The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
My wife and I cope with long to-do lists in opposite ways. I avoid anything that’s not critical and like to make steady progress slowly. I’m happy as long as there’s forward progress, and as long as something’s not getting worse (e.g. the house is a little less cluttered than last week), I’m satisfied with the positive direction.
The wife on the other hand gets anxious and starts buzzing around the house. And anything she wants done now that she herself can’t get to, she assigns to me. These feel like shit tests to me, and I frankly don’t know how to deal with them.
I can tell that this contribution gap is a major turn-off for her, and is even leading to some resentment. Cleaning dishes are expressly my responsibility, and if I leave them in the sink too long, she’ll jump in and do them herself, which we both hate for different reasons.
I’m trying to foster more initiative to beat her to the punch on some of these things. I want to take a more aggressive approach to my to-dos in general anyway, but man, it feels like I’m trying self-improvement on hard mode.
She will go ahead and order plane tickets for an upcoming vacation before I can think to. Well shit, she got the details sent to her email inbox. Hey honey, when’s the flight? Hey, what terminal? Can you print out my ticket for me? I know she would love for me to take care of all of this, but I get beat to it every time because she’s unwilling to wait. And to her it starts looking like I just won’t do these things for us.
Like I said, I’m trying to be more proactive. But damn.
I've had this issue with multiple housemates I've lived with, and eventually solved it by marrying a man who's just as messy as I am and buying a house. If we end up having to eventually replace the entire floor once the kids get older on account of stains or something, at least we're in it together. We'll both learn how to put down laminate or something. My father used to wait until we were out of dishes to wash them all at once for an hour twice a week or so. Apparently that worked alright for my parents, they're still together.
Apparently, Big 5 trait breaks up into industriousness and orderliness, and it's really hard on orderly people to relax in chaotic environments. Or so I've heard, I score something like third percentile in orderliness, unlike your wife.
I'm not certain what a good long term solution might be. Agree to do the dishes at a specific time each day, and set a timer? Always wash the dishes right after dinner? Own fewer dishes, so that you notice faster? Agree that one or the other of you is completely responsible for the vacation plans for a specific trip, and it's an infringement if the other swoops in and takes over just because they're feeling anxious?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link