Now I just need to figure out a good way to pass that hint along to my wife without her inferring that I hate her and don't ever want to speak to her about anything.
You're thinking about it the wrong way... bartonfink's issue was that for this issue his input had a conflict of interest. You remove that by getting a separate person to lead the input... which you can reference later on.
This is not so different from the standard sales approach of gaining the confidence of an SME on the client side who advises the decision maker.
In my experience if I'm her largest influence, then something's gone horribly wrong. I don't mean to be offensive, but this concept sounds more like codependency than a partnership.
Yeah, sorry my initial reply was borderline knee jerk. I'm even questionable on even largest, but it's all on the back of my own experience.
The successful relationships I've had were always ones where my partner had their own, multiple criteria for happiness. I want to be at most say, a third of someone's life and contribute as much to their emotional state.
Between work, hobbies, social circles, working out, etc etc, I've always found relationships to fit into that but they place about no. 3-4, and anecdotally, its always made for better outcomes. When they hit no. 1 or 2, it means we're both giving up on something that's a significant part of our character, and I've never found it to be a positive indicator.
Family therapists know this stuff already. Tell her that you want to make your marriage everything it could be and more, etc, etc, and get her to a therapist, where she'll learn it for herself. Worked for me ;)
"Hunny, I appreciate that you want to help me remember what needs doing, but it's overwhelming if you tell me as soon as I come home from a long day at work. I know I have a habit of forgetting, so let's make a deal: if I forget to do something come 9 PM, I'll take on one of your chores the next day. Does that sound fair to you?"
Or if your SO can take the hint from humor:
"If I had a nickel for every time you told me to take out the trash when I was about to do it..."
Sounds a lot cheaper than suffering this though:
"No it doesn't sound fair!! What, you can't remember something like that either??" or "You are ALWAYS Tired, God I have to do everything, why did I marry you..." etc, etc.
- Not that I hear that from anyone. Perhaps different strokes for different folk applies here?
- (PS: I love you honey)
The other (unwritten) upside being that therapy can help with a lot of other problems too... Of course you should openly talk about it. But sometimes an appeal to authority does wonders to get the point across.
