Justin_Bailey, if I’m on your jury when you finally snap, I’ll vote not guilty. I had an ex-boyfriend like that. Eventually, after some screaming and blood loss, we hit upon the system that we had to take turns suggesting until we agreed on something, and if no agreement was reached in 8 turns, we went to the salad bar.
My current SO drives me insane by not looking for things before he asks me where the thing is. I tell myself at least he doesn’t do it while looking directly at the item like my friend’s husband does.
My spouse will start telling me about something that happened at work, and invariably he will get to the part that goes something like this: “So I said to the day-shift guy, I said–his name is Marvin. No wait, not Marvin. That’s the guy in Supply, Marvin Fields. He was in Korea during the war. It wasn’t Marvin. Oh, that’s right, it was Melvin, Melvin Wickerbelly. Yeah! I told you about him once. He’s the guy whose wife thinks she’s possessed, but no…”
Usually by this time blood starts dripping from my eyes due to the effort of holding back my screams.
Ftg said “n-yeah,” not “yeah-no.” My guess is that “n-yeah” means “yes I want you to do it, but I don’t want it to seem like I’m asking you to do it.”
This happens to me too, and before someone says, “Well, why don’t you just say what you want to do?” … I’m fine with anything, and it’s not a big deal to me if I have a meal that isn’t fabulous … I’m even fine with a meal that I end up disliking. It’s just one meal, no big deal. But if my wife gets a meal that somehow doesn’t satisfy her, she’s grumpy for the next 12 hours. That’s why I try to do my best to figure out what she wants.
Is he wealthy or hung like a Snuffleupagus, because if he’s not that shit should not be tolerated.
Sorry, I can’t work up a proper hissy until the OP comes back with an example.
That seems kind of obnoxious. How do you live with that? Actually, I had that reaction to a lot of these spouse stories. How do people like that get other people to marry them?
That’s what the :smack: is for. During our conversation I would list five or six things I would like to eat and somehow I’m considered the indecisive one.
The generous interpretation is that the spouses have other wonderful qualities which make it worthwhile to tolerate traits such as these. Some of the complaints here are minor.
The non-generous interpretation is that the people complaining have equally obnoxious traits and they both can’t do better.
Or one of the spouses mistakenly believes s/he can’t do better or has grown irrationally attached to the other person.
Or maybe they married too quickly and now they’re stuck staying with the same person because of the kids etc.
But yeah, people staying in some of the relationships described here puzzles me too.
My inner child is screaming “Bad touch! Bad touch! ! !”
Not spouse but my roommate drives me nuts when she starts a story and does the following. Not sure what you call it…
“Barb told me that they were considering firing…” Stops dead for half a minute.
Firing who? I ask.
“Well, Barb came to my desk this morning to ask about the quarterly report, and she gave me this really strange little box for the paperclips. I think her daughter made it, and then she said the board of directors met last week to study where the retreat will be…” Another dead silence.
“WHO IS GETTING FIRED?” I interrupt.
“Well the board retreat is in South Dakota this year and we think they’re firing Roxie.”
Ugh. I don’t care about the frigging board retreat.
Or maybe some people are way too quick with the “Dump him/her!” reply. Seems to happen all the time around here.
I’m not saying dump him/her. I’m saying how would you even end up in a long term relationship, much less marriage, with someone who acts bitchy if they eat a meal they don’t like, or someone who mocks you for mispronouncing something.
I was thinking of those as well. In your particular case, Justin, it seems like a mild annoyance. My way of dealing with it would be to just do what I want and not take into account what she wants, since she doesn’t know herself.
Y’know what’s annoying in a spouse? Every time you point out, some extremely annoying thing they are doing, they say, ‘Well I learned it from you!’. Wha? Firstly I don’t do that, secondly I don’t give a damn where you learned it - just stop doing it.
And if I ask you if you’d like some chocolate cake, why do you ask more questions, make obtuse comments yet, somehow fail to answer? How hard a question is it? Yea or nay, already, you’re driving me crazy.
And the proper response to a spouse who won’t look for things before asking for your help, is to say; ‘That’s why they’re called your keys!’
Because one annoying thing shouldn’t destroy an otherwise great relationship? Really? I have to explain that?
Also, everybody is crazy in one way or another (especially women … duck and run!).
But in order for a relationship to be great, you have to be in it for longer than…say, a date. I’m saying, how does someone who’s so socially inept that they think it’s funny to make fun of their SO (when the SO doesn’t like it) get more than a few dates with someone?
Can’t believe I had to explain that! 
The infatuation theory is true, for one. For two, the crazy often takes a long time to manifest (or a long time to notice).
Or, when he asks where his (5x to big for me) shoes/pants/jacket are, “well, the last time I wore them…”
My husband seems to punctuate things he already knows will rub me the wrong way with “I’m just saying”. It’s like nails on a blackboard to me. Just a little twist of the knife. “You probably should have used a drop cloth. I’m just sayin’.” Grrrr.
I used to not know how to answer “What do you want to eat?” And would say “Whatever you want.” We’d go back and forth for so long that it was frustrating. I finally realized that not caring meant I could pick something for the sake of expediency. When I started answering it seemed to make my husband better able to articulate his preference. Choosing a movie hasn’t gotten any easier, though.