Thread: How smart is your wife/girlfriend ?? Does she ask mind numbingly stupid questions??

I think the most dangerous assumption that people can make, generally speaking, is to assume that the person they are talking to understands implicitly what they are talking about. I have another great example over which my girlfriend and I argued for hours until we realised that neither of us understood what the other was talking about.

We have voil curtains that are suspended by steel wire on all our downstairs curtains. We used the same fixings from our previous house, but we had discussed that this time we would have them the "other way around".

At this point I should describe my interpretation as a man;
The fixing is made up of an "L" bracket, which is attached to the wall with the lower part fo the L, and the upper part has a hole through which a decorative spike and a bolt are screwed into. As you tighten the bolt the wire gets under tension. The "L" brackets had been fitted in her old house by someone else with the underside of the "L" facing away from the direction of stress - thus the screws into the wall had started to pull out, and one of them was already half hanging out the wall with a chunk of plaster. Of course I noticed this from the beginning, and thought to myself "I would have put the "L" bracket with the bottom facing inwards, so that the pressure is into the base of the L not away from it.

Tension<<<<<< L>>>>>pressure = good because the screws are under no pressure

Basic man stuff type engineering.

I put them up in the new house with the brackets the right way around, and was very pleased with myself that I could get considerable tension into the line.

My girlfriend went nuts.

She wanted the decorative spikes the other way around.

We only established this after nearly two days of not talking to each other.

I learned something really important. If an argument is looming, no matter how dumb you think you will look, clarify exactly what it is you are arguing about before going any further. I can't see how your wife could be confused, but then again I was talking about the bracket, not the spike.

Si

Ok so coming back to look at this now it looks like an odd post but I think the fact that I would even ask this question says something about how peeved I was at the time.
How do you force someone to think for themselves?

Another, less pissed off example.

She wants to buy a house.

I want to wait till around the end of the year.
Our collective credit scores are going up(I have a student loan coming out of default among other things)
We are borderline subprime (680) and there is all kinds of turmoil in that area right now.
I think the stock market is headed for a correction, moderate economic downturn.
That will be even better for buyers.

She understands none of this. All she knows is that she wants a house.

I try to explain these things and it's like telling your two year old in detail about how many bills you have and why daddy can't buy a $200 Power wheels.
(ok feeling a little guilty about my last razor now)

They stand and stare and then throw a tantrum. I WANT I WANT I WANT!!

Should I make her stand in the corner? Time out?

I have come to the conclusion that they live in a different world than we do.. Sometimes I wish it really was a different world but can't afford child support. I am on the 14 year plan -- my youngest child (daughter) is 7 and in 14 years she will be 21 and then I can slip off into the night and disappear.. If I live that long. My luck I'd croak the day before I was planning to leave.

"If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all"

Sooo......
No offense, but why did you marry your wife? It's not like you didn't knew what you were getting yourself into.

I've found that the key to living together is knowing that the other one is not perfect, and neither are you. The important bit is deciding if you can live with the imperfections or not.
I hope I am not imposing myself, but if you really have doubts about continuing or not, maybe it would be a good idea to take a day off together, go to someplace quite and have a heart to heart talk about the things that are going on.

Communication difficulties can really become a big problem if you let them go on for a long time, to the point where your marriage is over.

Btw, pencil can be finnicky to fax (or Xerox) because it reflects light in a funny way, resulting in very faint copies.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Communication difficulties can really become a big problem if you let them go on for a long time, to the point where your marriage is over.

.

Hell no my wife and I have been yelling at each other for 26 years.. Well maybe that's how we communicate

PS most marriages are over from the mans point of view right after he says "I do"

Originally Posted by Bruno

Sooo......
No offense, but why did you marry your wife? It's not like you didn't knew what you were getting yourself into.

None taken.

When I met her she was illegal. I didn't know this.

I only found out after about 1 year of dating. (communication problems?)

we continued dating and after another 6 months (were living together at this point, we both worked two jobs and it was the ONLY way to see each other) the process had reached the point where we either had to get married OR I was just wasting her time.

I sat back and looked at the situation.

She is stable, has two jobs, her own car, a BS degree, good relationship with her parents, is able to save money, has no vices, speaks three languages, seems like she would make a good mother, asian women don't cheat, and she is very pretty to boot.

Sounds good right? I could do worse.

Originally Posted by gratewhitehuntr

None taken.

When I met her she was illegal. I didn't know this.

I only found out after about 1 year of dating. (communication problems?)

we continued dating and after another 6 months (were living together at this point, we both worked two jobs and it was the ONLY way to see each other) the process had reached the point where we either had to get married OR I was just wasting her time.

I sat back and looked at the situation.

She is stable, has two jobs, her own car, a BS degree, good relationship with her parents, is able to save money, has no vices, speaks three languages, seems like she would make a good mother, asian women don't cheat, and she is very pretty to boot.

Sounds good right? I could do worse.

Does not sound bad at all.
I can see that communications can be problematic, even if you have been together for so long.

I consider myself fluent in English, I have worked with English speaking people for more than 5 years now, some of my friends are English, I read only English books (have read more than a thousand by now) watch DVDs with english subtitles,...
And yet, sometimes there are things I don't immediately get.
Apart from the language, there are cultural differences where something -in a given context- means something else. To you it may seem obvious, to foreign people it might be confusing.

Anyway, I sincerely hope everything works out for you and your wife.
Despite the fact that we gather here to find kindred spirits to talk about razors, family is the most important thing in the world.
good luck.

I have a language misunderstanding with my girlfriend at least every week. For me it is just a culture thing. We both understand the words that are being said, but the subtle intonation differences and cultural taboos in different countries can create havoc with the meaning of a sentence.
Just think about how many different ways it is possible to say sorry or hello, stress and intonation wise. Each has a different meaning and when said in the wrong situation can turn a polite word into a very rude one.
Imagine you are in the supermarket and somebody bumps into you. Do you say sorry with falling intonation(apologetic) or rising(aggressive)?

That said, they do say some ridiculous things too!
Nick

Ok, I've now decided this may be too off topic even for off topic.
If a Mod comes along and feels the same feel free to remove entire thread, you will get no arguement from me.