WHAT?! No fucking licking plates or fingers, use a crust of bread!
annoying as hell, and nm…
And no licking the knife, dammit! Or ::shudder:: licking the juice after pouring a glass. :mad:
<aol>Me too!</aol>
Been Married 12 Years, and she’s yet to get sick of my shit. Dishes being left next to the sink are a small price to pay for that.
When he does something irritating, which honestly is not that often (we are a good match), I mentally list a few of the really awesome things about him. There are many to choose from. That usually takes care of it. This works for many of life’s irritations: focus on the positive.
Never before has a thread restored my faith in human relationships while simultaneously making me want to throw up.
Rachellelogram:
Is part of that Rachel? That is my wife’s name, 39 years and counting. So, from MY perspective (not a humble opinion, cause, hey, it works for me) I just keep telling myself that everytime she does something I find irritating, SHE has put up with ME for 39 years. Got to be some reciprocation on my part for all that.
Course, that’s the male side of it. She told me once that, since she hasn’t ever HAD to work outside the house (she did, but she started and ran her own small businesses, and quit when she wanted to, all of which was fine with me. We’re maybe old fashioned that way, but if she wants to work outside she can, and if she doesn’t, we’ll just buckle up tighter and do with less.) that while my “investment” in life was in our family, our church and my career, hers was a little different, since she didn’t have a “career” (as in long term put-all-you’ve-got-into-the-job-come-home-and-be-supermom career), I was her investment. That since she feels she has only my income to rely on (OK, yeah, I DID remind her that she has successfully started and run three businesses, and she CAN sell her art. She doesn’t think she can go back to what she used to do because of the physical labor, and she NEVER thought she could sell her art, despite the fact she has, and our kids, whom she taught, have, and sometimes do, sell theirs) that she needs to improve me in as many ways as I’ll allow her to improve me, so that HER investment gets better with age, and survives its useful work life.
K. Sound mercenary, I guess, but nope, it isn’t. It makes perfect logical sense to a scientist (me), and an UNIX system engineer (also me), and a test engineer (also me), and … anyway, it makes sense.
So what you have to ask is a) Is HE my investment, or do I want him for my life companion. Give and take, he’s got to put up with whatever I do, also, and b) if I expect that I will have survivable skills (i.e., I have, and will continue to have, a career, even if we have kids. Shoot, since I’m late, maybe you did that already and already know this one) do I consider him to be so much my investment I have to fix him, or can I just enjoy him (remembering of course that while you may have to overlook stuff to enjoy him, he’s doing the same thing for you. And it IS FOR YOU that he overlooks anything, as it is FOR HIM that you do so.
Hope that helps. If I’m wrong, or right, and you’ve already gotten the experience to discuss this with, please let me know. Note the opener, “works for me, my perspective”. You mileage may vary.
I’ve never been in an accident, either, and I drive far better than him objectively - I’ve had one speeding ticket, within six months of when I started driving, and never had any other tickets, whereas he’s obviously had more. I drive everywhere we go, just about. I don’t mind…except for the aforementioned nagging.
“Would you like to drive” doesn’t work. I’ll try it again tonight though, when we go grocery shopping.
But we’ve been together fifteen and a half years and we have been through some tough times together. I love him far too much and he loves me, and this is just a little thing.
I remember that:
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We each have different strengths and weaknesses. That’s what makes us a strong team, and
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I have some habits that are undoubtedly super obnoxious, as all people do, and he lets me get away with them without complaint, and finally
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I am much, much happier having him in my daily life than I was when I was living alone, and this is the price of living with another flawed human being.
I put up with things by trying to think about them as being not important to the big picture. If that doesn’t work I put up with it until I will leave him if he keeps doing it. Then I say " I will leave you if you don’t stop doing X", he then will make an effort to not do X. I only say this when I mean it so it doesn’t happen very often.
The majority of things he does that bother me are physical quirks or habits and if I can’t look at him because every time I do, he’s doing something weird, then we can’t stay married. These aren’t even habits he has had since we met. He keeps picking up new ones like he thinks they’re cool and makes an effort to do them at first until they’re habit. It’s weird.
One day the dude is gonna wise up and not make any effort, showing your ultimatum to be empty, or improving his life.
Wait, are you implying that’s it’s never ok to have a dealbreaker? I mean, if my husband, say, took up some new hobby that cost us more money than we could possibly afford and took him out of the house and away from me and the baby for 20 or 30 hours a week, I can see getting to the point where I was like “Either that hobby goes or I do. This isn’t how I want to live my life”. If I wanted to move to a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, my husband wouldn’t come with me unless there was some reason it was extraordinarily important to me. I know that. That’s not the life he wants to live.
It seems to me that you object to the giving of an ultimatum. Are you suggesting that it would be better to just leave someone, with no explanation, when they adopt behaviors you find unacceptable, because telling them what is bothering you and why you are considering leaving is inherently manipulative? Because I don’t see how the silently leaving is any less cruel.
We have been married for 62 years and we learned to sweat the little things, I ignore his, he ignores mine. The bigger things happened earlier in our marriage.we both were working after our 25th anniversary, and realized we didn’t want to separate. We looked mostly at what was really important to us both.
First, congratulations to so many dopers that have been married for decades and decades.
My dear Wife and I have been married 15 years, and there is hardly anything that she does that bugs me at all.
Let’s see… She used to say ‘Bless You’ before I was done with my sneeze. I know it sounds silly, but If someone say’s bless you or guzuntite or whatever when I’m at the ‘ah, ah aH AH’ stage. My sneeze stops. I hate that. I asked her to stop and she did.
Hummm. When waiting for a plane, she will often walk the concourse at the airport. She sometimes cuts it pretty close to make the flight. Well, close enough to make me a bit nervous. But never really close.
She is a little bit of a nervous flyer, so I understand that. I watch the bags, she burns off energy and otherwise occupies her mind by cruising up and down the concourse. World’s longest pacing.
I don’t even want to THINK about the stuff that I must do that bugs her.
Yes, I do not handle ultimatums very well. In my world an ultimatum ends things 90% of the time. And the poster was talking about an ultimatum over “quirks and habits”. If she is gonna leave over a quirk, then from my perspective he might be happier keeping the quirk.
We’ve been married 38 years.
It’s been rough at times.
I tell people the reason we’ve been married so long is, murder is still illegal.
I’d say that your ATTITUDE about the irritating things is the most important coping skill. If you plan to blow up about dirty socks, you’ll have a long, miserable life ahead of you. Really, if you both like sunsets, laugh at the same jokes, get along with each other’s families, and watch the same stupid TV programs, who CARES about the damned socks?
Hubster and I both have medical problems now, and I tease people by saying that the two of us together make up one whole person. The important thing to me is that after all these years, I still want to BE with him. I enjoy his company, and the history we share together is truly priceless.
We still drive each other nuts. But I cannot imagine a life without him in it.
~VOW
But sometimes ultimatums are just the truth. What ought a person do when they consider something a dealbreaker? Do you really think it’s bad to articulate such a thing, and better to leave with the reason unspoken? Because that’s the only alternative I see.
And I don’t really see the magnitude of the habit as really meaning anything. If, for whatever reason, green apple candy smell makes you ill and furious, and you aren’t willing to be with someone who isn’t willing to give up green apple candy for you, how is it making it worse to tell them this? Why is it more honorable to leave their life with the reason unsaid rather than give them the chance to make a reasoned choice over their own priorities.
Now, if what you mean is false, bullshit ultimatums where the issuer isn’t really serious about leaving but knows the other person is too emotionally involved to risk calling their bluff, then sure, yeah, I agree that’s shitty beyond words. But there are times when a person is genuinely willing to leave over an issue, and when that happens, there needs to be a difficult conversation. To have that conversation dismissed because somehow any “ultimatum” is inherently manipulative and wrong seems short-sighted to me.
+1
Thanks for wording my thoughts so well!:D. That’s what I was trying to get across.
Well, then, I don’t think you had any reason to accuse another poster of doing what we both agree is really crappy behavior. She was very clear that she only said 'I’ll leave you if you don’t stop" when she meant it. Saying what you mean is not manipulative.