I have to beg them to come out and fix it, if they even will at all. And they're the only one with the knowledge and experience and tools to do the repair, so I feel frustrated that I'm unable to resolve it, its going to be like that forever.
If I do something myself, now I've learned how to do it, and buying any necessary tools and equipment to do it was probably cheaper than hiring someone to do it. And if I do a bad job, I console myself that I could fix it if I cared enough, even if I never get around to it. At some point it'll annoy me enough that I will fix it, or it won't and I won't care. Personally, I find this to be much better for my mental health.
This has really driven my decisions a lot. I've found that pretty much any set of tools I could need for common home repair costs less than 2 hours of labor that someone would charge me.
Sure, my time acquiring these tools and using them isn't worthless, but I personally enjoy doing it and find that to have value in and of itself. (Certainly that's not true of everyone.)
There are some cases where I just don't want to deal with it, though. For example, I needed a new railing put on my deck a few months ago. I know I'm not great at woodworking, and honing those skills doesn't really interest me all that much; someone else would do a much nicer job of it than I would. I didn't want to have to buy some more tools that I don't really have good storage space for. My compromise was to hire a handyman I trust to build the railing, but I decided I would stain it myself.
The tools keep costing less and less, as they're used over and over for projects. I haven't bought a new tool in a long time. Perhaps the exception is the specialized little tools needed to work on my bicycles. But even there, I can either fix it myself during my off time, or fit a time into my schedule to take my bike somewhere and then get it back.
There's work that I don't do. We all choose our battles.
I do this, but I sometimes think it was a mistake in the end. There are often tools and materials I didn’t consider that I needed to pay for. I recently built a 24’ fence. I think I saved a tiny amount of money but I can see every little flaw. It also took me several months and probably would have been a day or two for a pro.
There's always more things that needs to be done than time you have.
In practice you always need to prioritize between
1. what will you spend your time to learn and do it good
2.what will you spend your money to make others do it worse(coin flip, it may be good)
3. or not do it at all.
The choice is not trivial.
The real hack to DIY is you eliminate taxes and insurance, other than sales tax. It's one of the few ways to actually keep almost all the value you generate.
For some types of services, once you've found a person who does good work, you can privately ask them if they'd like to cut out the middleman: they get a pay raise and you pay less. This is particularly relevant for online services that find a professional for you.
I agree with the general point though: That we should tax land more, and labour less.
Because taxing labour creates the kinds of inefficiencies where I need to work for two hours to afford somebody else to work for one hour.
> The middleman being the IRS?
Only to the extent the money may get taxed 2-3 times on its way to the actual person doing the work (which may or may not be the case in any particular instance). (For instance, sales tax and multiple levels of income taxes.)
> we should tax land more, and labour less.
Agreed.
The idea starts to make a lot of sense once you look at its framing. This includes the argument you make above (why can't you hire help out of pre-tax income, like any other business can?) and more on the legitimacy of taxation.
Leaving aside the obvious fact that your personal activities are not a business[0], you can indeed hire help out of pre-tax income -- in the U.S. no one pays income tax on their gross income, only their taxable income. By the time common tax credits are factored in, a married couple with children may easily have $30-40K of gross income each year not subject to income tax.
Many, if not most, homeowners do not need to go out and work extra hours to pay someone to do work to repair their property, any more than they need to work extra hours to pay for food and clothing, so looking only at the marginal tax rate is misleading (as in the example above of earning an extra $167 to have $100 after tax).
Further, work you pay for that improves the property (as opposed to repairs) is added to the tax basis of the property, reducing future taxable income when the property is sold. Along with the potential to exclude up to $250K/$500K (single/married) of gain[1] from selling the property is a huge source of pre-tax income.
[0]and even businesses can only deduct expenses for people they hire for services that are related to generating a profit.
[1]Section 121 exclusion
So that's about 30% gone right there for engaging in labor trade before you even consider income tax
On its face, that doesn't seem to stand up to scrutiny.
When I first heard of it, it seemed like it literally described the very same economic model we're accustomed to. But now that you mention this, there does seem to be an underscore of "just 2 guyz who are having a good time", without proper accounting of the exchange of value, thereby making it difficult to prove that a taxable event occurred.
- the enjoyment of creating or building something decent (if you enjoy it)
- the enjoyment of learning for its own sake
- the knowledge that the next time you do this task, you'll be more efficient at it
- the knowledge of how the process works, so you know it was done right, and can fix it if it breaks
There's a variety of others. I agree that if it's a task you don't enjoy or don't rely on, then outsourcing it often a great idea.
Some things greatly reward a DIY attitude. Like knowing how to wrench on your bike when you're on a trip far in the wilderness and something goes wrong. You can even help out others!
For example, I enjoy doing electrical work, but hate plumbing. I'll do the former, but hire someone to do the latter.
Last year we bought a house that had a bunch of windows with missing screens. I ended up making new frames for all but one of those windows. The last one I didn't get to with the time constraints I had, and I've been procrastinating for the past year because it's a repetitive, fiddly job that doesn't really give me any joy. I'm sure I'll get around to the final screen eventually, but not every DIY project gives enjoyment for everyone.
First line: "(if you enjoy it)"
Second last line: "I agree that if it's a task you don't enjoy or don't rely on, then outsourcing it often a great idea."
I took time to underline the fact that if you don't like the task, you ought to outsource it. Not sure how I could have been clearer.
Also: your tone comes off as dismissive and snarky.
I too lean towards DIY but have had to learn to make the hard decision on projects. "Will I realistically get this done in O(days|weeks)?" "Do we actually have any weekends free in the next ~month?" This usually leaves enough low-pressure jobs for me to do on my own, while maintaining domestic harmony by paying someone to do the rest.
I miss living near them. I no longer have a network I can call for help on projects and so the things I can get done are very limited.
As for yardwork I could easily hire a gardner but I enjoy being outside and physical activity and sunlight(vitamin D) are great for you. Plus you save money and have the satisfaction that you made your physical world a better more attractive space.
That being said a house that needs alot of upkeep as everything is extremely out of date would be(for me) very stressful and time consuming, so everything is relative.
For me, I tend to want to fix things more the more my job is boring and I'm not able to work on new things or improve existing ones. I'll then take some satisfaction on actually being able to affect change, even if it is in my own environment. It can be a bit therapeutic.
I will, however, delegate some work when I don't have the tools or the means to do it efficiently. I had an alternator failure. I could replace it myself, I know how. But the car in question has it in a pretty difficult to access location. It is doable but would probably take me the whole day (if not more) with just a jack and stands. So I sent it to the mechanic.
And yes, if you are falling behind on your repairs or if you have to spend most of your free time to do it, it's not worth it, you need more hands. Also, if you actually don't have free time and you would use that time to earn more money.
By contrast, I take the position that I can fuck up just about anything myself for free, and if I'm paying somebody, they'd better do it right and do it right the first time.
There's a lot to be said for not having too much work in progress. Sometimes it's better to bring in a whole crew and get the job done.
There is a balance here and it is different for different people.
When she is agonizing over some color scheme (which in most cases doesn't interest me much) she will explain what she wants to achieve, and I can ask "stupid" questions that lead her to the answer...or in the odd case I make a suggestion and the lightbulb pops on.
It seems to me the mental health professionals do the same thing.
Together we have tackled installing over a 1000 sqft of hardwood flooring, removing popcorn ceilings (yuk), re-engineering built in cabinetry to accommodate an 82" TV, gutting and rebuilding 3 bathrooms, re-upholstering a livingroom suite that has no right angles (all curves), running a 90ft PEX pipe through a ceiling crawl space after receive a quote from a plumber for $8000 (took a day of our time).
The problem I have with "professionals" is that they all tell me a different story of what I need, and the "other guy" is always dead wrong.
I need a new roof and am getting quotes from multiple vendors....Just today I had calls with a couple of the vendors and they told me opposite stories of what "I need". One told me I need to replace all the wall flashings (which is very difficult and expensive given the siding must come off), and the other said don't touch it if its not leaking. Who to believe?
At the end of each project we are amazed at our accomplishment (note youtube helps). It certainly took 5x longer than a professional might take, but the end result was unique, we could change direction mid project, and in the end I know it is not crap work from some guy who left a leak in the wall. I believe the elation we achieved (and compliments from the neighbors), far exceeds the sweat equity that we put into the projects.
Next week I start a role with a 20% pay bump. Staying is only justified if your company actually reacts to the realities of the world and the job market.
It isn't hard - inflation is a known % every years, your average raise needs to exceeded that - once someone has experience they are only worth a cost of living raise, but juniors moving up to senior should be getting large raises every year to reflect their growth. Yet HR/management never looks at inflation before figuring out raises even though not matching inflation is how you fall behind and lost people with experience.
Of course companies have not yet learned to value experience. I'm not sure what will teach them that.
also since 2% is the typical target, they have a little room to lower rates and stimulate the economy, such as what happened in covid
This rings true to me; I am no amazing programmer but things I have built (which managers complained took a bit too long) have just chugged along; I have almost never received a call about something broke badly or had major rollbacks etc. My longest record is a program I built 19 years ago which is still in use.
19 years is incredible! Congratulations on a job well done for nearly a quarter century!
It's never too late for a change of career if you want it.
In fact, I wrote a blog post about the joys of sticking around: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2023/08/07/the-benefits-o...
I have so many questions
At first you buy those 2 dollar light plastic swords, which last a few hours.
Then you buy a tougher, floppy, one that last a week. Then you make a wooden one for them, they knock something down with it. Time to repair the tougher one.
I think those ugly and solid people who made ugly and solid things are increasingly going away and we as society are worse for losing them.
The girl working there asked, out of interest, what I was buying them for. I started to say, pipes to the radiator are running directly behind the fridge... she interrupted to say "oh, actually for insulating pipes? We had a couple in here last week buying them for their kids to use for sword-fighting".
Sounds like a brilliant idea to me! Cheap enough to easily replace when they break. And the adults can easily nick them off their kids and have just as much fun using them to beat the shit out of each other, and they don't even hurt.
Context: this is a show about a bodyguard service. After several episodes of training from hell, the new bodyguards are now going out on jobs.
While I'm a big believer in marriage for life, I do recognize that sometimes past you messed up and leaving is the best option. 75% (maybe more) of my message isn't about fixing up the current relationship, but carefully choosing who you get into one with in the first place.
Let's not forget about the happiness of one's spouse and kids.
I took a vow to love and honor my wife all the days of my life and I'm going to keep that vow. Is it acceptable to break vows? Or are we talking about marriages that didn't involve vows involving "all the days or my life" or similar language?
Even if that were true, it does not necessitate that divorce in itself is the problem, but that divorce correlates with behaviors on the part of the parents that can be detrimental. Staying in a problematic relationship does not fix that.
If you misdiagnose the problem, your solution will not be effective.
The more significant statistic qua correlations is the impact of growing up with just one parent after divorce, and of instability of changing circumstances. I have seen no research papers that make a convincing case that divorce is significantly negative for kids.
> People I know whose parents got divorced said it was devastating to them.
My parents were divorced. Know what bothered me? The constant high tempered fighting. They were fucking uncivil assholes with each other, and remained so after the divorce. If anything divorce was a reprieve for myself and siblings.
So your anecdote means nothing to me. Those parents you refer to aren't everyone's parents.
> Is it acceptable to break vows?
The vows are already broken if one of the two parties aren't carrying their own weight. Notwithstanding, if it's a miserable situation that doesn't get better no matter what the parties try, then yes it's acceptable in my own view. But your values aren't my values.
Doesn't divorce cause those two things? Either the kids live with just one parent, or are sent back and forth between them, which I think is a changing circumstance. And I think divorce itself is an instable changing circumstance. Also, if growing up with just one parent is detrimental, I would think spending less time with each parent would also be detrimental, just to a lesser degree (compared with 0 time), and I think divorce would cause that because the child can no longer spend time with both parents simultaneously.
This literature study[1] says
> The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage.
Although I'll admit I haven't had time to look through all its references to find the supporting data for that claim.
I'm very sorry about the experience you had growing up. I hope you're doing better now.
I agree that anecdotes can't show the whole picture. In this study[2]
>When children were asked if they wanted their parents were not divorced, most of them, 88.51 % answered they wished their parents were not divorced and the rest, 19.14 % agreed with their divorce.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/
[2] https://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/14821/14781
It's a circumstance that changes once. That's not what instability is. Having a revolving door of partners, moving around a lot, and going long bouts without being present before re-entering a kids' life causes instability. If the child has the confidence that they're going to see their parents at regular intervals indefinitely and stay put, that's stable
> I would think spending less time with each parent would also be detrimental, just to a lesser degree (compared with 0 time),
This is conjecture.
>Instability is best described as the experience of abrupt, involuntary, and/or negative change in individual or family circumstances.
>Family Instability
>According to recent estimates, between birth and fourth grade, more than one-third of children see their parents marry, remarry, separate, or start or end a cohabiting union.
https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/32721/...
>This is conjecture.
This paper[1] says spending more time with kids led to better outcomes for the kids. I think if there are 2 parents in the house the kid will be more likely to be spending time with at least one of them. Although there seem to be studies saying the opposite, or that there's no benefit. So I'm not sure. This paper[2] says the benefit only occurs when both parents spend time with the kid at the same time.
[1] https://www.mdpi.com/2673-995X/4/2/38
[2] https://ifstudies.org/blog/kids-time-with-parents-matters-bu...
Not to be a downer but while the idea is great, no one knows how things will turn out, as the writer himself conceded.
If this inevitable failure only becomes apparent after you’ve had kids but you’re sure they will grow up only having seen bitterness in their parent’s relationship, then bailing out is still valid advice.
It's kind of like planting trees - it can take a while to see the fruit, but then it keeps on giving with some ongoing maintenance.
In my life, my significant other, my career, and financials are those areas I heavily invested early on, and a decade on they are quite strong. I still struggle, but when I take a step back, I can see these are very good and feel grateful.
There were many times I have been tempted to leave. But I kept an eye on the big picture, what would leaving really change for me? And the answer was not much, I am still me (as noted in the article).
On the other hand, I have under invested in myself (health, hobbies, spirituality) and friends. My main struggle is working to shift my focus away from maximizing the former, and begin balancing more of the latter.
It's an ongoing journey :)
It’s why I nearly considered an academic career and decided against it - having to constantly move for grad school, then post doc positions, onwards and onwards regularly never appealed to me.
"The Suburban Lifestyle Dream" https://www.ryanpuzycki.com/p/the-suburban-lifestyle-dream
> Even as the West has built some of the world’s most extraordinary cities, this Puritanical, anti-urban throughline runs across our culture. The desire to return to an Edenic state is a central theme in the story of how the “Suburban Lifestyle Dream” first entered our collective conscience. That dream has powered the unique pattern of suburbanization that typifies much of modern America—one marked by “stratified and segregated social geography” and “relatively low density.”
This is a lot like those cascades of technical debt that must be overcome to fix some otherwise minor thing.
If anything about your house is broken, you can (in principle) just fix it. You don't need the house to agree or cooperate. Even if the house is burned out or full of black mold, remediation is always an option, subject only to the resources you can bring to bear.
I dunno. It's tiresome to put qualifiers and disclaimers on everything. MAYBE in an article by a white Anglican Canadian small-business owner (such as myself except for the Anglican part), it just goes without saying that if your partner is a threat to you or your children's safety, or if there is a huge power imbalance at play, or if your partner simply refuses to join you in the work of repair, leaving is often justified.
But then again, as someone who grew up sheltered in a similar community and naively assuming that divorce was stupid and selfish 100% of the time, I tend to think those qualifiers would do more good than harm.
It is possible for relationships to be damaging for one or both members. It's easy to say this the mindset of making things work doesn't apply to abusive relationships - but it's not always clear what abuse is. The very mindset that 'divorce is not an option' means that people spend far too long in dangerous situations.
From my experience - I was married for 6 years to someone who, from the same starting position, moved to a very different philosophical viewpoint to me. This evolved over time, but by the end she'd happily tell me my belief system was wrong and immoral, and that she wanted she were married to someone who shared her viewpoint. She even said that in her opinion we shouldn't be married, but that she didn't believe in divorce. She'd never accept that there was anything wrong with what she was doing - she was simply trying to save me - and when I said 'I find what you're saying hurtful' she'd tell me she had no choice but to say it.
I can only imagine how miserable a time she was having, but she saw no choice but to continue in that relationship.
This never seemed like abuse at the time - and I'm certain she didn't mean it as such - but with hindsight she broke down my confidence in myself and in who I was and left me fundamentally doubting whether I was a good person (among other things, like making relationships with friends and family difficult).
Of course, everyone's experience is unique, but when I left that relationship I felt guilty, selfish and like I'd failed. It's only with hindsight that I can say with confidence that it was the best thing for everyone involved, and I'm much happier and healthier some years and plenty of therapy later. The narrative expressed in the article means people stay in awful situations they could be well out of.
We didn't have kids - and I'd definitely have been considering different things if we did (in particular, not wanting those kids to end up with a mother whose world view I fundamentally disagreed with, without my influence), but it may well still have been the right decision.
Abuse doesn't just take physical forms; there is a such thing as emotional abuse. And where exactly do you draw the line?
Personally, I think if you're fundamentally unhappy in the relationship and the other person doesn't seem to be willing or able to change things to make you happy in the relationship, you're better off getting out. The fact that too many times, people are tied together by finances, is really a tragedy IMO. It's better to be single and alone than to be stuck with someone who's making you miserable.
As a culture, we are moving away from upholding institutions for their own sake at the cost of individuals who may be harmed by them. I see marriage as no exception.
I spent about 20 years in those two relationships, and it wasn't until I got out that I realized how broken all that was.
This is such a weird thing to say. It's like saying one is a huge proponent of homicide. But then it turns out that they mean homicide when it's to protect a small child from a murderous predator. By itself the statement is just a bizarre statement of values.
Some marriages are bad, and should never have happened (I'm a proponent of people not going into clearly bad marriages, though many do). More often than not those marriages had two selfish people who will never find happiness. But divorce is no magical solution, and enormous numbers of people who choose that option regret it. Because the grass isn't always greener, and you don't suddenly regain youth, and your life isn't suddenly wonderful and free of obligation, etc. Which is clearly what this article is about, and not about abusive or broken relationships.
There's a bit of a Reddit meme that people post their "my partner forgot to put their yogurt cup in the recycling" and 90% of the replies are some variation of "lawyer up, hit the gym, dump their ass" type commentary, and it's just comical. Misery loves company. Miserable people are like Sirens of greek mythology, and their greatest hope is to encourage others to be as miserable.
>As a culture, we are moving away from upholding institutions for their own sake
Divorce rates are at like a 50-year low so this is a strange statement to make.
There's a reason divorce rates are low: go check out the statistics for marriage rates. They're really low too. In short, people just aren't getting married as easily as they did decades ago. You can't get divorced if you don't get married in the first place.
>This is such a weird thing to say. It's like saying one is a huge proponent of homicide.
That's because you're being pedantic. Obviously, the OP is advocating divorce for highly troubled marriages, not all marriages. Which marriages are and aren't salvageable is a matter of debate of course, but you could have understood the OP's meaning if you had read the rest of the post.
The ratio of divorces to marriages is lower than any point since the 1970s. Fewer marriages are ending in divorce, and this is all ignoring that divorces are lagging so the effect is even more pronounced.
> Obviously, the OP is advocating divorce for highly troubled marriages
It actually isn't obvious. Stating that you're a proponent of divorce without qualifiers sounds like something that a jaded spinster would say. But regardless this whole sidetrack is in relation to an article that really obviously is talking about marriages falling apart over silly things, not abusive or actually broken relationships, but invariably we get caught up in tut tut exception commentary.
you need to make a much more robust argument than this. In this context, this comes across as "in and out of a marriage, that should be easy, but moving house, think a little harder on it"
it might very well be true as you say that it is common, but ideally should people commonly discover "reasons" to dissolve their marriage? How about treating the period before marriage as boot camp instead of travel, sunsets, wine and roses? I have no end of travel-sunsets-wine-roses soulmates, that's easy.
I tried that. In the span of a month we had a newborn, I lost my job, the market went into the worst recession since the Great Depression. Later I lost another job and we had to short-sell our house.
We got a divorce and it wasn't because of any of those things (though, they did influence it). It was because my default was to run away from my problems.
Funny thing; the divorce didn't eliminate the stress. It just moved it around in my body and mind and led to near constant anger, anxiety, and panic spasms. I went to see a therapist who taught me to be present with what I'm feeling. (He practiced Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, for anyone interested) I did that in earnest and one day about six months after starting therapy I realized what a mistake I had made in giving up on my marriage.
I reached out and we were able to repair the relationship and we've been back together for over ten years now, thankfully. We're closer than ever. I don't recommend that particular method of repairing a relationship, by the way. ;)
It hasn't always been easy since we got back together but, it has been worth it. We were talking the other day--we talk a lot, important!--and we both agreed that at the start of our relationship, our feelings for each other were very intense. Now that we've been together for over twenty years (with a short "We were on a break!" in the middle) we find that the intensity of our love for each other isn't the same but it is so much deeper than it was at the start and only grows more so the more we're together. We realized that you can only get that if you stay and work on the relationship.
The classic consumer-facing book about CBT is "Feeling Good", and a good consumer-facing book about ACT is "The Happiness Trap."
I share this because your comment may resonate with people, and I think it's important to understand that ACT is quite different than the more-common CBT.
I've seen too many marriages fall apart because a single party was apathetic long enough that the second party finally got the memo. It's a tragedy in every sense of the word; especially for the kids.
The reason it has a poor track record IMHO is what this guy is saying about the nail clipper: don't let the problems fester. Oncologists can only save people who are diligent about doing their cancer screenings to catch problems early.
I sense a hint of prejudice, the “you’ll understand once you have kids” trope. Surely counsellors training is more important than their personal situation?
With full-grown adults (ie 27-28+), there is rarely such a thing as a fixer-upper. If you’re unhappy with your fully adult partner, cut and run. Life is short and opportunity cost is real. You are doing them and yourself no favors.
If not, sure I agree with you. I don't think it's advisable to stay in an absolutely unhappy AND unfixable relationship. But I do think it's worth trying to fight for it.
I'm in a 15 year long relationship, and it's not been smooth sailing. Some experiences require knowing each other very deeply.
This is a very powerful experience IMO.
That said, "I can fix him/her" isn't a good way to enter a relationship.
(but, he was talking about doing science)
We live in civilization for a reason; different people specialize in different tasks so that overall, we all can enjoy our lives more.
In other words, except for simple little things, don't make me fix my bathroom: there are people who do this faster and better than me, but NO ONE is going to fix bugs in my software for me. To each his own.
This can go too far and put you in a cycle of spending all of your time tending jank (and lowing your quality bar). It's a fine edge to walk. but that pleasure hit that most people get from buying stuff, it doesn't work for me. Buying new things often makes me feel guilty. Re-using or repurposing something though... for me it's one of the best highs there is.
"Être et durer" - to be and to endure. Train for the future, sustainably, without ruining your body.
And, "être fort pour être utile" - be strong to be useful. Parkour (as opposed to freerunning) emphasizes the goal, movement, reaching or escaping.
On the slightly less technical side, I've been enjoying Asterisk Mag: https://asteriskmag.com/
This is the core presumption of the arrogance of the christian faith. The very concept that mankind is inherently flawed, always in need of cosmic repair from some imaginary being.
If that isn’t the epitome of a toxic and pathological worldview, I don’t know what is.
Literally everything good in this life was conceived of and created by mankind.
A month or two?! To re-do a bathroom? You say this like you're proud of it. I wouldn't. Accounting for drywall mudding and drying it should take a week, where most of the work happens in 2 days, on the weekend. Maybe you need 2 more days, the next weekend. Hell, take the other end of that weekend too.
1-2 month quotes is why I don't hire contractors, why I fix my own cars, and only use a personal friend for HVAC help.
A day of demo leaves you with an empty room with pipes sticking out of the walls. Maybe you've removed the drywall too so now you have outlet boxes and studs to work with. You take the rest of the day to finish the cleanup and triple-check your measurements for everything. Half your weekend has now been taken to demolish and clean up a core part of your home.
The next day you do your framing, including buying your lumber. Again, if you're new to this, you're probably checking a tutorial or plans every 10 minutes as you go so you make sure you're doing it right. If you have time and you're confident, you can get the plumbing set up so that it's ready to drop the tub/shower and vanity in place next weekend.
For someone with experience, this is an excruciatingly slow pace. For someone who is doing it for the first time and may never do it again, this is pretty reasonable. I would absolutely be proud of taking two months to do a bathroom if it means it's done right the first time. Going by the comments about contractors here, that's not a guarantee just because someone else can do it faster.
You are debating a different point entirely.
If I quit my job I could get the bathroom done in a couple weeks alone, and less if I can get help for the tasks that really need two people. It likely will take longer but only because of permits and inspections. However I can't afford to retire (well I can, but not on the lifestyle I want - cabins in Montana are cheap but I want lights and indoor plumbing)
Sure kids activities have to go on a back burner, but sorry, they have food and shelter and after that their enjoyment has to take a backseat to the family building the house which benefits us far longer than the memories of the park or soccer practice.
I respect choices of others but ultimately I see no reason to place childrens non-needs above critical family infrastructure.
> kids activities have to go on a back burner ... I see no reason to place childrens non-needs above critical family infrastructure
This comes across as pretty callous toward your children's development! Social interactions with family are needs for children, too.
It sounds like you chose to go off and build a house unnecessarily and ignored the labor of raising your children to do it, which a lot of people would find pretty irresponsible. So as a rebuttal to someone else saying they can't make the time, because they have work and kids, I think it functions better as an argument against doing what you did. If buying an already-built home wasn't a realistic option for you, that would be very important context here.
I can assure you DIY a house was not even on my radar of life plans.
Ultimately only one option remained, buy land in a place without building codes and then build without a license. Took me awhile to find the loophole, but I executed it. I built a house for only $60k in a state where a burnt out trailer is now $150k.
2) GC and contractors exploded prices to match weak competition. Deduction: must not have someone else build house.
3) Zoning laws make small homes illegal. Deduction: must find place with weak zoning.
4) Trades licensing, codes, and inspection make DIY impossible while holding regular job. Deduction must find place without inspections or required licensing for owner builder at any point.
---------
Criteria:
Must buy raw land ineligible for mortgage, must do it in in a place with weak zoning, codes, and inspection and still be near jobs.
The loophole was totally avoiding every competitive expensive pathway and bypassing it by not competing with people fueled by free debt and not being beholden to the zoning and planning cartels. Doing that is a difficult tightrope to walk.
Children don't need to participate in extracurricular activities such as travel club sports. But the reality is that not doing so kind of closes off certain future options, including reducing the odds of admission to highly selective colleges. Thus a lot of upper-middle class families prioritize those activities above having a nicer home. It's impossible to know which choices will produce better outcomes.
Building the family's house alongside Dad sounds much more valuable than anything they would have learned playing on the school's soccer team.
Things they both did:
- Not measure things properly. How on earth a "professional" can be two-four inches off on several measurements I have no idea.
- Not check the order before ordering it (and waiting months for it to be made and come in).
- Not check the order before installing it.
- Conveniently losing digital and physical copies of contracts and communications. Too bad for them we kept the signed originals.
- When I mention that it's clearly not right (prior to install) we get told something along the lines of "that's how they come from the factory, we fix it after installation". After install we get told "of course we can't fix that, you can accept it or wait another 6-8 months for new parts."
- A project manager that never actually supervises anything or shows up and has no problem lying to your face then saying something completely different in email afterwards.
- Contractor blaming manufacturer while manufacturer blames contractor. You have to take a day off work every time they come to inspect things yet again.
That's not even mentioning the constant babysitting that needs to be done (I am no contractor but maybe connect the drain to the sink before it gets turned on?) And all the little things that you end up doing yourself anyway because at this point it's just not worth it anymore like fixing all of the drywall they broke because I can do it in an afternoon and I am tired of talking to them and tired of seeing them and it will take you two weeks to come out anyway.
And we are not being picky here. It's stuff that should have been immediately obvious. Like our kitchen cabinets not having windows (we cut the windows out after install, they said). Or being three different colors (we paint them afterwards, they said). After install I find that both of those are lies and they apparently ordered the wrong cabinets and put in some other customer's cabinets on half my kitchen (one of the cabinets had over a dozen shims to make it fit properly). Three different materials (fiberboard, plywood, and solid wood). I didn't even notice that one until after install.
What about the window that was inches too big, and you didn't bother to check before ripping the old one out? Now I need to have plywood on my window for 8 months while you order a replacement. Good thing I'm not in an HOA or that would have got expensive quick. Maybe caulk the windows too? Just a suggestion but idk you're the professional you probably know better than the manufacturer.
My partner, child, or myself getting cut every time we wipe the windows. I don't care if it's the manufacturers fault come send somebody to sand them down and clip off the sharp bits. It's going to take 8 months for the new ones to come in. We're tired of bleeding every time we clean.
Lastly if you have explosive diahrrea fucking clean the toilet afterwards, especially if it splashes all the way up the lid. You are disgusting and you do shit work. And the worst part is I never even mentioned the diahrrea to them because in the grand scheme of things it was absolutely minor.
Washing dishes in the winter outside with a hose fucking sucks. And washing dishes in the tiny bathroom sink sucks. Washing dishes in a tiny bathroom sink right after someone stunk it up really sucks.
At least if you do it yourself, you can take a long time and do a shot job, and take solace knowing that if you hired someone it would have been just as bad but taken longer and been more expensive.
/rant. Sorry. The last few years have been stressful.
If you actually find someone that isn't bad hold on to them tight. Find an owner/operator who answers his own phone, does his own estimates, and does his own work.
In comparison, I have experienced major issues in every brand new house I have rented. I would not like to go through this experience as an actual owner as it would drive me insane. I have only met two contractors that were professional and took pride in their work. The rest were a bunch of wackos that only created chaos. In comparison, my experience leasing brand new cars could not be better. Get keys, drive for two years, return back. Zero issues. Given that a car is way more complex than a house, the construction industry seems terribly backwards.
The problem isn't factory vs. non-factory, the problem is culture. Many parts of American society have a culture of lying and cheating and making junk products and then lying to try to cover it up. Just look at Boeing.
https://www.dwell.com/article/japanese-prefab-homes-e1f1b65c
One notable quote from the article: "The country’s population is roughly twice that of the UK, yet over six times as much new housing is built in Japan than in the UK each year."
In mainland EU, things are a bit better, but housing is definitely one of the worst industries in terms of customer satisfaction. I don't think I have ever seen a new build that didn't have some serious problems, like roof leaks.
Sort of the same as software engineers.
It would be nice if there were a "fizzbuzz" test we could give contractors before hiring.
Hiring people who are unionized or who went through a union apprenticeship has been fairly reliable in my experience but union guys generally don't work on small household projects and they don't come cheap.
I'm such a lucky person (knock on wood...) for not going through such serious problems in construction & love... (however getting to the point of obtaining 'true' love took a lot of time and disappointments).
You made my point for me, we are in complete agreement.