The only two things we have in common are cooking and gardening. I like to be involved, and I like her being involved. If I get too involved it quickly kills her interest. She only wants me to locate what we need and drive to pick it up. If I buy a plant or a seed or trying a new recipe I simply look up the best way to do it and then attempt to relay that. The computer pisses her off. I could see it if she was really experienced at cooking or gardening, but she has no experience with either. Am I being unreasonable to want more input on certain things?
Happy wife, happy life, or if you don’t want to be the good little helper anymore, let her figure out what to get and where to get it.
Not a bad suggestion. She is enjoying having some authority possibly for the first time and her pride kind of takes over.
That’s a very important observation.
it also means that despite her age she’s an amateur at exercising her autonomy. So you can expect some excesses in any or every direction until she settles into a comfortable groove. Extend her the patience you would to a kid and accept the excesses wherever they may fall. Be on the lookout for signs of learning and rejoice in them.
Many men, and certainly me, are natural taker-overs where once we stick our nose into a project, we’re full of advice and experience (real or imagined) and just overwhelm the people around us.
In this case my advice is don’t be that guy. Which doesn’t happen naturally but happens only if you consciously stop and think: “Does this tidbit need to be passed along to prevent disaster? Or am I just kibitzing because I love to kibitz?” Or at least that’s what I need to do to keep myself from over-“helping” that’s unhelpful.
OTOH - my ex-wife was a reflexively oppositional personality even fresh from the womb, or so her mother said. Every comment pro, con, or neutral was seen as an unwelcome attempt to control her. Soon it was easier simply not to talk at all. not long after was much easier not to be married at all.
My overall point being there is healthy wing-spreading and there’s unhealthy “I don’t want my SO/spouse to actually be any part of my life”. You’ll have to decide where on that spectrum your woman and your relationship falls.
You seem o have a good grasp on the situation. She has lived basically as a servant most of her life so she never really learned how to cook. I think she sees me as an authority figure even though I do everything I can to encourage her to try new things. I thought using the computer as a source of info would take me out of the loop as far as being a know it all but that strategy is obviously not working. I told her yesterday if we can’t communicate, I was ending the relationship. She is from the Philippines so there are some cultural differences.
I assume this thread got spun out from somewhere else with a little more context?
Just based on the first post, and @LSLGuy’s comments about over-helping, I’m wondering if the points of frustration are happening while a task is already in progress? If I’m actively cooking a meal and someone comes in to “help” but starts insisting it be done differently, or commenting on everything I do, I’ll absolutely get mad at that. Helping doesn’t mean doing something your way instead of theirs, it means doing something together. If the task can’t really be shared, then helping means doing another task that will also need to be done. If someone is doing something new to them, giving advice might be helpful, but taking over isn’t.
When meal planning, if you’re both trying to cook the meat in a different way, you’re going to have friction. If one of you does it “your way”, and the other person prepares the salad, or mashed potatoes, then that’s actually helpful. My husband and I cook chicken for butter chicken differently; I cube the meat then cook it, he cooks the breast then cuts it up. End result is slightly different (mostly in texture) but it doesn’t matter.
Dividing up work before starting it will help a lot. Let her explore and learn; and if the recipe completely fails, then order a pizza. Laugh about it and just find a different set of instructions next time. Garden “together” but in different flower beds.
If you’re hooked up with a Filipina former house-servant, it seems likely that performing that role for you is all she knows or wants. Which is some men’s (wet) dream, and other men’s relationship poison.
Good luck whatever you decide, but if I had to bet, I’d say she’s a poor fit for what I know of you.
When something comes out good she is just beaming with pride while she watches me enjoy it. That makes me happy to see her in that state. But when she has one success she suddenly becomes an expert and destroys the next 10 dishes she cooks. I got her into baking and she loves it. But she has zero understanding of the importance of some of the ingredients. the other day my chocolate chip cookies came out like muffins. This is what started the fight. I wanted her to tell me exactly what she put in the cookies so we could figure ut the mistake. I already knew she had doubled up on the eggs, but she was afraid to admit it and insisted she followed the recipe. I pullled the egg carton out of the fridge and showed her where 8 eggs were missing instead of 4 and she finally admitted it because they were small eggs ( medium) . Things like this I have little tolerance for.
In her prior life she might have gotten a lot of verbal or even physical abuse if she made a mistake. And maybe lying worked at least some on whoever she was serving.
if so, that’ll be a very hard habit to break. if she’s lying to protect her ego that’s also a hard habit to break. Good luck. Seriously not snarkily.
Not physical abuse but horrible abuse otherwise when she came to the United Staes. She was flown over here to be a caregiver to a severely handicapped child who couldn’t speak or be taught to do anything but she could walk. The parents were Pilipino Dr’s. They gave her like 400.00 a month for 24 hour care and she had to buy her own food and personal items. They deducted $200.00 a month until she paid back the cost of getting her here which included the agent that connected them and transportation fees. She told me stories of her being forced to throw away good food and not allowing her to eat it. Horrible life.
the garden isn’t a real big deal but I have a couple of examples. She was planting some ginger root that was left over. I noticed it was planted 1/2 in the ground and 1/2 out. It didn’t look right so I looked it up and it was recomended to plant 4" deep facing a certain way. I showed that too her on my phone and she just shrugged and went on like she was doing. I went behind her when she was gone and planted 1/2 of them 4" deep, I don’t think she ever noticed. Another item is watering, I like to water less often for a longer period. When the soil starts to dry out I add more water. The vitality of the plants is monitored accordingly. Her orchids are all dying, too much water, wrong soil that won’t drain. The leaves and roots clearly show signs of overwatering. I pulled it up on google showed her examples that matched ours perfectly and all she had to say was she had been growing orchids her whole life, so I let her finish killing them.
A few questions to ask yourself, and perhaps her, at a calm moment disconnected from the event. You don’t need to answer me, but feel free if it helps you to do so.
Are these things causing financial issues (can’t afford to let her make mistakes?). That’s a difficult conversation but somewhat separate from the hobby. Establishing a budget to “waste” and sticking to that becomes more important than whether the orchid dies.
Is she upset that they died, or the ginger didn’t grow (or did it grow and your yard is drowning in more ginger than you could ever use anyway?). If she’s not upset and these are just casual hobbies she likes to pass the time but doesn’t care about the outcome, then I suppose why should you? Let her muck about with a garden hose and have fun. If she’s upset, then the approach matters; going behind her back to fix things, or trying to be “authoritative” in what your showing her might feel like you’re rubbing it in. Perhaps connect her with blogs or friends who can advise her instead? But it’ll have to involve her willingness to take advice from someone, even if that isn’t you.
I’m guessing she sees you as being either “in charge” or “better at stuff” and that can make everything feel more like criticism than it is intended to be. An impartial friend involved with the hobby can help her gain the skills she lacks.
I’m really just guessing at stuff here and likely projecting a bit lol. I know the things that bother me, in terms of how my husband “helps” and even after 25 years there’s still moments where we step on each other’s toes.
Communication is important, but not everything has to come from YOU. I take the same advice from my best friend better than from my husband sometimes. People are weird!
This is exactly why I use google for a reference instead of myself. I was hoping it would take me out of the loop. This has been 2 years now and I have mostly just remained silent, but my patience is wearing thin. I think if I were being honest with myself I would realize that she is more patronizing than sweet and has developed a disdain for anything she interprets to be authority. I have decided I am not going to continue to eat food I don’t like. If she leaves she leaves.
Unfortunately that may be just feeding her impression that you’re being a know-it-all. If I’m fussing with a significant other and he pulls up a Google search to show he’s right, I’m not going to be very open to that - I’m more likely to dig my heels in and get frustrated about “how he always has to be right.” Not logical at all, of course.
But the rest of your most recent post honestly looks like you’re looking for validation or agreement from others that it’s time to end the relationship. It might be worth just sitting down and really thinking things over. Every relationship has difficulties and struggles, but are you at the point you feel it outweighs the positives you’re getting?
No offence, but if that’s the case, why are you two together in the first place? Especially as even those two things, you don’t enjoy doing together.
I feel like I’ve arrived in the middle of the play or something?
What’s the relationship, how did it start and why? How long have you known each other?
Is this a girlfriend or a wife?
Girl friend, we actually get along real well even without having much in common. We met on a dating site. She is an American citizen and has been here since 1977. 3 of her 5 kids are here. I enjoyed the low drama aspect of the relationship for a long time but am finding I need a bit more communication. The girlfriend before her was pretty wild and I didn’t want wild anymore so I found very tame. I will get it figured out, just the last couple of days have really been bothering me.
Good thinking. I might add a couple more sentences onto the end of that. To wit:
… but are you at the point you feel it outweighs the positives you’re getting?
And even more important than the static balance of plusses and minuses today is which direction are things moving? If things are getting better, encourage that and take courage from it. If things are getting worse, change something major before it gets worse worse. Including maybe changing who’s your GF.
I’d suggest you don’t really have “gardening” “in common.” You like to garden. She likes to superficially mess around with plant material. So let her mess around to the extent she wishes, but don’t let her discourage from gardening how you wish - if that brings you joy.
My situation: my wife and I used to both do a lot of work in the yards. When our kids were younger and at home, I think we were busy enough that it was just important that things got done, without worrying that hey got done some specific way. Most of the outside work was my responsibility, so I developed some gardening ability.
I’m assuming this is because our kids are grown, but my wife has gotten progressively more opinionated about exactly how things should be done outside. Not only what plants to plant where, but fertilizing, leaf cleanup, etc. She probably got more like you - thinking things had to be done perfectly, while I thought good enough (to a pretty high level) was good enough. I got tired of having to debate every little decision, and then I got tired of just being her labor, so now I pretty much leave all of the decisions and work to her.
I’d suggest you probably shouldn’t ask her to go to the garden center with you. And if you care how something gets done outside, do it yourself.
Re: cooking - my wife and I eat pretty simply, and she is happy for me to do most of the cooking. But if she is a lousy cook, I wouldn’t want to eat her failures, and I wouldn’t want her to waste the ingredients. My wife (usually an excellent baker) made my favorite cookies for my birthday, and inexplicably forgot the eggs. I tried to convince myself that they were OK, but when I told her the truth, she tossed them and made another batch. Why would your GF want you to eat lousy food? Is she not able to realize when she messed up a recipe?
Sorry to say this, but if what you describe as cooking and gardening is all you share, that doesn’t sound like a great relationship.
Short(ish) answer from a woman married to a man who has an overabundant “helping” gene:
Let her do things her way UNTIL she asks you for input.
Cookies turn out like muffins or rocks … so what? If she’s interested in doing a better job next time she can either ask or figure it out.
Garden plants not growing or producing? Well, you have your patch and she has hers, and if she’s curious as to why your garden is growing better than hers, she can ask.
The caveat here is that you need to find a way to make it clear that she CAN ask for help, not that she MUST, and that you will be happy to help in a non-judgmental and supportive way.