Divorced and looking back, the root cause of this (in my experience) is a lack of empathy. Love is easy to come by while empathy requires walking in someone else's shoes. I understand this Same Fight because I lived through that. It is never about that thing, it is about not being seen. As the author is processing his divorce, it is good he sees that there is value in doing something selflessly. However, I can't help but wonder if he isn't missing the forest for the trees. Maybe this man truly doesn't care about order/structure/cleanliness in any area of life, but I have to imagine there is at least one area that they are meticulous about. Whether that is his tools in the garage, his golf clubs, his home theater setup, etc. Would he have reacted in the same "... in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter?" nonchalance if his wife started leaving screwdriver in the bathroom and hammers in the living room or if his golf clubs were thrown on the floor under bags of trash? It feels like he stopped after he learned the first lesson examining his divorce and didn't finish.
I think a lot of people would be well served to make a simple list of the life tasks that each partner currently performs. Then (where work schedules are possible), switch for 60 days. Anyone can grab groceries one day and it is no big deal. Force the other person to plan weeks of meals, keep the pantry stocked, etc. shines a bigger light on the unseen work and value each partner is providing. I learned this lesson the hard way and am better for it. Empathy is hard won and we need more of it. Apologies to my ex-wife for not being the person I didn't yet know I could be.
"Force the other person to plan weeks of meals, keep the pantry stocked, etc. shines a bigger light on the unseen work and value each partner is providing."
If my wife were doing this, our grocery bill would double and it would all be frozen dinners and takeout. I'm not sure I trust her to do safety critical mechanic work either. So maybe switching isn't great for some tasks.
Edit: It seems people disagree. Why? All I'm saying is that not everyone is suited to doing all tasks and that switching for some of them might not work or could even be dangerous.
Funnily enough, randoms on the internet seem to think they know your wife better than you do.
I agree with your position, not everyone is suited for every task. In my house, there are certain chores that only I do because I'm the only one capable. On the other hand, there are certain chores my wife won't let me near because I'll make an absolute mess of things.
I think a good number of people on this site have swallowed a tad too much equality propaganda. Individuals are not all the same and they don't all have the same capabilities, instead individuals complement each other with their diverse skills, views, personalities, and natural talents.
She would probably also outsource that mechanical work to a mechanic, just like you'd outsource the cooking work to the microwave/freezing company. Although, by outsourcing this work, you'd both have a little bit more free time. It might be a worthwhile experiment just to try for a month, if you can swing it.
You don't understand, I already do the shopping/cooking and the mechanic work. Outsourcing costs a lot of money. Plus, if the point of switching is to appreciate the labor of the other person, then outsourcing defeats the purpose.
My point is, some tasks may not be equally suited for both people in the relationship.
"Yes, that's an important time efficiency. Expending more effort on the same results is not a virtue."
It's not the same result though. One costs a lot of money, the other costs only a little. Your statement only makes sense if someone has a bunch of spare money laying around.
"Yes, but possibly less significant than the other benefits you could bring the partnership by not spending time on that."
That's a moot point since my wife works during most of my off-hours. But I'm curious, what are these other benefits?
Ah, ok. I thought you were providing one example where she normally does a task that you'd do poorly, and one where you normally do a task that she'd do did poorly, to set up a sort of symmetrical example.
Isn't that kind of the point, to show to the partner that you have expectations for how certain things are done in a certain way for a certain reason that they might not have had an appreciation for.
It can in fact be an avenue to dig into the deeper communication issues, e.g. if there's a pattern of downplaying expressed concerns or assumptions without actual communications, it's gonna surface real quick if the partner ruins a power tool (or the non-stick pan, or the monthly budget, or whatever) if they don't follow certain rules.
Sure, for small stuff that makes sense for a one or two time experience. They recommended 60 days. Eating preprocessed frozen diners for two months could be unenjoyable to one party and not the other. They might not care about the added cost too. So it could work if they try to stick to the rules. If they just don't care, then that might suck.
Then for the car issue... even one large mistake could cost thousands or lead to death. If they are supervised, then maybe that could work. But that would at least require enough extra time to allocate 2 resources to the same task.
Yeah, the way my wife and and I go about rotating tasks usually has one person explaining/hand-holding to whatever degree is appropriate precisely because damaging goods isn't a desirable outcome. As an exercise, it can still surface issues even without full on cold turkey switches, e.g. does one tend to forget/downplay/skimp things that were already covered previously, is the communication actionable/respectful/unambiguous/etc, do complaints surface verbally, does the taught person actually take away any lessons they didn't know/consider/appreciate before, etc.
For example, the junk food example doesn't need to literally put you in the red, it can just lead to you complaining the food is crap and hopefully imparting that food not being crap is important to you.
You should learn to cook new dishes together. To each their own, especially in their own home, but cooking have inherent value itself for multiple reasons, and teach a lot of soft skills. And cooking together is great, if your wife agree to let you be slow and let you mess up. If you have kids especially: some of my best memories are my parents learning to cook weird asian dishes and fail or succeed together.
It's funny, my wife has literally zero interest in learning computer programming in any way. I found that a bit odd, as I'd like to at least learn enough about anything she spends more than, say, 20 hours a week doing so that I can nod in the right places when she complains. Talking with my friend group, nobody found it even the slightest bit odd.
You say your wife has no interest in cooking and everybody loses their mind. Doubly ironic because I would wager on HN, people are probably better programmers than cooks, on average.
Most people find programming brain-meltingly dull. Socially, we're much closer to accountants than the real professional class—lawyers, doctors, and the professional-adjacent groups like professors—and also closer to accountants (and not the fun kind, like forensic accountants) as far as people's interest in what we do than, say, mechanical engineers or aerospace engineers or biologists or pharmaceutical chemists or whatever. May not be true in certain very tech-oriented cities like SF where everyone seems to be connected to software (I dunno) but it is everywhere else.
Shit, lots of programmers find it dull, too. It just pays a lot and is pretty fuckin' easy, so they get over it.
(incidentally, I'm pretty sure the social-class thing is why programmers struggle to get basic professional respect and perks like a goddamn office and not being micromanaged, even when our pay is sky-high—those are social perks, and we don't rate them, mostly)
"people are probably better programmers than cooks, on average."
Maybe. I think cooking is just a different type of programming, with neat hacks, syntax to follow, etc. Garbage in, garbage out is especially applicable too.
Also, who is losing their mind over my wife not cooking?
I believe everyone who eats should know how to cook at least a few basic things. Just like anyone who wears clothes should know how to wash them. Etc
If my wife were doing this, our grocery bill would double and it would all be frozen dinners and takeout.
that's pretty dismissive. do you know this from experience? have you tried it? that's the point. not the outcome. does your wife understand the effort you go through? does she respect that? does she want it?
the point is not to train each other to be equally suited to every task, but to better understand each other.
if you are both happy with the arrangement as it is then you don't need to do anything, but but if one of you is unhappy about the efforts of the other then it may help to bring these things to light.
I think a lot of people would be well served to make a simple list of the life tasks that each partner currently performs. Then (where work schedules are possible), switch for 60 days. Anyone can grab groceries one day and it is no big deal. Force the other person to plan weeks of meals, keep the pantry stocked, etc. shines a bigger light on the unseen work and value each partner is providing. I learned this lesson the hard way and am better for it. Empathy is hard won and we need more of it. Apologies to my ex-wife for not being the person I didn't yet know I could be.