The only thing we disagree about that causes issues is saving money. I get anxious if we don’t have what I consider a comfortable amount in savings at all times, he would cheerfully spend his last dollar on … I don’t know, Certs or something, and figure he’ll work something out later. This plays out big, like in terms of our life savings, and small, such as when we are on vacation and talked about how the restaurant we’re going to later doesn’t take credit cards so we should hold on to some cash just in case we don’t run into an ATM, and then when I’m not looking he’ll buy a butter dish shaped like an alligator, WITH THE CASH. Who does that?
Weirdly, we don’t share an opinion about a lot of things, but we never fight about them, or even discuss them much except as a point of observation.
I’m Catholic, he’s an atheist.
I’m very social, and he’s a homebody.
Our political views are similar, but I’m one of those annoying civic people who thinks I’m morally obligated to vote and go to town hall meetings, he’s very cynical and prefers to disengage from the political process.
I’m an adventurous eater and he’s picky.
I drink alcohol and he doesn’t.
We cannot seem to find neutral ground when it comes to our respective children. He’s got a daughter who was pretty difficult for me, and I have a son who’s pretty difficult for him. He wasn’t supportive of me at all when his daughter was going through her spoiled brat early teen stage, often either ignoring her bad behavior when it was right in front of him or, worse, taking her side against me in front of her. Needless to say, my credibility with the girl suffered. It’s gotten a lot better since she’s been at college for three years now and we seem to have found a common ground between us.
Now, my son is going through that same sort of stage, and Mr. Butterfly is appalled that I can’t bring myself to leap to his aid when he experiences the same frustrations. I do my best to support Mr. Butterfly when we’re around my son, but behind closed doors, I let Mr. Butterfly know how I really feel. It’s way more than he ever did for me, but I remember how it felt to be without an ally, and I can’t do that to someone else.
We’ve got one child together, and we work together beautifully when it comes to him. Because of this I know our respective parenting methods are not incompatible. We just can’t be on the same wavelength with stepkids.
Oh and we each have our own very different levels of tolerance when it comes to a messy house. He thinks the house is trashed when the cushions on the couch are not straight, and I think the house is trashed when it’s trashed.
That’s about it. We don’t fight about money or religion or sex or division of labor or anything else.
We’ve been together for almost nine years and married for almost six.
Maybe not the biggest issue, but a recurring theme is how much to trust our child’s doctors. I insist on knowing beforehand what prescription medications our daughter will be taking and generally comparing what the doctor is telling us with what we can find through other sources. My wife’s attitude at times, though, is “are you a doctor? No? Then how dare you question his authority?”
Not so much out of a knee-jerk genuflecting toward anyone with an advanced degree (though that is endemic in this culture) but more of a desire to put all of the decision-making in the doctor’s hands: she already feels guilty enough for our child getting sick in the first place, and to suggest we ought to take more of an active role in her care seems to be (I’m guessing) a vindictive move on my part to pile my wife on with more guilt (as she’s scared of making the wrong decision).
Things have gotten a little better as the kid’s gotton older, though.
I’ve come to the conclusion there are some people out there with Daddy issues who replace whatever problems with their father and put a DR on a pedestal. My mom is one of them. YMMV.
Definitely division of labor. I work outside the home and my husband is a stay-at-home dad. I come home to a house that is completely in shambles every. damn. day. And when I come home, he immediately checks out, so to speak, leaving me with a toddler to care for, along with dishes to do, laundry to fold, dinner to prepare, etc. He says he can’t do any of these chores during the day because he’s too busy watching the kiddo, but yet believes I can manage all of it just fine. Same with weekends-he says Saturday and Sunday are his days off so he can “recharge” for the week ahead. :dubious: The last time he uttered the words “my day off” I completely lost my shit.
We’re on the same page with nearly everything else though and it is helpful to read that other couples argue about the same things we do.
We’ve been together for 14 years, married for 8, one toddler.
How much he ‘plays’ (jokes, teases, whatever) with me. It’s constant and it really gets tiresome whenever something serious needs to be discussed. I try to cut him slack most of the time because I know he ramps that stuff up when he’s really happy, but I’d prefer a break now and then. And anything different to argue about.
This made me smile. I’m sure he isn’t flighty, but I don’t think a degree is much guarantee against. I’ve known plenty of college graduates that were flightier than hummingbirds :).
I can’t really think of that much we actively disagree with each other about. There are lots of things we approach differently, but they’re typically not things that actually matter to either of us, or even that we have much of an opinion on which way is actually better or right.
Like the grocery shopping. If I’m going to the store, it’s a matter of me driving clear across town, and by golly I’m not going back ten million times. So I typically buy stuff for about a week’s worth of dinners. I don’t have every day planned out, that’s a little too regimented for me, but I’ve got a handful of options for any given day without having to stop and do more shopping. He, otoh, likes to figure out what he feels like making that day and then hit the store on his way home, which isn’t a big deal for him because he drives right past the grocery store anyway. He doesn’t care about having his meals planned in advance if I’m doing the cooking, and I don’t care about him planning on the day of as long as I don’t have to go shopping. What usually happens is I’ll hit the store and get stuff for 3-4 days and he’ll stop on his way home the rest of the time; if he comes home with stuff to cook that’s great, and if he doesn’t I’ve got a backup plan.
That’s not to say we never squabble, or even have the occasional actual fight, but it’s typically about something stupid that neither of us really cares about. Well, come to think of it, the actual fights* are *about something we both care about, and it’s always the same thing–our approaches to processing anger/annoyance.
I have an awful temper. A long fuse, but when the blow-up happens, it’s really bad and the most awful shit is liable to come flying out of my mouth before I have any idea it’s going to happen. A long time ago I made a conscioius decision not to discuss things when I’m that angry because I’m too apt to say something hurtful that I can never truly take back no matter how sorry I am later. It’s far better for me to simmer in my own juices for a while until I settle down and either can talk about the problem reasonably or realize I’m just in a mood for no real reason. He’s more of a deal with it here and now type, and early on he’d keep prodding to get me to talk about what was wrong; the effect of such is rather like poking a cranky bear with a pointy stick. We’ve both gotten better over the years. I’m more proactive about telling him I’m in a mood and want him to shut up and leave me alone, and he’s more willing to shut up and leave me alone for a while.
Agreed. I almost didn’t write that but then thought well it is sort of shorthand to indicate an ability to follow a plan to achieve a desired outcome.
Your post did remind me of a grad student at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa who, way back when, left a note on her lab door stating, “Gone to Texas. Be back soon.”
There’s also a former co-worker of mine (she had an IT degree) who insisted upon showing the department her new house one lunch break. While touring the house Renee* asked Wendy*, “Wendy, what’s behind this door?”.
Wendy replied, “I don’t know. A closet, I guess.”
Renee opened the door to reveal an additional bedroom.
I’m hard pressed to think of anything we do agree on and we definitely disagree on all the big stuff like politics, religion and children. We don’t argue about stuff because neither of us is going to change the other’s mind.
It wasn’t always this way - I swear he’s turned into a raving right-wing nut job in the last 10 or so years. We’ve been married for 16 years, living together for 20. Each of us has a kid/kids from previous relationships but no kids together. I’d say we have a pretty crappy relationship at the moment.
Meh, it’s really not that hard. My boyfriend of 2 years and I have very few disagreements even though we have a lot of different views about religion and politics.
Maybe it’s different for lawyers since you are used to arguing about things, but we both take the view there is no point in arguing about things that do not directly affect our life together. While the Iraq War is important in a historical sense, I really cannot think of any way that it impacts my relationship with my boyfriend or the way we live our daily lives. Both of us read the news, but most of the time when we talk about the news it’s about local happenings or unusual non-political stories.
Likewise, we disagree about abortion in a political sense, but that has no relevance to our daily life. We do agree that if we had an unplanned pregnancy neither of us would be in favor of abortion, and that’s really the only way the issue truly affects our life together.
The things we do “disagree” about are things that impact our life together like the thermostat (he likes it colder than I do) and what restaurants to eat at (I love a restaurant that he doesn’t like going to).
I think the personalities of each person influence whether a couple argues often more than how much the two people agree about.