Comment by NortySpock | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NortySpock | Hacker News Reader

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"Is this hill worth dieing on?" is a question I occasionally ask myself.

Other ways to put it: "Would taking 10 seconds to do this now make my wife 1% less stressed?" (If so, do the thing to make her less stressed.)

"Is it worth starting a fight vs spending the same time just fixing the problem?"

"Would spending $COST_OF_THING make my wife happy for a day / make a fond memory of us together?" (Hence why I encourage my thrifty wife to spend a bit of money on semiprecious jewelry or clothes for herself that she enjoys)

"If I cheap out on $COMMMONLY_USED_ITEM, will my wife and I be annoyed by its limitations / bad user experience for years?"

Granted, I am fortunate to be able to pay the bills and have a little extra for the occasional splurge for my wife. And my wife is kind and understanding and I love her dearly. But I learned long ago that doing a little bit extra / spending a bit more for a quality item pays dividends in reducing friction and annoyances daily.

Those daily annoyances add up over time, and not in a good way. Make yourself aware of them, and then fix them. Cut down on stressors so you can spend more mental bandwidth on your wife and kids.

Your comment reminds me of the following. My wife and I have been married over 30 years now. Our total household is 7 persons.

A couple years ago, my wife was complaining once again about someone using scissors and not bringing them back to their proper storage place. "How can we have 3 pair of scissors and none of them are here when I need to use one?" This didn't bother me but hearing her complain about it did bother me. After a couple attempts to reason, "it isn't that big of deal to track a pair down" or "how often do we really use them?", I decided that abundance was a better solution. I found a 4 pack of decent scissors for about $12.

So for $12 dollars I have never heard that complaint again because even if someone walks off with one and doesn't get it back right away there are several more. So my wife doesn't doesn't experience that frustration and it keeps her from getting fixated on something as insignificant as the location of pair of scissors. And, I have already decided that if it happens again I will buy another pack. They are surprisingly good scissors for $3 each.

I think my broader point was that we as humans are sometimes irrational about certain annoyances in life. And, if I can find a way to spend some money and just solve the issue that is probably a good use of money.

Yet the solution to many relationship problems isn't finding a solution!

I'm a sysadmin. When I see a problem, I try to fix it, and prevent it from happening again. But relationships aren't servers. Sometimes we see (or are told about) a problem, and immediately go to fix it. Yet often the problem isn't what we see. Usually (maybe 99% of the time) problems in relationships are about communication. Listening. Commiserating.

My partner hates it when she tells me about her day at work and I try to offer solutions to the problems she faces. It's dumb on my part, she's a grown woman, a professional, and I have a solution? This behavior on my part is very unhealthy to a relationship, and I have to fight my natural inclinations to fix things.

Instead, I have to listen. Let her talk, let her explain how it makes her feel, let her talk through how she might solve it, or let her not think about a solution. Just be there for her.

Not easy at all for someone on the spectrum who has a hard time reading social/emotional cues. Nor for someone who has a career as a fixer...

This is the varying communications styles between men and women. There was a reddit post from years ago that really went into great detail about this, it was some of the most brilliant writing about this topic that I'd ever seen.

Women want to talk about feelings, and dont necessarily want help with their problems.

Men tend to communicate more 'functionally' we tend to talk about problems we want a solution for - unless we specifically talk about feelings we're generally looking for inputs on solving those issues.

I had exactly the same discussion with my wife and I am gonna strongly disagree here.

It's a two way street, yes I need to be open to the possibility of this being a 'venting' conversation where she is looking only for support. However, she also needs to be aware that it is my natural inclination to look for 'solutions' and that social cues are not my forte.

So it is also part of the meet me half-way that she clearly _says_ (not hints) at the start that she is not looking for solutions but is just sharing/venting.

I think one of biggest breakthroughs in our relationship was watching the play "Defending the Caveman" together. It suddenly put into words everything I was somehow unable to express in how differently we perceive/process reality.

Oh, I totally agree with you. And, there are times when it is not useful to try to come up with a solution because the other person just needs to be heard. It is not really about problem X. The real issue is not feeling heard, respected, loved.

This is really smart. You're right we often fixate on "the principle of the matter" instead of just stepping back and looking for an easy solution and then moving on with our lives.

I find myself in situations like this myself, but on the observer's side. Often I swallow the impulse to ask "Well the problem was solved in 10 seconds, and you've now spent minutes venting about it, how is this at all constructive?" to my girlfriend. I've come to understand it is her makeup to need to vent about things like that rather than solve the problem and move on.

Yet, with the easy solution, they got right to the principle -- "I hear you. You matter to me".

My parents did this and it was a great lesson.

Scissors and cordless phones (prior to cell phones) got left all over the place. The solution was to buy like 20 pairs of scissors and have a cordless phone in damn near every room. Boom.

> "Would taking 10 seconds to do this now make my wife 1% less stressed?"

An addition to this unrelated to marriage - if it takes 10 seconds, why isn't it already done instead of considering whether to do it or not?

I have a personal rule that unless I have another issue that requires attention right now (like working from home being work time, etc) If it take 5 minutes or less to do it I just do it right away and never let myself say 'I'll do it later' because 1/2 the time you don't do it later, and its easier to just finish it right away and never worry about it again.

Dishwasher finish? It takes 3 minutes to put away the dishes. Now your dishwasher is empty so it takes 5 seconds to put away dirty dishes. Dishwasher full? take 20 seconds to put in some detergent and get it started. 3 minutes + 10 seconds means you never have to deal with dirty dishes on the counter or in the sink.

This is the cause of the same fight over and over. One side is annoyed by something that is small and takes little time to do. The other side says why are you annoyed by something that is so insignificant? The other side says if its insignificant to you why cant you do it?

I've had some version of this argument 1000's of times and its ended a lot of relationships I had pre marriage.

I have 1000 things I'd like done that take less than 30 seconds. I don't have 4 hours to do them all.

You probably don't.

Would you believe I have about 50 things that would take about 5 minutes? That also works out to 4 hours. I definitely have more than 100 "little things" I would like to do; it's possible 1000 is an exaggeration.

so it sounds like you have a lot of build up. I would recommend approaching it piecemeal spread out throughout your day, but on a schedule so that you force yourself to do it - something like 5 minutes every hour.

in a week or two you'll run out of things to do and you can work on the 5 minute rule I originally mentioned.

When you start out, it might be a lot of items. The question is how often they renew.

> An addition to this unrelated to marriage - if it takes 10 seconds, why isn't it already done instead of considering whether to do it or not?

"I might re-use it" is in the article. It's a matter of preference, and who's more willing to make A Thing out of it, not objective right and wrong. I, for one, think dishes-in-sink (if they can't fit in the dishwasher but it's also not full enough to run yet, or if it's running, or if it's clean and you're in too big a rush to empty it right that second) is worse for a whole list of reasons, unless you have very limited counter space, but we do it anyway, because I don't care enough to insist on doing it my way, and my wife does. Whatevs.

I do wonder how many quietly-very-slightly-suffering spouses there are out there, over this exact issue.

The other day my wife said, "Ugh, I hate it when you run the dishwasher during the day, because then I have to empty it before filling it."

Sometimes you cannot win. But it's still a game worth playing: being married is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Dishwashers running overnight have been implicated in house fires. Best not to run the dishwasher unattended! :)

if the dishwasher is full I don't really understand the point of waiting for night to run the dishwasher...there's no more room for dishes in it and someone is going to have to empty it either way, and wouldn't it be better to have the dishes inside clean? Do you not empty the dishwasher at all when you start it during the day, and that's the actual issue?

Your logic is impeccable. The point is not the discussion. The point is accepting a pointless gripe from your sweetie because they would do the same for you.

I don't know it sounds like a legitimate complain where you buried the lead - that the dishwasher wasn't being emptied when you ran it during the day.

That works for you. I prefer to plan and psych myself up for this stuff. Don't expect everyone to want to handle household tasks exactly on your schedule.

that rule governs my actions, not other people's actions, but it does decide how my environment ends up being.

Buy flowers. They are pretty.

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