If it is unimportant to you, and important to her, then splitting the difference doesn’t mean doing it your way half the time.
If it instead is important to both of you, then you have a fundamental problem that you need to sit down and work through.
Maybe there is a compromise that will leave both of you happy. Maybe one of you is willing to try changing. Or maybe you have an irreconcilable difference and need to split up.
Honestly if you are both ready to consider divorce before you change your dishwashing behavior, that’s a pretty big warning sign that things aren’t on the right track.
An example: I don’t give a shit about clothes on the bedroom floor. No one but me and my wife ever sees them. But it bothers her. It costs me very little to dump the clothes in a hamper, and makes her much happier. So I put my clothes in the hamper as much as I can remember to, and she gives me grace the times I forget. Happily together for 20 years so far.
He did mention that he would never care to change his behavior and had two reasons to continue doing it. I guess that doesn't mean it's the hill he would go to die on. I do struggle with the same thing, at what point is it something that's no longer a conversation, you should just change because the other person decided they cared enough about it. Having the wife end a marriage over it also seems ridiculous. If people can't come to realize they are asking for something silly but it's a big deal to them, that seems like that partner's problem. If I just sit around and say everything is "important", does that mean I get to have it my way all the time?
I entered into my marriage assuming my partner was negotiating in good faith. If she says something bugs her, it bugs her. Collectively we can either spring for Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for her, or I can pick up my pants after I shower.
If your partner needs to have their way in all things, then there may be a deeper trust issue to resolve and/or they might not be ready for a committed relationship.
Edit: rereading above I can see it coming off as a little flippant. At the core I believe we all have things we do and feel that are not rational. I don’t think you can reason your way out of them. You can’t rationally argue away a feeling. You can do therapy to try to change it, or you can remove the negative stimulus.
This is an extreme example/edge case and if that's truly the case you are either not participating in good faith or would likely benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy. You're approaching the topic of a healthy marriage from game theory where your spouse is another player/opponent, not from empathy and good-faith participation or even just as a team with a common goal.
Is your goal to "have it your way all the time", or is it to have a healthy and loving marriage with your spouse? If you approach it from the latter perspective, the question doesn't really make any sense.
To be fair, it’s not really about coldly «saying something is important». I think the question is really better restated as:
What if one person just feels more strongly about things (most or all of the time)? Should feelings always trump? Should feelings always be allowed to trump rationality/proportionality in a marriage conflict?
PS:
> You're approaching the topic of a healthy marriage from game theory
I feel like this moves the goal posts but that's fine, this is a more legitimate question.
This is the actual hard part of the marriage/relationship that the commenter higher-up is talking about. Compromise is table stakes. Communicating well with your partner, making sure they are an equal participant and making sure they feel heard and valued is what's important.
Again, focusing on who is going to "win" is not a healthy perspective in my opinion. Questions like "do feelings beat rationality?" Is the same thing as saying "does paper beat rock?" The purpose of the article was not that dishes and minor arguments about dishes on the counter resulted in a divorce. The point is that she felt belittled and unheard. He was winning the dish battles, but lost his marriage.
>Should feelings always trump?
No! But they might! Each marriage and relationship is different and they change over time (as people tend to do). For one couple this could be true, but that doesn't really mean anything. Again, this approach is thinking about marriage as a series of small arguments to win, with your spouse as the opponent.
Compromise is table stakes. Whether the dishes got done or not really doesn't have anything to do with whether or not these people got divorced, the issue was a lack of communication and one partner not feeling heard.
This is a less-bad framing of the earlier question, but it still suffers from the same flawed perspective. The goal is to have a healthy and happy marriage where both individuals feel heard and respected and like a team.
What if you feel more strongly about something than your partner? Do you feel like your thoughts and feelings on the matter are being heard? (Note: feeling heard is not the same as "I got my way") Do you feel like an equal team member in the decision? It's okay to feel annoyed or frustrated at the result, that's part of life, you don't always get your way. But it's a huge difference between "I felt like my opinion was fully heard and considered, even if we didn't decide on my point of view." and "I felt dismissed, belittled, and unheard. $spouse/boss/friend/person didn't really listen to what I had to say and I don't feel valued."
It was not so much a question on _who_ is going to win, as to _what_ is going to win. In other words: What are deemed legitimate criteria, and even the most important criteria, in a conflict? It’s a question of value systems. Making feelings paramount, like several above suggested, seems like a pragmatic quick fix. If one part obviously feels so much stronger than the other, why shouldn’t the other just give way? But it is not without its problems. Stronger feelings doesn’t mean more right, and doesn’t mean the holder has a more justified basis for being accommodated. Even though it may patch things up more easily in the short term.
There’s also a personality component: some people tend to feel more strongly about most things, and others may not feel particularly strong about anything (although they are not void of feelings/opinions). Causing relational skew. The latter person giving way, to smooth things over, and to not stir strong feelings in the other, can turn out to blow up hard in the long run.
But yeah, as you say: HOW something is done is oftentimes just as important as WHAT is done (the outcome).
> The latter person giving way, to smooth things over, and to not stir strong feelings in the other, can turn out to blow up hard in the long run.
You're still approaching this as "A's feelings vs B's rationale". The original article is highlighting one (common) path this takes: one person's feelings are not being heard and they feel devalued and belittled. But you're still approaching it as partner vs partner rather than as a team vs the issue with a goal of everyone feeling loved, heard, and understood.
It is on both sides to make sure that the other person feels heard and an equal partner. If person B feels like their rationale isn't being considered at all, or that their feelings are not, it's the same situation.
>The latter person giving way, to smooth things over,
A valid feeling is that they are giving a lot. Their partner feels strongly about things ABC, but there's no free lunch. Changes to your behavior obviously have consequences. Folks are giving specific examples like "My spouse cares about laundry being in the hamper, I don't really so I don't mind putting in the extra effort to make them happy." But if one feels like they are giving more than they are getting, that's a communication issue beyond whether the dishes get done. The same as the person who feels strongly not being heard.
Your example: "can turn out to blow up hard in the long run" is necessarily different. There's resentment implicitly brewing. Maybe the spouse often starts these conversations more aggressively. Something like "Why can't you ever put your clothes away?" It starts off aggressive, is accusatory, and assumes that the spouse is acting in bad faith.
Put more succinctly, if things do blow-up in the long run then there's a similar communication failure that has occurred and one member of the partner ship doesn't feel like a capable and equal partner in the eyes of their spouse.
HOW something is done: how these feelings and thoughts are communicated is not just as important oftentimes, but is absolutely more important always. Specifically for small stuff like dishes, laundry, etc. "What" wins is entirely irrelevant and will vary from issue to issue and couple to couple.
If it's something more consequential like having children, parenting values, financial values, etc. that's more fundamental that the topic here and is likely just two people who are incompatible with irreconcilable values.
> You're still approaching this as "A's feelings vs B's rationale".
Not necessarily. I also wrote:
«If one part obviously feels so much _stronger_ than the other, why shouldn’t the other just give way?
…
some people tend to feel _more strongly_ about most things, and others may not feel particularly strong about anything (although _they are not void of feelings/opinions_).»
I’m thinking about the degree of feelings involved. (No one is fully and solely rational, after all.)
I suppose the statement I made is slightly imprecise, but the framing is still A's feelings and rationale vs B's feelings and rationale. Which is the entire paradigm I'm saying is bunk and pointless.
> What if one person just feels more strongly about things (most or all of the time)? Should feelings always trump? Should feelings always be allowed to trump rationality/proportionality in a marriage conflict?
It depends if to you “marriage” is a business transaction or an emotional relationship.
Though there are likely to be problems if you a x your partner envision it differently.
> If I just sit around and say everything is "important", does that mean I get to have it my way all the time?
Is the implication here that your spouse views their marriage as a game they need to “win”, and saying “this is important” are the magic words they need to say to win?
Or are they sincerely trying to compromise and saying “I’m
trying to meet you halfway but this is genuinely important to me”?
Right, you do this small act of service because you are in love with your partner. Ideally not even because it makes her happy, but because it makes you happy to make her happy.
The upshot of the article, IMO, is that they were no longer in love.
And that lack of love became most apparent by observing all the tiny acts of service that people in love do for each other, and people who are merely co-habitating and perhaps also co-parenting, do not give a flying fuck about and use as a safe thing to argue about instead of admitting the truth.
You omit the fact to some people _anything_ is important and for some nearly _nothing_ is. That would lead to a de facto master/slave-like relationship.
People's desire to shape the relationship (and hence their partner's) is asymmetrical.
In your example, you don't mention what _you_ made her change to compromise with something _you_ felt was important (and i don't want any answer, as it's something private). It just that it sounded like the classic "married with children"/"the simpsons" premise...
If it instead is important to both of you, then you have a fundamental problem that you need to sit down and work through.
Maybe there is a compromise that will leave both of you happy. Maybe one of you is willing to try changing. Or maybe you have an irreconcilable difference and need to split up.
Honestly if you are both ready to consider divorce before you change your dishwashing behavior, that’s a pretty big warning sign that things aren’t on the right track.
An example: I don’t give a shit about clothes on the bedroom floor. No one but me and my wife ever sees them. But it bothers her. It costs me very little to dump the clothes in a hamper, and makes her much happier. So I put my clothes in the hamper as much as I can remember to, and she gives me grace the times I forget. Happily together for 20 years so far.