4 ms·
It is true that we should answer spousal bids for attention -- but on the other hand, we shouldn't base our emotional sanity solely on the response of our spous
by noobhacker 12y ago
It is true that we should answer spousal bids for attention -- but on the other hand, we shouldn't base our emotional sanity solely on the response of our spouses either. To expect that our spouses can respond to everything inevitably leads to disappointment. For example, I may get terribly excited about a piece of code I wrote, but I wouldn't fault my girlfriend for not responding to my excitement. I guess the trick is to find the common things we both get excited about while also maintaining hobbies and relationships besides our own.
- nybblet 12y agoI think the idea is that she should be excited that you're excited, and happy that you're happy, not necessarily that she should be excited by the very code you wrote. (That said, you would probably not mind if she "returned your bid" or "opened a bid" by asking you what it did, how you came to it, and made an effort to appreciate it with you. It would probably be less pleasant if every time you got excited about some code you wrote, she just responded with an indifferent "cool"---if at all---while continuing to text her friends.) Also, what exactly do you mean by your last sentence, specifically, "besides our own"? If, as indicated above, the idea is that both partners are happy in the other's happiness, and want to do the things that make their partners happy, and are unhappy doing the things that make their partners unhappy, what does it mean to "[maintain] hobbies and relationships besides [their] own"? Many people maintain hobbies and relationships aside from those with their partners such that they end up maintaining separation. Why is that necessarily desireable?