[makeitdouble]

I haven't read the book, but can empathize with the complementary angle.

Yet it's just complex, and it's also a moving target. In particular, there will be areas where there's no way out of both being at least competent and self sufficient.

For instance if you live in the middle of nowhere with only a road connecting you to civilization, your partner giving up on driving can't just be a "frustration" area you cover with your "genius".

Same way if you live in the forest you won't get away with shouting and fainting every time you see a bug.

The partner might be there to help adapt, the most severe issues can be mitigated, but fundamentally there's no way out. (now I also assume most reasonable people won't just be there shouting "FIX IT"). And we're not counting the parts where both have it as frustration in the first place ("fix the printer" ?)

The "genius" vs "frustration" split looks to me decent for some cases, not good enough in others, and not applicable for the most critical stuff, with couples still needing to think long and hard about where they strike the balance on each of their areas.

[shiroiushi]

>For instance if you live in the middle of nowhere with only a road connecting you to civilization, your partner giving up on driving can't just be a "frustration" area you cover with your "genius".

Different people are different. And not all people are reasonable. Some partners might really be like this, so if your partner is like this, you can either put up with it and do all the driving, or move someplace else. But the other thing to keep in mind is: you picked this partner. If your partner frustrates you this much, maybe you made a bad choice and should pick a different partner.

As someone who's had different partners in life, I highly encourage single people to be very careful about who they pick for their partner.