[em-bee]

partners should support each other, especially through trying times. but your happiness should not only depend on your partner. if it does then any problem in the relationship can quickly spiral into something unfixable.

on the other hand, being individually happy is not enough. if your partnership does not add anything to your happiness then you are more like roommates.

you are fortunate until now, but i would not rely on being able to keep that going without your partners help. you say you are happy as a couple when you are happy individually, but there is more to a relationship than just your individual happiness.

i would investigate how your relationship is really doing. is your wife as happy as you are? how would you deal with difficult times as a couple? what might happen if your work changed and you no longer feel happy there?

how are you supporting each other?

[BLKNSLVR]

> more like roommates.

I've semi-jokingly referred to my relationship as 'like roommates'. We've discussed at length that 'this time in our lives' is the busiest we've ever been with early teen kids playing various sports, playing musical instruments, having braces, dealing with hormones and their personalities developing into 'who they're going to be as adults', fuck it's a lot.

I just had a couple of days off sick, and it was like a fucking holiday.

Unsolicited advice: If your long term relationship hasn't yet reached 'pre- and early-teen kids', then make sure you're ready for it. Get your house in order, because it's going to feel like your life and dreams are on pause for five to ten years whilst you develop the best little adults you possibly can. And you will need each other to lean on for the duration.

[anonymousDan]

Shit, I have two kids under 4 and have been telling myself it will be a lot easier by the time they are that age!

[BLKNSLVR]

It's different, it's all hard but increasingly rewarding - if you've put in the work early to get the rewards later.

The first swear word is a beautiful moment to be revisited regularly :)

[agent008t]

I thought that is supposed to be the easy time?

As in, when children are born, the first 6 months are a nightmare, the next ~3 years are extremely tough, then as they get more independent and grown that's when it gets good? That 'pre- and early-teen' is supposed to be the best part, when you can more-or-less deal with them like with adults and they are fairly independent?

[em-bee]

if that is what you expect, then our kids were angels. really we had no trouble with them. they slept pretty well very early, maybe because they slept in our bed so feeding them at night was easy. we had a nanny for help, but i was working from home so i could spend a lot of time with them. we'll see how it will be when they are older. so far it's going well though.

i think what makes kids tough to deal with is not accepting their behavior as it is. when you want them to be a certain way, but you don't know how to get them to be that way. even when i see problematic kids portrayed on tv many times i feel that the kids don't have a problem, but it's the parents who can't deal with it. they don't take the kids seriously and don't respect them or consider their needs. with that attitude, kids will be difficult at any age.

[BLKNSLVR]

Fuck my kids can be annoying. They're so much like their dad.

;)

I think there's a "know thyself" problem for those who have difficulty with their kids. They'll behave like you, and if you're not happy with yourself then you won't be happy with them.

Both of mine are so often overtly like me I often ask my wife: when are YOU having kids?

To which she replies: three is more than enough.

(Explainer: we have two kids, I'm the third).

[em-bee]

I'm the third

yup that's a classic.

I think there's a "know thyself" problem for those who have difficulty with their kids. They'll behave like you, and if you're not happy with yourself then you won't be happy with them.

very much so. but it works the other way too. seeing myself reflected in my kids motivates me to change my behavior.

and parents changing their behavior is the only thing that works. applying two different standards and thinking that certain behavior is only ok for adults but not for kids (swearing for example) doesn't work.

for anyone who missed it, a longer discussion on the topic is here btw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31703675

[BLKNSLVR]

As reply to you and anonymousDan: I love it, and I may be overstating it to some extent. I love my kids and watching them grow but, because they're like me, the effort required to explain things is increased because their perspectives require answers with a level of detail that makes them understand, because with 'the little things' understanding is a prerequisite of compliance. Scaring them with loud angry voice isn't enough if your argument isn't solid. My son is unbelievably good at pointing out my hypocrisies and logical flaws, god it's so annoying and beautifully satisfyingly fulfilling all at once.

My wife and I both work, our weekly routine is as follows:

* Monday: daughter piano lesson 4:30-5pm, son soccer practise 7-8:30pm

* Tuesday: daughter dance 6pm-8:30pm

* Wednesday: son soccer practise, until his coach went to play a comp he was getting tennis coaching 5-5:30

* Thursday: rest day, although sons tennis team get together for a hit most evenings, dads also play

* Friday: son tennis comp 6-8pm, daughter dance practise 6-8:30pm, I take my niece roller skating 7:30-9:30pm

* Saturday: Dance comp season there are dance competitions every third week or so, when there's no competition they do 'teams' dance practise, I play tennis comp 1-4:30pm

* Sunday: son soccer game

I try to fit in four or five stretches, weights, exercise sessions per week as well to slow the decline of age.

So, yeah, I fit in playing tennis and roller skating weekly, so I get to scratch those itches, and I have time to tinker with personal projects, and watch movies and shows, but they always feel like 'slices' of time. My job isn't hugely demanding, by my wife's is, plus she does the cooking (because she's the picky one, says I).

But there's also managing screen time, bed times (they're both night owls), chores, homework, school drop offs and pickups, their friends, our friends (!), taxes, banking, finances, physio appointments, car servicing, fixing the goddam toilet and a leaky tap, and I'll fix the WiFi in a minute, and funerals, and birthday parties (they're much less of a big deal then when the kids are under 10, glad that stage has passed).

We've got a great network of family support without which we'd probably have to cut some activities or require more flexible working arrangements. We're using the whole fucking village (but we're also contributing).

I wouldn't have it any other way, and I wouldn't have thought I could cope with all of that if I wasn't in the middle of coping with it.

BUT you need to support you partner and you partner needs to support you.

And I'm totally aware that in the (near?) future we're going to need to support our kids with theirs, and wouldn't you know it: I think I'm kinda looking forward to that.

[s1artibartfast]

Am I the only one that thinks it's rude to give unsolicited marital advice based on absolutely no facts

[dcow]

Considering how grateful OP is for the advice shared by the community here previously, my impression is they're open to the continued advice. It's hardly unsolicited. I don't consider it rude when people are trying to be genuinely helpful. If you consider that rude you might be overly sensitive yourself and missing the bigger context.

It's not happening here, but: I really really don't understand people who get offended by "unsolicited" advice. Chances are it's coming from a place of honest care and concern. Just ignore it if it doesn't pertain to you. When you get a strong reaction from someone in response to unsolicited advice, I find more often than not it's actually striking a chord and probably more needed than the person realizes. I'd want that feedback whether I solicited it or not, personally.

[s1artibartfast]

In not especially offended, but it does rub me the wrong way when people make negative assumptions about others, then offer their advice.

To me it comes off as condescension, not actually help. If they wanted to help or cared, they would seek to understand first. Unsolicited and more importantly uninformed advice shows a disregard for the recipient.

It reminds me of legal advice threads where people give terrible advice because they are too busy speaking to even read the original post.

Re-read Lumost post, and then em-bee's unsolicited diagnosis and advice. They are absolutely making assumptions and suggesting a narrative about an uncollaborative and deficient marriage.

At the end of the day, people are free to post what they want, but having some community standards is what prevents things from devolving into rabble and insults.

For my part, I want to use that freedom to tell people that it is unproductive and generally considered rude to make unsolicited, uncharitable, and uninformed assumptions about the marriages of others. Moreso, because I think are giving out factually bad advice.

[dcow]

> For my part, I want to use that freedom to tell people that it is unproductive and generally considered rude to make unsolicited, uncharitable, and uninformed assumptions about the marriages of others. Moreso, because I think are giving out factually bad advice.

Perhaps you should respond to the factually bad parts, because that's actually debatable. Leading with "that's rude" is a personal sentiment and all it takes to rebut that is a "no, it's really not".

[s1artibartfast]

I did in a sibling thread

[xdfgh1112]

I agree. But since unsolicited advice is low effort, it's hard to stop that sort of thing becoming the dominant form of narrative

[JackFr]

Well sometimes unsolicited advice is not really helpful advice but really is just a thin veneer over judgement and criticism.

Similarly if you’re finding yourself prefacing comments with “No offense, but…” just don’t say them. Offense avoided.

[em-bee]

that's a very good point. something to consider when writing a comment. especially in a forum like this where it is difficult to interpret the intent of a message, or the attitude of the writer. i certainly hope that my comments aren't seen as being judgemental, but i can't be sure.

[BLKNSLVR]

Consciously off-topic: Posting on an open forum invites it.

The comment to which you're replying makes some good points and isn't finger-pointy, and is more suggestive of potential gaps to fill. Any long-term relationship requires hard work, and so advice is often a helpful reminder of this, whether the advice is good or not it can trigger a re-evaluation of perspective; a view from the outside of what may have become taken for granted from the inside.