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Comment by mlyle | Hacker News Reader

Yes. Many people have an overwhelming expectation that a partner will fix everything.

I mean, often my wife is the only person I see for a several hour stretch. And it's somewhat sad and lonely when I experience something and it's not really something I can share fully with her -- because it's deep and specialized and nuanced in somewhere that I've obsessed.

But-- how can anyone expect that of anyone? How boring would life be if I'd found such a close twin of myself that all the weird, esoteric stuff that amuses me made sense to her? She brings her own perspective and abilities, and the cost of this is that I don't get to see myself and my little obsessions mirrored every second in her.

A partner can bring an awful lot, but they can't bring everything all of the time.

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As an extra data point. Not having her get excited about xyz is one thing. My gf from long long ago(just after varisty) would belittle/disapprove flat out freak out if i showed shared something with her that she didnt like or approve.

Show her some video on YouTube about a random topic, sure she doesnt, have to like it. But just hearing the video presenter from another room will be enough for her to freak out 'urghh are you listening to thatttt guy again !!! I cant stand him he is so boring such a **.'

Going on a roadtrip ? You better tune the radio to 'something good' the first time, Else it will be a 1min lashing of how boring,stupid and irrating the person's voice or topic is !

Just ask/say you want to listen to something else, I dont need to hear all the rest.

I never was/is much of a spiritual person, but that ex showed me how the 'room energy' can change in a instant !

Marriage - sure it can be great, but be careful of ending up in a 'military state' at home. Your mental health wont survive it !

What you describe is a person I wouldn't call an adult.

This is really mostly my issue. She'll even get excited.

But by the time I've explained the 15 pieces of background knowledge needed to understand what I mean... I'm not even excited anymore. :D

We've got a whole lot of common ground-- she's a mechanical engineer, and now we're both involved quite a bit in education and coaching. That stuff we can talk about. But late last night I came up with a clever trick to collapse some tedious keypad-scanning-code down into something surprisingly tidy, and in that moment all I could really say was "I got the keypad on those boards for the robotics kids working in a really nice way".

I mean the problem here sounds to be that you were dating a mental 15 year old.

I couldn't agree more !

     And it's somewhat sad and lonely when I 
     experience something and it's not really 
     something I can share fully with her

In a good relationship, people get excited for each other!

When Person B is happy and/or geeking out over something...

Person A doesn't have to love or even care about every detail of the thing itself. But Person A should be genuinely excited that Person B is happy about something and should take some interest in the thing, if only to understand why it makes Person B happy.

I have had a lot of bad relationships.

Oh, sure. My wife will notice I'm excited and be happy. And listen patiently and try and understand.

But it's not the same as bragging or complaining about it to my nerd buddies, you know?

At one point, this used to really bum me out, but it was really an unrealistic expectation.

I like it when my partner can at least ask intelligent questions about the thing I am enthusiastic about though.

They don’t really have to understand it, just get the general idea.

There's a spectrum of possible behaviors here, both on the part of the sender and the receiver. As someone who is interested in things that someone else isn't interested in, it's important to regulate how much time you spend talking about those topics. For example, it's fine to bring up a videogame with non-gamers once in a while, but if your every conversation is about that, it's going to annoy the people listening to you, even if they are the most generous conversation partners in the world. Only get a seven year old talking about their favorite Nintendo game to see how wearing that can be.

Yeah, I was talking about the quality of the conversation here, not the quantity.

If someone is a great listener but never really responds I feel like I’m carrying on by myself, I might as well be talking to a tree.

The greatest thing a partner can give you is encouragement and motivation in your daily tasks and challenges.

We form partnerships and relationships not to have our counter-parties do the work for us, but so that we can discuss, share,console, and motivate each other in our respective journeys.

I don't think the fundamental test of a relationship often is what we do for each other, although of course in sickness and in health comes into that.

I think the fundamental test is what we discuss with each other.

Whether the most important questions in life are something two people think about together, that's what matters.

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