[j45]

Without knowing more about your specific situation it's tough to give anything but a vague answer.

Partnership is harder than marriage. I think this is part of why HN places so much value on co-founders who get it.

You also learn if your friendships are true friendships where the person is as willing to look at themselves as much as point fingers.

Ultimately you have to get and stay on the same page. Knowing how to disagree, and know who's driving the bus ultimately has to be in place.

[marketinghead]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, j45. The points you bring up are quite astute despite my being vague on details.

Wrt "the person is as willing to look at themselves as much as point fingers", I actually thought I was being overly hypercritical because nothing in the past week has happened that would provoke me. So I just thought I needed time and space. That was what I was looking for wrt replies on HN, but...

Upon retrospect, we have also both been testier ever since our first idea didn't work out. So far so good with the new one, but that first one was 6 months of 0 traction that changed our dynamic.

You've given me a lot to think about, and I will need to think about how to have a constructive conversation that will help us move on.

[j45]

Glad it may have helped, all learnt the hard way.

One thing that's hard is having a dialogue where both people can speak openly and feel heard and understood and respected.

Often when relationships degrade, it turns into monologues crammed down each others throats and jumping to conclusions, instead of giving the benefit of the doubt and asking "what else could this mean?" in a positive way.

It's that much harder with coders who aren't always socially aware or developed as we might need to be.

It will be hard to have conversation about anything if you guys aren't comfortable with each others presence to begin with. What's needed is some form of an emotional breakthrough.

To that effect, maybe starting with a conversation saying sorry, I hope i haven't been short with you unintentionally, I didn't mean to so let me know what I mean if I come across in a way that doesn't seem positive or productive because that's what's most important. Hopefully you hear the same back from him, and if you don't you can say I want to make sure either of us can talk about how we're working together as well as what we're working on...

Feel free to connect offline if you need. It sounds like you care and that's a good thing, if you can confirm your partner does too there's a chance you can come out of this stronger and have each others backs. Instead of facing each other, you have to face the world together at each others side and let 1+1=11