That’s because you assume there must be some sort of hostility going on and not just a different lifestyle.
I live with an SO. We have interest in each other’s welfare, but we are capable of taking care of ourselves independently and we don’t call hospitals or imagine each other dead in a ditch if we don’t know exactly what the other person is doing. Your way is fine too, if that’s what makes you and your wife happy. We agreed to this and there is no friction.
My emphasis.
I believe the sticking point is the idea of HAVING to tell someone. Ms. Boods and **Anamen **are both saying they don’t want to HAVE to check in when leaving.
Well, I don’t believe anyone here who does check in with spouse, family, cats, etc. is saying that they do it because they HAVE to. They do it because it’s courtesy, it facilitates functioning as a household, it helps the other person make plans involving the one leaving… no one HAS to do it. There are just good reasons for doing it.
If it works for you and your housemate/SO/whatever, everything is just fine :).
Just be aware that 90+% of folks seem to disagree with this kind of super-casual arrangement, as per both the poll results and my own experience. Your daughter apparently falls into that majority category. So try not to be too hard on her - in this case she just represents the norm.
She doesn’t tell me where she is going or when she will return (nor do I want her to). Indeed, she is often gone for days at a time, which I do not consider even mild cause for concern. Therefore, she is obviously not normal at all.
If I started wondering if she was alive, I would just text or call, and she would answer.
Now that I’ve thought about it, I realize she used to quiz me on my whereabouts all the time and it was always annoying. She has lived on her own for a long time, so I had forgotten.
Me either. I typically get home from work between 5:30 and 6:30, but tonight I didn’t get home until 9 because of a meeting. I can’t imagine not bothering to have mentioned I’d be home so late due. It’s not impinging on my freedom to keep them from worrying I got killed in a crash or something instead of worked late.
If I’m going to be home later than 7 I let someone know. I’m an adult so I’m not asking permission, I’m just keeping anyone from worrying needlessly.
No, I’m not. I’m just assuming if the thought of telling me he’s going out and when he’ll be back is objectionable to him for some reason, then answering my texts while he’s out will be just as objectionable for the same reasons. Because it doesn’t make sense to leave without a word because “independence” or he doesn’t want me to ask him to stop at the hardware store after the supermarket or he doesn’t want to have to call me and let me known he’s going to be gone longer than expected - but be willing to pay attention to texts that may turn out to be about any of those things.
It doesn’t matter to me what you do, but you can’t really be surprised that most people do inform others when they leave. You even said that you typically do tell your SO.
What?
When did I express surprise?
What is confusing about this?
I think that’s a little grand. Failing to inform people of your intentions constitutes a “lifestyle” in much the same way that not washing your hands after going to the toilet does.
Either could be representative of a different way of living and thinking, they needn’t be understood to be the whole thing.
For instance, not only do I not like to feel that others ought to feel obligated to share their intentions, I also do not consider it my business whether they wash their hands after using the toilet. It only becomes cause for concern if they do not wash their hands before preparing communal food.
This is a hijack, but spreading of infection through unwashed hands happens far more commonly than just from food preparation.
Do you never shake hands? Or touch things that others have touched? Doorknobs, light switches, faucets, pens, keyboards, …?
There is definitely a completely different concept of what it means to have a life partner going on here.
My mention of finding out if you’re dead was slight hyperbole—there is a broad swath of middle here.
Anything can happen to you while you’re out—inconveniences like a flat tire, or illness of injuries of various kinds. In the usual partnership, it’s the partner’s role to be concerned about your well being on an ongoing basis. Having at least a vague idea what your plans are and when you’re leaving is the absolute minimum level of cooperation one would expect on that situation.
The concern expressed here—
— is so comically disproportionate to the “problem” of changing plans that it comes off as either insincere or pathological.
I would be furious if my wife just disappears from the house without informing me and saw no need to offer basic information about her whereabouts unless I called to ask. And I would expect the same of her.
A committed relationship isn’t just a matter of convenience. It’s also a partnership in an ongoing concern of operating a household.
In addition to every other reason, I would inform my wife if my plans before leaving the house because as a partner in that concern, she has input on those plans, and for some reasons, a veto, as in things like—
“I’m not feeling well. I prefer you stayed home with me.”
“No, you need to cancel that plan or that errand because something more important has come up.”
“Oh, thanks for letting me know you’re going to be doing that bin that case, I can go ahead and get X done in that time.”
I live so totally alone it’s probably pathological. Nobody gives a damn about my comings and goings.
I touch things people have touched. If I then touch my own mucous membranes without first washing my hands, that’s on me. I’m not worried that germs are going to seep through the skin of my fingertips.
That’s “on you”? That’s irrelevant.
Hand washing is a public health measure. It is encouraged because creating a social expectation of hand washing generally and within a household specifically is simply a more efficient way of ensuring that the population or household as s whole doesn’t differ the costs of infection than worrying about whether something is “on someone.”
It’s part of the contract we make as a larger part of society and as a household unit to stick to certain basic practices that decrease the likelihood of incidents that will result in harms either through physical suffering or inefficient allocation of time and effort. That’s also what informing people of your whereabouts is part of.
Keeping myself healthy is my responsibility and expecting the public to universally participate is unrealistic. Many people care very little about their own health, so why would I count on them to look out for mine?
There is no “social contract” that has been evaluated and agreed upon by every doorknob-toucher.
That’s YOUR idea of partnership. If I need my partner’s help, I say so. I don’t like people hovering over me and checking up on me, so I’d have to elect not to be in a relationship if it had to mean one like yours.
It doesn’t though, so we can both be happy in our respective situations.
And maybe people you know are reliable in their time estimates and stick to their plans, but most people I know are not very good at this. When someone says “going to Walmart, back in ten minutes” when this won’t even get them to the parking lot, it’s pointless.
Kind of hard to do if they disappeared on you. Isn’t it.
So you and your SO are at home doing whatever. Either together or apart. You’ll just get up and walk out the door with out a word? :dubious:
As far as people not doing what they say their going to do, are always late, can’t seem to read a clock, that’s a whole nother discussion we have had on the SDMB a number of times.