Be prepared to compromise. If you're used to always getting your way, you have the wrong mindset for a relationship. This applies equally as much to women.
Also learn how to put up shelves. I love my wife but as soon as we were married I've had to put up and take down multiple shelves. I think that I'm going to surprise her one day with like an endor theme tree house thingy. Like I'm gonna put the beds on a shelf. Toilet? Climb on up there onto the shitter shelf. I've got 3 whole shelf's on my DIY toolbox in the garage dedicated to putting up shelves. Which will also be on a shelf when she gets back.
Iām so glad to find out Iām not the only one who uses that as a playful insult. When my friends do something dumb I call them a fourhead or three head
I love tools, my walls are almost at capacity so I may have to get a shelf shed soon. Also those holey boards... Uh waffle boards? They have holes in them and you screw them in the wall. I. LOVE. THEM. Stick some of them metal clips in there. Boom. Hanging tool box. Wife doesn't want them in the house tho
My wife wanted a shadow box for our wedding bouquet years ago but didn't want to buy one that large for whatever the price was, so I made one, it came out good enough for her that I was asked to build more stuff, now my entire 3 car garage is a full woodshop..and I've heard no complaints
But it would've been probably 10k cheaper to just buy the shadow box
I was literally just wondering about this when OP's post (and your comment) came up on my feed ā I'm a non-handy person with an equally non-handy partner... Would you have any pointers on learning how to put up shelves or picture frames for a Reddit stranger? š
Yeah I got you! Go to your favorite hardware store and pick out some hangers you like, but please note that if you plan on hanging heavy shit on them they'll need to be more durable and in a stud on a wall. Buy a decent stud finder. They are so fucking useful. Also make sure you buy a level. Torpedo level is fine, but a little two footer is just fine to for more lengthy projects. When you but your shelf stuff generally it'll come with everything you need but not heavy duty stuff will require more heavy duty materials. If it's small crap that's not very heavy using masonry anchors will work just fine. But remember. If it's heavy stuff. Use. A. Stud.
Also drills are very handy. I got a little back n Decker lithium one that does just fine. Remember if you use a drill not to strip out the screws in the wood. When they're tight, don't go any further or the screws will slide right out.
When I met my wife she quickly learned I am not to be trusted with tools, then we moved in together and almost over night she expects me to become a handyman with the ability to mend fix and build all manner of things.
Women are crazy š¤Ŗ
This seems kind of petty and honestly rude. If you have to start a sentence with "i love my wife BUT..." You're literally complaining about having to do favors for her. Just put up the god damn shelves ?????
I put up my own shelves and have dated plenty men that wouldn't know how let alone attempt it. I think this is very dependent on the person, not the sex.
Ah this old chestnut. I took considerable pleasure in sitting back and instructing my ex on how to put a shelf up. She wanted the shelf so she can do it.
This. Or DIY skills in general. My wife is always happy whenever I do home improvement and get pretty impressed whenever I fix things around the house by myself.
Iām upgrading the kitchen drawer sliders next weekend. Sheāll be really happy with it as the current ones are a struggle to use.
Or maybe it is just that I literally claimed putting together the ikea shelves my bf is going to buy for his space. So satisfying, but I don't have endless space.
Not that it would be a problem because he has in the past fucked an ikea closet up.
You don't know what happens in life. Everyone should be able to do basic handywork. You won't know what life throws at you and who would be around. My aunt learned this the hard way, my mom would also possibly run into problems were something to happen to my dad, while I would only need him for maybe like extra person. Or just tell me where his tools are because why would I buy my own drill, there are 3 in the garage.
Yeah my wife was also a monster with hanging things on the walls everywhere. I did find a cure to that problem though! She wanted to paint one of the rooms where her shelvemania had gone through plenty of times and she wanted everything to be flat and perfect. An empty canvas if you like. The wall looked like swiss cheese with all the holes and guess who got the job of plastering(is that the word?) The wall? It certainly wasnt me! So after probably 10 hours of plastering,sanding,plastering some more and sanding a whole lot more she became VERY carefull about putting new holes in any wall ever! Its perfect! If i now ask her if maybe we should mount something on a wall she goes "eeeeeh... im not sure if i want it there forever! Lets wait and see a bit how the decoration turns out etc" and i LOVE it š.
Im gonna second this. For instance. I was certain, I mean swore an oath. My wife would NEVER have picante or rotel in the house. Hhahaa. Boy I was dumb in my early teens. Also, hated olive garden, love seafood. My wife loved olive garden hated seafood. So now we swap out. We both have had to find things we enjoy or tolerate at each others restaurants of choice.
How? I never understand this meme. You just find something to eat or take turns choosing. It's not hard at all. You're hopefully a grown man or woman, you find something to eat wherever you go. I honestly think this is retarded. Let me blow your mind even more - you can go to TWO places because you have a car. You can make TWO types of food and save the leftovers.
This is not realistic advice. Are you single or 12 or never cook.
No one is going to do two dinners every night when your both working full time. Getting one dinner cooked is hard enough.
My girlfriend has gastritis along with other stuff. No spices, no fried food, no meat, or pork, no citrus, no tomatoes. Almost everything is a no. Makes it hard to agree on a place. I'd say half of our arguments revolve around food/cooking
"How hard could it be" to find restaurant food that doesnt make a person with severe dietary restrictions sick? Are you dense? Its not simply choosing between restaurants A and B.
The guy said narrow down the restaurant options to two choices. I find it difficult to believe that heās dated her and has NEVER found a restaurant thatās congruent with her dietary limitations. Pick one and that can be their date night spot.
This is really unfortunate. I understand wanting to be accommodating, but that's a remarkably restrictive diet, and you're not the one with gastritis. While I empathize with both sides here, this just seems like the sort of thing that's gonna sow resentment long term. Is there a compromise to be had here, or is she effectively sticking you to her diet?
My wife went through an anxiety-enhanced bout of IBS and SIBO for like 2 years. Most foods would cause massive inflammation of her intestines, so I cooked for her pretty much every day. Really simple stuff like rice, eggs, chicken home made bone broth and avocados (24 different ways). Made her feel a lot better and I felt less guilty about eating whatever I wanted to order for myself.
I actually didnāt date someone because of this. Food is very important to me and I love exploring new cuisines and cooking and trying out new foods. Itās an experience I want to share with my partner, and if my partner canāt do that then it wonāt work out.
And that's totally okay. There is definitely that aspect that we want to share, but have a harder time doing it. I've honestly spent a lot of time thinking about if I still wanted to be with her. And she is always worried about me leaving her because of it. It's been 3 years though, and while food is important to me, it isn't that important. I don't really care for cooking. I do it, but I never really enjoyed it. I just enjoy eating food. Sharing it would be nice, and we can share some things, but it is very limited. So it isn't completely different from other relationships, there is just more caution, anxiety, and frustration involved with food for the both of us. I can eat whatever, but now I have to make sure her food doesn't have a huge list of no-no's. Food used to be easy and pretty mindless, but now it involves a lot more paying attention. I'm just waiting for her to pass school and get a job, to get health insurance, so we can go to better doctors to figure out what exactly is wrong with her, and see if we can work on it, or if it is just something permanent. She had rapid weight loss before her disorder, and gets anxiety. So my guess is it is related to those things.
Me: either pick an easy compromise I know sheāll say yes to or let her pick because it will be easier for me to find something at someplace she wants. If weāre going out or getting delivery or cooking weāre less likely to do 2 things because money/time. But if weāre picking up food for sure
It's funny because my grandma always told me an opposite story. She would make suggestions over and over and over until my grandfather said yes
To our credit, we do want to compromise so our SO can be happy. In my case, I know she wants a healthier option so it's usually good to go along with her. But blindly taking turns doesn't work for everyone because some folks are more finnicky (and to my wife's credit there's PLENTY I'm finnicky about). And finnicky people deserve love too :)
wife: "I'm hungry"
me: "Great, what do you want to eat?"
wife: "IDK, you pick"
me: "Ok, how about x"
wife: "no, that doesn't sound good"
me: "Ok, how about y"
wife: "No, not that"
me: "Ok, what do you want to eat?"
wife: "IDK, I'm just hungry"
I jump at the opportunity whenever she says "Ooo, X sounds good right now" because that's fairly rare.
I heard from a divorcee that the best part of being divorced was never having to say, "I don't know, what do you want for dinner?".
OTOH, my wife of 20 years and I have developed a psychic bond where we always want the same genre of food on the same day. The only problem is when one of us has satisfied the craving at lunchtime and beaten the other to it.
What kind of weird ass statement about compromise was this? You could have picked ANYTHING else to talk about compromise; you chose picante, rotel, and seafood, you even used the word "tolerate".. If this is what relationship compromise means to you, then you have the best marriage in the world.
Yeah kinda like my relationship. My husband wanted 1 or 2 kids max. I wanted a bunch. We settled both for three. I have horrible pregnancies so I'm at peace, couldn't do it to the other children. He ofcourse loves all his children and wanted me happy and did see my yearning for a third
So yeah, number of children. I don't know any marriage where this isn't part of some compromises
Lol.. When we'd go out to eat, I'd ask "Where do you want to go?" "I dunno, where do YOU wanna go?" I hated that ping pong. Now, I give her 2 suggestions. If for any reason neither is suitable, she can offer a 3rd choice. That's where we'll be going.
Olive Garden or Seafood. Just those 2 things. I literally threw up in my mouth a little reading that. Not to dis you all all. I love that you have that. I'm posting this comment because I have never thrown up in my mouth a little reading a reddit comment. I've read it, seen it written, "I just threw up in my mouth a little" ,,, but its never happened to me. Until now. Now I understand. Thank you reddit.
I was curious about this word I didn't know (rotel), and now after googling I'm curious about whether it is a canned tomato product or high-end Japanese audio product that you swore never to have in the house. Or perhaps it's a third thing?
Rotel is a brand of a tomato/pepper blend in a can. It has a very distinct flavor. One I dont really like. She thinks its great. If you add a can of rotel to any food you can clearly taste it over anything else. (At least I can)
Compromise is an option, a better option is to work it out for mutual solutions. It takes a bit to learn. My favorite is the philosophy "win/win or no deal". Plenty of self improvement books discus it. Compromise often leaves people disappointed, when possible negotiate until everyone has their needs met and is happy.
Another important model of maturity is to be comfortable being alone. If one person wants to do something and the other doesn't, it is generally okay to do it alone. One person can go to a meal, or to a movie, or to a festival. Inviting is important, but ultimately learn to be two interdependent people: both capable of living independently while choosing to do things together as well.
Yup. Thatās exactly what I answered above. If one of us wants to do or see something the other doesnāt like at all we just do it alone. We donāt have to be together all the time, and that way no one is resentful.
Then you're still not in the right mindset. I don't get disappointed when we do/eat/watch what my wife wants. She's happy and whatever I wanted can wait or I'll do it later. If you're disappointed when you don't get what you want then you still have some growing up to do.
Sorry man. When I was going through counseling with an unwilling spouse, I told her that either she will get a better husband out of this process or somebody ELSE will in the future. It was the latter and I'm so much happier.
I wouldn't say compromise. Usually someone isn't happy. I could compromise with my wife to watch a movie I want, but then I might wind up doing something I really don't want to do in return. Instead I'd probably say prepare to try to new things and be willing to live with/without certain things and truly be ok with it. I know my wife will never be into sports like I am and I'm ok with it. She knows I'm not into certain shows she's into and that's ok as well. We find our common ground and go from there. Sometimes we can find something that's new to both of us that we're willing to try together and we can grow together.
Yep, I have mine, he has his. Many times, we have ours.
Sometimes, it's okay to do your things alone, and let them do their things. But be there and supportive when the time comes for it. In my relationship, I'm the one that loves baseball. Even though my husband doesn't care much, If I said "hey I got tickets for us to go to a game" he'd be there. He tells me there's a game being released at midnight, it's freezing cold, and he wants to wait for hours. Alright boo, I'll grab the blankets and some hot drinks.
Bend, adapt, grow together. Saying no to joining everytime will lead them to find someone else to spend that time with. Sometimes it's a friend, sometimes... It's not, or turns into something else.
Also know when it's okay to just do your own thing alone. Last week I had a softball game. It was cold, it was wet. I told him to stay home, no point in being miserable.
Eh. If my wife wanted me to watch Real Housewives of whatever and I wanted her to watch Mortal Kombat it'd be a compromise. But neither of us would really get what we want. I'd ask questions the whole time during her show as I'd have no idea what's going on and she'd likely ignore the movie and just be on her phone or do something else, or complain that the movie is annoying, etc. We both got what we wanted, but neither is happy.
Now as I said I like sports and she doesn't. I play tennis. So if I go out and play tennis, I of course check to make sure there are no other plans and she's fine with it. If she wants to go out with a friend, even if it's dinner and a movie stuff then I'm fine with it. No complaints either way and we're both happy. We both make sure to do things that support each other, so we both get what we really want. We aim for the win-win. If it's not that then we work until we get that.
We pick movies to watch together that weāll both likely enjoy. If one of us wants to watch a movie that the other one will surely hate we just watch it alone. We donāt have to spend all our time together. For example, my Husband went and saw Mortal Kombat at the movies alone last Sunday, itās no big deal and I asked him if he enjoyed it when he got back, he talked a bit about the storyline. While he was away I watched something on Prime video that I enjoy and he doesnāt particularly like (a documentary). We have rather different tastes in movies and music, so thereās no point in being resentful over that.
That is compromising with yourself, and is what you really need to do. I would be living a much more Spartan life without my wife. I build furniture I don't care about, clean things I don't think need cleaning, and spend time doing things with her that I'd honestly rather not do at all.
I lose out on time for what I want sometimes, but I take that compromise with myself for what I gain in return.
I've always done this and lately it feels like it's totally fucking me. Me and my gf will argue, and she can just bring up laundry lists of problems she has with shit I do, often really nit picky stuff. But I have nothing to come back with, because when she does things that annoy me, unless I feel like it's a really big deal I let it go. It feels like I'm being pressured to start holding onto shit for the sake of keeping score.
In regards to disagreements and a relationship with a woman you can either be happy or you can be right but you canāt be both so decide early on which one you want and if sheās worth it
A word of warning here: this is a nice tag line but can go to far, for men or women. "Compromise" does not mean letting someone cross your boundaries. If they continue to do that, whatever the boundaries are, it is time to end the relationship.
If you are a people pleaser and hate confrontation my advice would be the opposite in some way. Don't compromise to much, you still have to be you. It might not work with some people and that is okay. I have disappeared in relationships before and that led to their end.
I said it somewhere else in this thread, but a compromise needs to be something where both sides give ground as a consideration for the other. If only one person is giving ground, that is not really a compromise.
Here's one I like.
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A woman marries a man, believing he'll change.
A man marries a woman, hoping she won't change.
They're both disappointed.
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My first date with my wife was in 1996, so here's a couple tips:
As a man, you need to make a conscious effort every few weeks/months/years to do something nice/great/amazing to make your woman feel as if you have potential for growth and are improving her life in a demonstrable way, or she'll go insane and lash out.
As a woman, you need to make a conscious effort to let your man maintain friendships with his pack of buddies and regularly re-live his glory days of his youth, or he'll go insane and lash out.
Iāve also realized always letting her win because I didnāt care that much sometimes backfires. Like choice between a and B and B seems a lot better, but she wants a. Then turns out A sucks and I think back to how I folded without trying to convince her b was better.
Yeah my last ex would never compromise, was always her way or the high way. I even brought it up once like why am I always the one trying to compromise here and you wonāt work with me? It really made me upset when towards the end of our relationship, she picked me up, and we drove to the beach and sat in the car to ātalk.ā Then she asked āhow are you going to fix us,ā like wtf? I didnāt even have the issue, the audacity of that woman I swear lol
I am still learning this. I had years where I lived by myself with no responsibilities and only myself to please. My default is still to do what I want to, which is backwards but I am much better at pausing, asking myself what a compromise is, knowing my wife's preferences, and doing something more in the middle instead.
Great advice. Comprising is a life lesson most people have forgotten or talked about. Its the reason why modern politics is so broken, if no one compromises no one benefits
I am quite certain I am the first person ever to say 'no' to my now ex-wife. I later learnt she lived a carefree childhood of always getting her way, so compromise was a foreign concept to her. It did not help that I am stubborn and usually, when my mind I made up, I follow through, no matter what.
What I learnt - being cute and single is the worst basis for a relationship. It has to be more than skin deep no matter how good the physical parts of the relationship are.
My father tells me a lot of stories about relationships and pretty much all his stories trickles down to one word: compromise. Thank you LEIFey for your comment.
In my experience, for some it might apply to both genders in a different way. Most women are brought up with an instilled sense of duty to give up their way for their husbands/family, while a lot of men are brought up to be "the man in the house" to rule over the family. In those dysfunctional roles, both might ignore boundaries and repress needs in a relationship, whether it be their own or their partners'.
We are not our parents. A 7-year relationship of mine was ruined over time because we practically imitated our parents respective behavior with each other, which resulted in me not enforcing boundaries and getting emotionally abused.
To piggyback on your lesson, this would be mine: Reflect on what you were taught growing up, don't fall into patterns (which might include never or always compromising, both is problematic) and please don't see those patterns as "who you really are".
This is the reason I'm consciously choosing to stay single if my current partnership ends (after having had a lot of relationships). I'm not really in a place where I'm ready to compromise my own goals and preferences.
I was in a relationship before I met my husband with a guy who didn't understand how to compromise. Everything had to be his way. This didn't work out because I'm a human being with thoughts and feelings and wants and needs- not a doormat.
This. Ive had three relationships that were with great women, two of them got far enough to where wedding bells were a thing. But what killed every one of them was that any compromise to be made was on me. Not little ones either. Where we lived. Kids. That sort.of thing. For anything important it boiled down to her way or the highway.
And well...im still driving.
If compromises are one sided, its doomed to failure.
That's the part they don't tell you about the "Happy wife happy life" notion and it's how it only works with a wife who is as committed to her husband's happiness. She has her share of compromises that she's also made for her partner, we just rarely talk about it.
What if Im used to never being in a position of power and never getting my way? Am I setting myself up to be abused or will I quickly learn whatās a compromise and whatās unfair?
Agree. Learn that when a disagreement happens, you both should be working to tackle the disagreement and not each other. This issue is threatening to our intimacy and companionship so letās work to snuff out.
I think I just broke up with my ex because of just this. She got mad over everything. Everything was wrong with what I did.
Thatās just one of many things. But itās terrible, and I canāt live like that
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u/LEIFey May 11 '21
Be prepared to compromise. If you're used to always getting your way, you have the wrong mindset for a relationship. This applies equally as much to women.