# I was married for \_\_\_\_\_ years, and my ex could never understand that \_\_\_\_\_. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 18, 2011, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190 "2011-03-18T19:54:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2011, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/81 "2011-03-24T18:13:51Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > Mmmm, threads like this solidify my resolve to be a spinster. I can’t understand why some of the people upthread (and people like my mom) put up with this drinking, non-working bullshit. If I was married to a lazyass like that, the relationship would be over PDQ. But I can’t stand people who don’t pull their own weight… so that’s that. Wow, that’s a pretty strong statement coming from someone who put up with this: > [@](#): > > He had a license and a car, but insisted that we always hang out at his mom’s place (where he lived), where I wasn’t allowed to spend the night even though he was 32 years old and I was 26. It was a 45 minute drive each way and we hung out at least 2 days a week. So 45x4 minutes a week of driving. It was the basis of pretty much all the fights in our relationship, because he refused to come visit me even though I was renting at the time and had my own space. I never understood why. And when I would bring up the issue, he would say “You’re not doing me any favors by driving out here all the time.” ??? If I weren’t driving all the time, we wouldn’t have had a relationship. > > He was happy to drive to visit friends and family, but never me. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2011, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/82 "2011-03-24T20:06:01Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I’ve been married 20 years now and my dear wife still doesn’t understand: > > - if she writes a check, she should do the math and write down how much money is left in the account; Online banking doesn’t do that for you? > [@](#): > > - there’s no particular reason she needs to have 2900+ emails in her current account; there’s no law against deleting old emails. It’s her account, why do you care? If she’s having trouble finding old emails she wants in all that, I recommend gmail. They give you lots of space, and the search mail feature works well. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/83 "2011-03-24T20:17:24Z")
We don’t do online banking; we’re old-fashioned that way. Her email account is of course her own business; she often leaves the homepage up on our computer, though, and I notice these things. No biggie. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2011, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/84 "2011-03-24T20:31:07Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > We don’t do online banking; we’re old-fashioned that way. > > Her email account is of course her own business; she often leaves the homepage up on our computer, though, and I notice these things. No biggie. Ha ha, it drives my sister crazy that I never delete old e-mails. It’s SURE not her business, but that never stopped her. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2011, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/85 "2011-03-24T20:33:22Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > Online banking doesn’t do that for you? No, not until the check clears. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/86 "2011-03-25T03:08:49Z")
Second time around, I was married for 2 years and my ex could never understand that she wasn’t supposed to be screwing my best friend. ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/87 "2011-03-25T05:08:24Z")
> [@Sarahfeena](#): > > Wow, that’s a pretty strong statement coming from someone who put up with this: Makes perfect sense to me. The second quote is WHY she feels so strongly when she says what she does in the first post you quote. I can relate. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/88 "2011-03-25T08:15:09Z")
This is great therapy everyone, it’s helping me realize why I hated my ex so much. 😃 All those little bullshity nitpicking things just argh! She also loved to turn the heat up to 90 “so it’ll heat faster”. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/89 "2011-03-25T08:48:40Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Lastly, she doesn’t seem to understand the concept that when I ask her “What do you want for dinner?” and she replies “I don’t care.” it immediately takes away her veto rights. You don’t get to say “NO” to every suggestion I make and then when asked again “Well, what DO you want?” reply “I said I don’t care.” You can’t be my dad, he’s dead! :sniffs suspiciously in **Hampshire** ’s general direction: ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/90 "2011-03-25T09:51:02Z")
Been married for 13 years, and my wife still doesn’t understand that a) no, I don’t really want to come to bed to watch a show that I can’t understand b) Yes, having the TV all night really does keep me awake c) If you ask me to order dinner, then let me order - don’t call me stupid take over the duties yourself And the one that always gets me… we are in bed together, and the baby starts crying - I am mean and calllous and thoughtless to her if I don’'t get up, but she can sit there and poke me in the ribs. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/91 "2011-03-25T12:51:59Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > Online banking doesn’t do that for you? Cheques don’t affect your balance and show up online until they have cleared. Even if the recipient deposits the cheque promptly, you may have to wait five business days or even quite a bit longer for it to show up. Then it may show up in your online banking as a debit retroactive to the day it was cashed. For example, I have $100 and write you a cheque for $50 on February 28. You cash it on March 2. The cheque gets processes at the clearing center on March 5 and shows up in my online banking statement on March 6, but with a transaction date of of March 2. So if my funds were tight, I would really need to keep track. If I had looked at my online balance on the 4th, it would have appeared that I still had $100. As soon as the account adjustment is made, like a bad time travel, it would show that on the 4th I had only half that. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/92 "2011-03-25T13:23:41Z")
> [@Eats\_Crayons](#): > > Cheques don’t affect your balance and show up online until they have cleared. Even if the recipient deposits the cheque promptly, you may have to wait five business days or even quite a bit longer for it to show up. Then it may show up in your online banking as a debit retroactive to the day it was cashed. > > For example, I have $100 and write you a cheque for $50 on February 28. You cash it on March 2. The cheque gets processes at the clearing center on March 5 and shows up in my online banking statement on March 6, but with a transaction date of of March 2. So if my funds were tight, I would really need to keep track. If I had looked at my online balance on the 4th, it would have appeared that I still had $100. As soon as the account adjustment is made, like a bad time travel, it would show that on the 4th I had only half that. Or you could just negate this by not writing any checks at all. Pay all your bills online and make other purchases with a checking/debit card. Sure, there may be some exceptions but I probably only hand wrote a total of 4 checks last year. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/93 "2011-03-25T13:32:02Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Or you could just negate this by not writing any checks at all. Pay all your bills online and make other purchases with a checking/debit card. Sure, there may be some exceptions but I probably only hand wrote a total of 4 checks last year. There are some checks that I have to write. I don’t have an option to pay certain bills online. One person recently decided to save all of my checks until just before Christmas. Suddenly I was down by like $500, right when I needed it the most. ---
**Author:** ![Curious3d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Curious3d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Curious3d)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/94 "2011-03-25T13:35:45Z")
I don’t write checks anymore, but when I did, I kept my checkbook balanced. So I knew what I had available. You know, write a check, subtract it from available monies. Can’t you make your accurate balance book household knowledge and work from that? ---
**Author:** ![a35362](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@a35362](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a35362)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/95 "2011-03-25T13:53:41Z")
Debit card purchases don’t necessarily clear instantly either (although I’ve noticed they’re getting faster). ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/96 "2011-03-25T14:07:16Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Or you could just negate this by not writing any checks at all. Pay all your bills online and make other purchases with a checking/debit card. Sure, there may be some exceptions but I probably only hand wrote a total of 4 checks last year. I didn’t write very many checks before I had children. Now I write between 10-20 per month, and several of those are quite sizable. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/97 "2011-03-25T14:41:22Z")
My SO can’t understand nobody knows where the frell “Rancho Rio” is. She lived in Rancho Rio for years, enjoyed it, and so has many life stories and experiences involving it. Now, Rancho Rio is really just a suburb of big city that most people HAVE heard of. Ranch Rio generally generates a where the hell is that? response to unfortunate listeners. Even worse, she doesn’t even mention the state its in. I hear so many Rancho Rio stories it now drives my blood pressure up every time I hear it even though I know exactly where it is (now). If she just said something like Atlanta every time instead the stories wouldnt be bothering me. I just heard another one this morning which is why I am posting this. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/98 "2011-03-25T14:55:35Z")
I’ve been married for 17 years and my wife still doesn’t understand that we need her as much as she needs us. … She doesn’t understand that she’s as worthy of happiness as she thinks we are. … She doesn’t understand that she spends too much on our daughter and not enough on herself. Go to the mall! Buy some clothes! Enjoy yourself, woman! … That she is more moral and strict than 99.99% of the people she admires for their “goodness”. … That clothes don’t really need to be washed daily. (Really - I got my own hamper because I think she washes clothes way too often. I don’t want to look in the closet on Wednesday and see the shirt I wore on Monday hanging up - now I have to think “did I wear that already this week?” and I _hate_ having to spend time on that question. Ergo, my own hamper, my own wash day). ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/99 "2011-03-25T15:27:02Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > My SO can’t understand nobody knows where the frell “Rancho Rio” is. She lived in Rancho Rio for years, enjoyed it, and so has many life stories and experiences involving it. > > Now, Rancho Rio is really just a suburb of big city that most people HAVE heard of. Ranch Rio generally generates a where the hell is that? response to unfortunate listeners. Even worse, she doesn’t even mention the state its in. > > I hear so many Rancho Rio stories it now drives my blood pressure up every time I hear it even though I know exactly where it is (now). If she just said something like Atlanta every time instead the stories wouldnt be bothering me. I just heard another one this morning which is why I am posting this. I would have guessed ‘California’ in my head if she mentioned her experiences in Rancho Rio! 🆒 . ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190/100 "2011-03-25T15:31:12Z")
> [@Philster](#): > > I would have guessed ‘California’ in my head if she mentioned her experiences in Rancho Rio! 🆒 > . Yeah, somewhere near Encino. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-was-married-for-_____-years-and-my-ex-could-never-understand-that-_____/575190.md?page=6)