2003-03-22 - 5:09 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: Theme from "Sesame Street", as it sounded when I was growing up, A QUARTER CENTURY AGO! I'm so old.

Awhile back, John wrote a fascinating post wherein he detailed what he wanted out of a relationship. I'm going to quote most of it here because I want you to read it, if you haven't already.

"Well, in no particular order...intelligence, open-mindedness, loyalty, trust, consideration, discretion, drive, ambition, principles, responsibility, reason, playfullness, curiousity, and a few other qualities...

In JohnWorld, where everything is just the way John wants it, relationships would be very partner-oriented without sacrificing any individualism...you'd have my stuff, her stuff and our stuff. My interests and goals, her interests and goals and our interests and goals. Of course, being this is a perfect relationship, I try to help her achieve her goals and pursue her interests and she does the same for me...and we tag-team for joint goals and interests...

I'm secure in knowing that I can trust her not to screw around, tell secrets about me, or keep things from me that make her unhappy and vice versa. And she knows that I wont make decisions or plans that affect/involve both of us without checking with her..and vice versa. Just because we're in a relationship doesnt mean I can control her life or her future and more than she can control mine. If theres a job change, move to a new location or something like that, it would be discussed and agreed upon...presumably by deciding what plan is best for both of us."

I read that, and my reaction was, and I quote, "Well, YEAH!"

Darling John, however, expressed some doubt that such a thing was a real live possibility:

"The married people, Im sure, are howling in their chairs at my unrealistic expectations...'John, that may be what you want but trust me..it aint like that!'"

Then approximately five married people (ten if you included their spouses) wrote and said, "Um, yes it is."

I can think of a few other LJ married couples offhand who would probably agree, too.

I wrote a response in the post, including this paragraph:

"Generally I think to make a relationship work are some basic compatibilities (I'd be miserable married to an extrovert, for example), a clear idea of who you are and what you want, the ability to express these desires to make another person understand them, and a mutual agreement to make the necessary allowances for each other's desires or to meet in the middle. Some people have a really hard time doing these things, which I think is where relationships get difficult. Some people can't express what they want without getting accusatory or sulky. Some people find it impossible to make small changes to their behavior so as not to annoy the other person. Some people are too self-centered to remember to consider the other person when making a decision."

Also, a couple nights ago in the kitchen I started talking to my husband about why we never fight. This is not to say we never disagree. We disagree all the time. Right now we're disagreeing over which comes first: roof deck or kitchen. But it never escalates into what most people would call "an argument". Instead, we have "discussions". Sometimes they are rather emotional discussions, because we feel strongly about our points of view, and disagreement upsets me in itself. But there are some things you will never see us do:

- Give each other the silent treatment
- Waiting until we hit the boiling point to bring up a grievance
- Insult each other ("Well if you weren't so fucking STUBBORN...!")
- Yell (although we do raise our voices a bit when frustrated)
- Assign blame ("It's all your fault we never spend time together -- you're always on that fucking LiveJournal and ignoring me!")

What we do instead, is:

- Say, "I'm upset, but I'm not ready to talk about it yet," and give each other some space
- Bring up grievances when we still have a sense of humor about them: "Darling, I know that men are biologically incapable of noticing a full garbage can, but I'd really like not to have to ask to do it all the time."
- I have too much respect for Poindexter to insult him
- It's easy not to yell when you've both agreed not to do it
- "Honey, I'm not getting as much time with you as I would like. Do you think we could make a point to spend at least a couple of hours together each evening away from the TV and computers?"

Well, maybe part of the reason is that we are very compatible. That sure helps. We are in agreement on a lot of basic things:

- We don't want children but haven't entirely written off the possibility
- We're both very family-orienteed
- We have the same feeling about career: we work to live, and personal time is far more important than money or "success"
- But we like to have a certain degree of financial stability and live beneath our means
- We're both introverts and homebodies
- We're both politically conservative/libertarian
- We both feel that our relationship -- me+you+us -- is at the top of the priority list
- We want the same things out of that relationship: basically everything John listed, plus "introspectiveness"

So, we have a really good base to start with, which is enormously helpful. I think we could still handle disagreements calmly if we were less compatible, but we'd be having them so often it would be stressful for me. But on to the incompatibilities.

Evelynne: What are our incompatibilities?
[long silence]
Poindexter: You like to go for walks for no apparent reason.
Evelynne: And you never want to go anywhere. So I go alone. Anything else?
[long silence]
Poindexter: You eat cheese?
Evelynne: You eat raw onions.

Snort.

The best I can do, then, is give some examples of what we do instead of fighting. This was Poindexter's example, btw, word for word.

Imagine that Poindexter got tired of his truck and wants to get a new one. Nothing's wrong with the old truck, he just wanted a change. Before he even seriously considered the idea, he'd bring it up in casual conversation as a POSSIBILITY. The conversation would go something like this:

Poindexter: I'm thinkin about gettin a new truck.
Evelynne: Okay. Why do you want a new truck?
Poindexter: Mine is getting old. I'd like to trade it in while it still has some value. You've been saying you want a quieter car someday so you can hear me on those longer trips -- maybe some of the newer models are quieter. Plus, the new Tacomas are sweet.
Evelynne: Well, I dunno. We haven't had any problems with it. It's a nice truck. And we don't really go for any long drives anymore now that we live near my family. Not to mention we've got a lot of stuff going on with the house. I mean, we can AFFORD it, but is that what we really want to spend our money on?

The conversation could go two ways from here. In one scenario, Poindexter comes up with more reasons why it's a good idea to buy a new truck and convinces me that now is the time, so I go to the spreadsheet and start figuring out the best way to do it. In another, I convince him that it's best to wait a few years until we finish a few things at the house, and we bide our time researching the various models and foregoing various other non-necessary purchases to help save up for it.

I've seen relationships where a similar conversation would have gone like this:

He: I want to buy a new truck. There's a Tacoma over at the local dealer I've got my eye on.
She: Wait a minute. What do we need a new truck for?
He: I'm just ready for a change. And I love this truck. It's got [list of dream-truck qualities].
She: But, honey, it would completely wipe our savings and we just bought a house, so I'm not comfortable financing a car right now.
He: What are you worried about? We'll just put off the house projects for a while.
She: But I'm not comfortable completely blowing our savings! I want to have some money as a cushion. Maybe we could save up and buy it in a few years.
He: Dammit, you never let me have anything I want! This truck is really important to me!
She: I'm not saying we can't ever get a truck, just not right now! I'm not spending all that money on a fucking truck when we just bought a house!
He: You're the one who wants to redo the fucking bathrooms. There's nothing wrong with them! They work! They're just not "pretty" enough for you!
She: I am not having this conversation.
He: Fine. *stomps off, mutters "bitch" under his breath*

Reading over the latter conversation, it sounds quite comical to me, but lord knows I've heard of couples who fight this way. We just DON'T. Because we're both rational and intelligent, and understand that we can't always have what we want right away, and yet we also both care about the other person's wants and desires to the point that we WANT to help them achieve them.

I'm a little at a loss as to how to further describe us. I've had my insecurities and irrational fears here and there, and Poindexter has always been really good at showing me rationally why I don't need to be insecure or fearful. So we don't get into fights based on anybody's low self-esteem or whatever.

Maybe if someone asked me a question, "How do you handle X?" I could describe that.

And completely unrelated to any of the above, I made the pleasantly surprising discovery, via Mark that I am not the only girl who sits with her feet in the sink. The other girl in question does it because she can't get close enough to the mirror to apply makeup without her glasses. I've had that problem as well, although I usually sit with feet in sink to warm them up. I started doing this high school -- call it the poor girl's foot bath.

So without further ado, I present "Girl in Sink: A Series":

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