I'm happy with whatever

[shirou]

From Dear Prudence

Q. I think I’ve screwed up: I have a boyfriend who I’ve lived with for a year and been with for three. We have reached a crossroads. We live in a large town and are looking to move to a slightly smaller city, but he doesn’t seem to think I want to. I tend to be an easy-to-please partner, and I really feel that a lot of my relationship needs are met, but he doesn’t believe me.

Can you give me some tips to become a more outspoken person? I feel like I’ve screwed up. My partner says I’ve acquiesced far too many times, but really, I am a just-happy-to-be-here kind of person! How do I say, “I’m happy to do X,” and reassure my partner that I really mean it?

A: I’m not sure! I’m a little confused—you and your boyfriend are planning on moving to a smaller city, but he doesn’t believe you really want to because you have a history of going along with whatever his plans are? Is he planning on moving without you unless you can convince him you really want to go? I wish we had more detail—can you give us any examples of the sort of thing your boyfriend wants from you? Is he holding off on the move until you can convince him of something?

Q. Re: I think I’ve screwed up: “I’m happy to do X” isn’t the same as “I’m looking forward to X, and here’s how I’m planning for and thinking about it.” Your partner sounds like he’s worried because he’s having to make all of the decisions, and thus deciding what your life path looks like. If you want to be in your relationship, take an active role in it.

A: It’s true that “I’m happy with whatever” is a more appropriate response to “What do you want for dinner?” than it is to “Should we move to Austin?” (And sometimes it can be a frustrating response to “What do you want for dinner?”) Someone else suggested that the letter writer could demonstrate their genuine enthusiasm by looking up events in their target city, talking about what she thinks she’ll enjoy once they move there, and helping coordinate some of the details of the move. “If it’s close enough, she could even suggest some outings now before they move to explore the new city.”

Comments

[shirou]

I posted this because it hits close to home. I'm opinionated and a planner. My wife is easygoing and very much not a planner. It took us a long time to figure out a balance where I was getting the input I wanted from her and she not getting overwhelmed by me, and we still don't always get it right. I gave up asking what she wants for dinner a long time ago, but by now I think she knows it would drive me up the wall if she didn't offer some solid opinions on something as major as moving to a new city!

[minoanmiss]

That makes a lot of sense. I hope someone gives the LW advice that includes the term "reassurance".

[eleanorjane]

Relatedly, I was just reading Captain Awkward archives and this letter in particular; the comments have a lot of good stuff to say about emotional labour and decision fatigue.

[shirou]

Decision fatigue is definitely real. There are some Saturdays when I'm planning the weekly menu that I desperately wish someone would just hand me a grocery list and send me to the store. Deciding what we're going to eat can be as big a chore as the shopping and cooking.

On the other hand, there's something to be said for having the person who cares do the work. I planned the details of our summer vacations and found my son's summer camps in part because I'm the one who, by far, cares the most about which hotels we stay in and which camps he goes to. If my wife planned these things and I didn't like her choices, she would--rightly--be upset that I didn't just do it myself.

[xenacryst]

Tell you what - I'll give you my menu and shopping list and you give me yours, and we can each enjoy the peace of mind that comes from just going to the store and getting what's on the list. The thing about dinners in our house is that I'm the kind of cook who looks at what we've got in the pantry and throws something together with odds and ends and it comes out fantastic (or I look at 7 different recipes online and average them together and then modify that on the fly), while J needs to have a recipe on hand. So as school and jobs and general fatigue has crunched our dinner prep times, I'm usually the one throwing things together. And so I tend to have more of an idea of what's in the cupboard and what we need to get this week.

On the other hand, J will much more carefully plan things like vacations, where if it were just me I'd prolly be "hmm, looks like we're camping at the end of this disused forest service road tonight." Come to think of it, that bears a certain resemblance to my cooking style...

But, in any case, there's context to where each of us stops having Strongly Held Opinions and where we do the emotional labor to keep things running. It's taken some time to get there, and it ain't perfect yet, but recognizing it is a large part of it.

[xenacryst]

That CA response is gold, and really should be the response here, too (I mean, Prudie comes around to some decent basics, but CA goes right to the meat of it).