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'Til Tech Do Us Part
WSJdpatton writes "Marriage often requires coping with the loss of some individuality, whether it's adopting a spouse's last name or setting up a joint bank account. Now, some couples say it can be equally tricky to navigate intimacy in the digital sides of their lives. They are running into thorny questions regarding how much to share and how much to keep separate in areas ranging from email addresses to online calendars.
For some young newlyweds, this means a debate over whether to combine their blogs. Longtime spouses, meanwhile, say perennial arguments about who has more closet space are now joined by bickering over which TV shows get deleted to make room on the TiVo."
The obvious question is, so what?
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Just like in everything else, it's about creating a solution to keep both people happy. Concerned about merging your blog? How about the two of you just start a new blog together and keep your old ones personal.
Is this really that hard people? This sounds like an author in search of a problem to write about.
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...by bickering over which TV shows get deleted to make room on the TiVo.
Do what I did and buy two. If you're going to argue, at least pick something worth arguing over. Television isn't worth the expended energy.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Keep it simple, keep it separate. All I can say is that in marriage you need alone time to do your own things. If couples do everything together, they will burnout on each other pretty fast. Trust me, it happens. You maybe in love today, but tomorrow maybe a different story, so it's much easier and cleaner to leave when couple have separate accounts.
Moving together or getting married does not (or should not, at least) entail giving up your individuality. If you have a problem sharing some resource, keep it separate. Just because you're a couple doesn't mean that you should be doing everything together, sharing every resource, or emulating Siamese twins in any other way.
I would say that it it's beneficial for the relationship to explicitly make sure both people have a space (physical, mental and time) of their own that the other does not intrude on without a go-ahead. If you have the space, a room of your own - even if it's the size of a closet - is a great idea. That's where you store all the stuff that's yours (like clothing - no more arguing about closet space), and that's where you can do work, keep your hobbies and so on. And since it's yours, there's no argument about cleaning up or anything. Same thing with having non-common friends, times when you go out for some activity on your own and so on.
Make sure you both have room to remain yourselves and the relationship will be stronger and more stable for it.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Let me start by saying that I've been happily married for 7 years now, so I know what I'm talking about :)
We used to keep separate bank accounts, but consolidating everything helped keep us more organized. That's been the theme throughout our whole marriage. I do think that we play nicer than most couples. There are many things we share. For example I run 4 workstations, and my wife and I use them all. If one of us is on one, the other will go to another one. If we need to use something on box, IE a computer that has a VPN client installed, then we'll switch. We keep common email addresses, and share all the account info... mostly because we know each other's passwords. It's easer that way, and if you can't trust, or play nice with your spouse then you have more important issues.
We do keep separate blogs, but that's mostly because my wife runs one for her company, and I run a more personal one.
Who posts this bollocks to Slashdot?
Just the same as what radio station will we listen to, what will we both watch on TV, we like different foods, etc. etc. Is this some journalism student trying to come up with an 'angle' on a 'story'?
I've been married for 10 years and I agree with you 100%. Men who don't take any crap from their wives normally end up divorced.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Dude, spend an extra $15 a month and get a second NetFlix account.
If she ends up dying of cancer at least you'll be able to say that you got to watch the movies YOU wanted. What the fuck, people? Get some perspective! Are you that hung up on the trivialities of your life that you can't work around them? Grow up and start acting like an adult.
Contrary to popular belief it's not a competition, it is cooperation. I'm not pussy whipped and she's not some 1950s version of a submissive housewife. You don't dominate, you work together, and it works out fine.
been married 10 years
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I found the perfect solution to this. The females of the household want the seat down as default so they won't fall in when they don't bother to look first.
My solution was to close both the seat and the lid. This gives neither side the advantage of default position.
As someone who isn't married (and never will be), is spouses who share an IM account. Sometimes I can get a message and not know who sent it, and not know what kind of mode to respond in (I talk differently to a close friend and a close friends wife. For instance, goatse never makes the topic list with the wife)
Please don't share IM and email, etc unless it's CLEAR that the account is shared (so a "the_whatever_family@hotmail.com" would be okay)
I don't take any crap from my wife and I'm also not divorced. However, I am also smart enough to concede small things that just aren't worth arguing about.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
Sometimes, I see how the industry is dying. All of the "smart techies" never reproduce. Because they were to dumb to figure out a simple issue.
I've had 15 years of marriage (and have two kids). Judging by the character of the posts, I'm pretty much a senior citizen by slashdot standards, because apparently I'm about 13-15 years older than the majority of posters here. I can tell you now, the writer of the original aritcle has their head up their ass. For that matter, anyone who thinks in the terms listed in the article really DO have their head up their ass, and shouldn't even bother getting married.
There are lots of solutions to the issues in the article, but none of them work as well as "here, just borrow my account to browse instead of me logging out" or "honey, whatcha reading in your email?" or any other form of give-and-take, which needs a foundation in TRUST. It's not "boyfriend-girlfriend on the playground at recess". It's a marriage. There is a simple solution: FOR SHIT'S SAKE, GROW THE FUCK UP.
Marriage is like a bridge, and each spouse holds one side of the bridge up. It takes both sides to keep it up and going. Sometimes, one of the two has to put the bridge down (for rest, health reasons, "me-time", family emergencies, whatever...doesn't matter, it happens), for just a breather - and the other one has to carry the load. If the marriage is working, that person comes back and picks up their end of the bridge. But the bridge won't stand up forever if only one is left holding everything up, or if both spouses can't agree to share the load and the bridge never goes up to begin with.
Guess what? Marriage takes an EFFORT. You will do HARD INTERPERSONAL WORK. Work that requires you hold up your end of the situation. It's you and your spouse choosing to share life - all of life - and all of each other, the good parts, and all the bad parts. If she can't deal with those things in you that are a part of you, or you can't deal with those things in her that drive you crazy, then it's just not gonna work. Ever. You need to find - gasp! - compromise. And it seems that the younger groups of today seem to have less and less of this critical quality that's needed for marriage.
This isn't me trying to troll. It's me trying to slap some sense into someone's thick skull. Seriously. No fool'in. If you have a friend that's about to get married, and they think they way they do in the article, you need to print this out, roll it up, walk up to them, and slap them upside the head - repeatedly. They need to really think about something as serious as this before just waltzing off to the land of eternal Tivo replays and iPod picks. Because it has nothing to do with tech. It has everything to do with "these people need to seriously grow the hell up".
"been married 10 years"
Been together/married for 19 years.
Cooperation is good, along with having ones own space. "Space" = gear, too.
Wife and self have seperate workshops, seperate computers and peripherals, seperate vehicles and seperate tech in general.
Anything that is best set up for one person should belong to that person.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Why would you want to consolidate your blogs and e-mail accounts? That just makes it easier for people to get confused who's sending what to who, and what e-mail is coming for who, who posted what, etc.
... whatever else she does beyond that (Not that I don't care, but unless she says "OMG COME LOOK AT THIS!" or something to the effect, we rarely involve each other in our online activities unless it's to play a game together.). Maybe it's different because this stuff has been around since we've been old enough to understand it, and longer.
... and she was right.) but it's all opinion based.
It's not like you have to pay extra to keep your GMail (Example.) and Blogspot (Also an example.) accounts set up how they have been. Sure, maybe you might want to make a combined blog IN ADDITION to your personal one, with both set up as contributors, or maybe make an extra "everyone in the family" e-mail account for mass e-mails inside the extended family..
But beyond that, I can't see any good reason why you'd want to consolidate.
My fiancee and I each do our own thing online. I have *chan, Ultima Online, and SomethingAwful amongst other things, she has her pet sites and
I don't know, I just find the whole thing silly. But then again, we're keeping all our finances separate for the most part, each contributing our half to the bills/groceries/etc., and splitting stuff like movies/games/other fun purchases by "Who will use this more?" (So I got stuck paying for the 360 and PS3 myself. Drat.) and it's working out just fine for us.
The only time one of us has a say in the finances of the other is if one of us can see it being a stupid purchase (Like my PS3 that she said "Don't get it, you'll never use it."
Okay, I didn't sleep last night so I'm rambling. Time to get some coffee and hit the hay.
Exactly why I support my local pre-paid hookers.
You may joke about me paying an outragous amount for service, but at least I'm not stuck with a long term contract that's guarenteed to suffer a reduction of service quality over the life of the contract.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Let's take a few examples:
Really? They're talking about the same computer here. Now, my wife and I both make very heavy use of our computers, so she has her own Mac Powerbook, and I have my own computers. We share common files and have ample storage with a simple Linux server in the basement loaded with hard drives.
We've set up a mail server with lots of virtual aliases. For a while we had a combined alias, but it started getting spam so we dropped it. We haven't really missed it since. For online accounts (utilities, credit cards, etc.) that we both want to receive the notifications for, it's a trivial matter to have the mail sent to both real email addresses.
Even if you don't have a mail server, don't gmail or Yahoo or something allow you to automatically forward an address to multiple accounts? I'm sure there's some convenient online resource that does that.
Wow, that's just...mean. We signed up with Netflix after they had the separate queue feature (this was over 2 years ago). For 3 DVDs at a time, we each get one at a time, and we have a shared queue for movies and shows we know we want to watch together.
Even if they didn't have this feature, it wouldn't have been too hard to share equitably. But getting up at 5am to put your movies on the top of the queue is not playing fair.
Every couple has to work out their own relationship and budget. Still, tech issues aren't worth causing fights over; they can usually be resolved with a little time to find a fix or at worst, a little money.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Giggle.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I've been married for 10 years and I agree with you 100%. Men who don't take any crap from their wives normally end up divorced.
I've been married for 7, and I 100% agree with you. The important part of that statement that is missing is that Women who don't take any crap from their husbands normally end up divorced as well.
I have a hard time understanding the motivations behind so many marriages. I'm happy. Do I do absolutely everything I want exactly how and when I want to? No. And either does she. Its about compromise for the things you don't agree on so that you can have all the rest of the time for the things that you do. That's the part that makes marriage worthwhile. And if that's the smallest part of your marriage: you fucked up. GET OUT NOW.
As for me: not my problem. I'm perfectly happy.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
Honest Answer:
The only times I've taken out the trash was when she was really ill, or not home because she's 'on vacation' and I've bought her a plane ticket to go see her friends for a long weekend up in MN. She does most of the house cleaning. Why? Because I have a high tolerance for clutter, she has a low tolerance. I have my own computer, my own office, and we can both be in the house and completely ignore each other for our own interests, and then get together and either do something out of the house together or watch TV/Movie/Other when we want to spend time with each other.
She's let me play a video game for 14 hours straight, bringing me breakfast, lunch and dinner while I did so. During the heart of my WoW playing I would do that every saturday and sunday and she never complained about it. She felt I needed my down time. When I quit playing I asked her about it and she said some days it was a bit much but most of the time it was OK because she had other things she could do.
If I want something, i buy it. She knows I'm not going to starve the family for the next big gadget, computer, tv, whatever. Weirdly, she doesn't like to go shopping, she doesn't like to spend a lot of money, the nice clothes she's own I've actually found online and ordered them for her and surprised her for a birthday, an anniversary, or just because I was tired of seeing her wearing cheap ass t-shirt & shorts in the summer and thought she should dress up every once in a while to maintain her sanity and remember what it is like to be an adult.
She also has the important job, she's just underpaid. She stays at home with our 5 and 3 year old kids. I work. She may go back to work after our youngest starts school but at this point we don't really know what the plan is, as she never got herself started in a career she enjoyed.
I'm sure she has a list of things she likes to do, but she doesn't surf forums, she doesn't do much on the internet. She uses her laptop I got her three years ago for email, and to read the fark headlines and laugh. Yet somehow we met on the internet in '96. When we finally met in person I asked her how she found me and she showed me. (Long story, but gist of it was, late night, studying for MCSE in late '95, coworker bets me $100 I wont' post an online ad on a dating place as I'd been single for three years at that point, so I did)
She went to webcrawler, searched for 'personal ads' picked the first one she found, searched based on how far away they were, picked two people, me and some guy that lived near where her mothers family was, I answered. That was it. Her email consisted of double clicking on an icon in Win 3.1, it was a terminal client that logged into a dec unix box, when the $ she knew to type in 'mail' and new she could read, but if she hit anything other than r she never knew how to get it back.
I'm not a big fan of religion, or fate, or whatever, but to this day I have no clue how all that lined up in such a way that I've managed to find someone like her through a bunch of random little events.
There is no 'you do this and i'll let you do something you want' give and take in our relationship, we each do what we like, and we like each other. I've had more people I know over the years exclaim in disbelief when I've called her at 3 AM while in a club in some foreign city to say hi, or how I'm in Vegas at 5AM drinking texting away as she is waking up on the east coast letting her know i'm in some burlesque bar and think I just saw a porn star she might know the name of. Stuff like that.
It can happen, but near as I can tell, it's rare as shit for something like that. I don't know a lot of other guys my age that have a free flowing open relationship where there aren't things like 'if you take out the trash I'll sleep with you tonight' type of trades or other odd things. To me, it's a foreign idea.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.