LD + HD; Does It Ever Really Work?

[Burgbud]

All right, so I've been waxing philosophical for the last few days, right here in my head, and now it's just gotta escape. I don't think I'm about to say anything original I just gotta get this in a bag and tie it up for my own sake.

The biggest problem in an M like MM describes isn't the lack of sex (though that certainly sux). It's that the couple doesn't have the ability to sit down together, recognize that what's a problem for one is a problem for both and work together to come up with a solution for the problem. That's a bit broad, but here's my example.

I'm a messy person. I've been living on my own long enough now that I have to face the fact. I'm *particularly* messy in the bedroom. I've got baskets of clean laundry waiting to be put away. I've got a pile of shirts on my bed that need to be ironed as well as some clothes that got folded last laundry cycle but never put away. I've got bags and boxes here and there from when I moved in November. They may or may not get put away.

So imagine I was messy like this except I was married, and my wife came to me one day and told me she my messes were a problem for her. I could tell her, "Well, the messes don't bother me. You must be some sort of neat freak. I'm not going to do anything about it." Then if she kept on b!tching, I'd tell her, "Look, lots of people are messy. That's just the way it is. People get tired of picking things up. Why do you always want everything picked up all the time? It's a lot of effort and I'm just not that into it. It doesn't do anything for me. Whenever you pressure me to put things away it makes me want to leave them out more. Leave me alone about it." If she kept bringing it up I'd start rolling my eyes and probably avoiding her. Eventually she'd really have had it and I'd say, "What are you going to do, divorce me and split up our children's family because I don't pick things up the way you want? Are you really that shallow?" Maybe I'd start picking stuff up when I could tell she was getting sick of it but I wouldn't like it. I'd sigh a lot and make it plain that I was only doing it because she was henpecking me. I'd make the whole thing as unpleasant as possible, or at least unpleasant enough.

The real point of this story is from my viewpoint, it's basically true. I don't care about picking stuff up (my ex-or-whatever-wife would probably say that story illustrates our M pretty well). I don't think I should have to if it's not in the way.

So why should I?



Is the issue in that scenario the messes on the floor or the fact that my wife and I have no ability to solve a problem?