I dealt with some of this with now ex- second wife.
In both of my career fields, the avoidance of error is paramount. The same was true of my late first wife’s career. Humans are fallible, period. Accept that as a core tenet of your belief system. You and everyone around you screws up constantly in ways great and small. if continuous perfection is the goal, we all fall short every day.
I’d much rather be reminded of the obvious “Did you gather your wallet and car keys?” before getting downstairs to the car or to the grocery store than to have my companion having wondered about that, but deciding not to mention anything out of some misplaced sense of politeness.
First wife and I matched in that behavior and reminded one another of many things many times over many days for 30+ years. And thankfully so, as sometimes the inevitable error had already occurred, and the reminder saved the day. None of which were seen as anything but a sincere desire to save both of us the inconvenience of compensating for the mistakes that will happen more than occasionally.
Second now ex- wife had the opposite take. She had never in her ~65 year long life every made a mistake or forgetten anything, and every “Hey dear, did you remember …?” or “Don’t forget your ,” was viewed as a direct assault on her competence as an adult human. How dare I insinuate such a thing!
When my father was a small boy living on a farm his grandmother, who ran the kitchen, would occasionally make donuts. He especially doted on them so would filch one when she wasn’t looking but she kept count and he’d always get caught.
Then he figured if he took a bite from each donut he’d get the equivalent of a whole donut but the count would remain the same.
This is how I feel. I know that isn’t how it’s meant: it’s expressed as a sincere desire to help me avoid problems. Which helps me deal with it until I’m tried and / or stressed enough to revert to the default programming, when such micromanagement is REALLY unwelcome.
One of my biggest ever pet peeves is being patronized, and my other biggest pet peeve is being micromanaged. My husband can pull off both of those at the same time. But I can’t deny I’m a forgetful person, so it’s not entirely unwarranted. I feel like now that we have a kid this happens less than it used to. I guess he uses all that Dad energy for our kid now.
I read “micromanaged” as being instructed how to behave. As in “You either comply or get bitched at more.” That is ugly behavior that rightly should be condemned.
To me that is completely unrelated to the idea of suggestions towards avoidance of something that both parties agree would be an error. I see it as helpful when somebody timely points out to me something that I might forget or not notice. Or worse yet, already had forgotten / not noticed.
Personally, I can only take so many “suggestions” before I get annoyed.
I feel like this dynamic doesn’t exist as often now, though. Either he doesn’t ask as often, or when he does, I’m less annoyed. Or both. For my part, there’s so much crap you have to remember when you have a kid, I appreciate the reminders more.
This a programmer’s (I think that was one of the careers you mentioned) way of looking at things, it has caused me no end of problems with my wife and other non-programmers who very much do not share that point of view.
Agreed. In my case I’m probably worse about it than most people. At the same time in her version of events she had never once on her life ever forgotten anything. So not only unwelcome, but utterly incontrovertibly unnecessary.
it was the fantasy embedded in her images of her personal perfection, coupled with her ongoing criticism of my many faults that rankled me the most.
As said elsewhere, I think neither of us were particularly difficult or unreasonable people across the scale of the whole population. We were just way too different on too many dimensions to make a successful couple.
I’m sorry it didn’t work out. I would consider my issues with my husband’s nagging to be minor annoyances. But I am far from perfect, I do forget things and I know he means well. A little good faith can go far, I think.
I do think it’s interesting that this kind of nagging and micromanaging is considered a woman thing, but it’s my husband who plays that role. My Aunt recently commented that as parents we seem to have reversed roles as well. He’s the one arranging playdates and I’m the one teaching/waxing philosophic. To the extent you can be philosophic with a five year old.
I don’t think that’s micromanaging at all. It’s ugly behavor , sure, but not all poor behavior is micromanagement. Micromanagement is when it feels like every.damn.thing.I.do results in “Wouldn’t it be easier to… ?” " Why don’t you…? "I always…? . It’s not a matter of comply or be bitched at , because it’s not really bitching. It is , however, annoying and has resulted in me not ever doing certain things - I probably haven’t loaded the dishwasher in 37 years. I don’t drive with my husband in the car - he always comments about something, usually that if I had gone the way he does, I wouldn’t have gotten stuck at that light ( his way has no lights , there are stop signs instead) Which I have just now realized is likely part of the reason I’m so anxious about the surgery he’s having tomorrow - for at least a few weeks, I’ll have to do a bunch of things I haven’t done in forever.
My ex-wife would ask if I have my keys every single time we left the house. I have literally never in my life forgotten my keys (or wallet or phone). It can’t happen. I always instinctively check that I have my things to the point that it’s a tic. And even if by some crazy occurance I didn’t have my keys, she never forgets her keys so we’re covered. Plus we had a hidden key.
It didn’t annoy me. It was just a habit of hers. She didn’t mean to imply that I was less than perfect (in that respect). Every few months I’d make a joke when she asked me and we’d laugh about it.
Except that once. My stepson was flying back home and everyone asked, “Do you have everything.” Each time replied with an aggravated, “Yes!”
Guess who found out at TSA who forgot his keys.
When going out to eat, I’ll ask my wife where she would like to go. So almost always states she doesn’t want to pick because she always has to make the decision and she is tired of doing so. I’ll say how about here? No. Okay how about here? No. Well then how about here? Nope. Well then where would you like to go? I don’t want to pick. Even our daughters comment on this when they are here and we are trying to go out for dinner.
If I picked, I was being overbearing. If I asked her to pick I was being wishy-washy timid. If I proposed suggestions for her approval or veto that was wrong too. If I asked her for suggestions for me to approve or veto that was “weird”.
I really need to abandon this thread. Sorry folks.
Heheh, my wife does a similar thing when she doesn’t have a new place she wants to try. When we were young, we would just drive around and chat about what to eat until something looked good or it got close to when places were closing and options were becoming limited. Nowadays, I’ll suggest three things before I start saying “Nope, I suggested three places I’d like to eat, and I’d really like to eat at any of them. You’ve got to at least have one counter offer before I’ll provide any more suggestions.” 90% of the time or so, I’ll accept her first idea.
We must be married to the same woman. Or my wife has a twin separated at birth. Here’s how mine goes:
Her: Let’s go out to dinner.
Me: Okay, what are you up for?
Her: I dunno, what do you want?
Me: How about Mexican?
Her: Mmm, no.
Me: Okay, how about Chinese?
Her: Mmmmm, no.
Me: Okay, how about Sandwiches?
Her: No, not that.
Me: What would you like, then?
Her: You always make me pick!!
My wife and I have a little game we play when we try to pick a place to eat. I’ll suggest two places and ask her to choose. Sometimes she’ll make a choice, but other times she says she doesn’t care. At that point, I’ll clearly say, “Ok, I’ll get a Decision Maker,” and fetch a coin to flip. She hates having decisions made by a flip of a coin, so she’ll finally make a choice. I’ll tell her the coin toss method worked without even having to toss it. She’ll get annoyed that I’m willing to let a coin toss decide, but at least we’ll be on our way to dinner and not hemming and hawing about where to eat.
I’ve heard that a coin toss is a good way to make decisions in that whichever side you get, you’ll immediately have feelings about that outcome which will point the way to what you actually want.
That’s exactly how it works, IME. Sometimes my wife will claim to be sitting on the fence, the coin toss will reveal to which side of the fence she’s leaning!
My sister-in-law swore this was a definition of marriage: one of you standing in one room saying … something… and the other one in another room yelling ‘what??’
