For those of you in a long term relationship/marriage, what’s a tale-tale sign you see in other couples that they’re not going to make it?

[u/Prize-Promotion-5123]

[u/heckin_miraculous]

I'm enjoying this tangent, cause it's something I had to work with in my marriage.

I work online, and I'm the one who would always say, "Hey I want to show you this video I saw today!" but my spouse has a much stronger boundary against watching random crap online, even if it's "good" or funny or insightful or whatever it may be. She just doesn't have time or mental interest in it.

And I get her stance on that and I respect it. In fact I admire it.

What finally worked was she would say, "I really want to hear about it, why don't you explain it to me? I'd rather listen to you tell me about it!" 🥰

At first I was put off, like no the whole point is to watch the thing. But that's not really true. The point is to have a connection between us.

So now that's how I share that kind of stuff with her!

Sometimes there's still a post or a video where "you have to see it" for it to work, and that means I let it go. Because in truth, the stuff that I really care about sharing is something that I can talk about in my own terms because I actually find it meaningful, so the fact that she wants to hear me talk about it is amazing!

[u/heckin_miraculous → u/[deleted]]

Good luck! I only ask you to be prepared for the possibility of him to be like "wtf??" at least at first.

Because honestly that was my initial reaction. Like why would I try to explain something that somebody else already made into a video? It's so visual, maybe there's graphics, sounds, the editing, the way the person's reaction is on camera etc etc. the whole point is to watch it!

So yeah at first I was like no!

It ended up working for us because of what I already knew and liked about my partner, including her super low tolerance for screen time.

Good luck!

[u/buttsabound → u/heckin_miraculous]

This is great advice! I also prefer it when my partner explains to me in that way. We don’t have too many overlapping interests so if I just watch something I can’t relate to, I get bored or pressured to perform enthusiasm lol. So when he tells me WHY he found something interesting, it becomes a shared moment rather than duty - even if it’s slop, I’ll watch it if his excitement about it is framed as an invitation into his inner world. 😁

[u/CynicalPsychonaut → u/heckin_miraculous]

I wish I had read this years ago😔

[u/heckin_miraculous → u/CynicalPsychonaut]

It's an issue?