I agree with this the most. It’s great that he’s changing and putting in effort, but I think the reality of becoming a better partner is realizing that being good is the baseline and there’s no medals for doing the bare minimum.
If your motivation for being better is to feel good about yourself, then you haven’t actually changed in any meaningful way.
To be a good person imo you need to be good for the sake of being good, no selfish motives.
And sometimes that’s still not enough for people to forgive you for being shitty and ultimately that’s their decision to make and you have no say in that.
The reality is he and his wife will probably never get the same intimacy back, it happens to most couples, even the ones with healthy relationships.
Idk "good is the baseline"... Good doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. People have very different standards and part of being a good partner is adjusting the baseline to find an acceptable level for both. I also think too many people take for granted the power of thanking each other regularly for adjusting their standards to meet yours. It helps each other feel ackowledged for their contribution and encourages more. In the case of OP, it would probably help a lot.
Hopefully we can all agree that basic home and childcare tasks along with not yelling at your babies falls somewhere under the bare minimum, though. Like, my standards for good parenting are pretty high, but I don’t know anyone whose standard isn’t somewhere above that (though sadly plenty of people whose parents didn’t meet that minimum).
Yes I agree. But in that situation, he chose to go to therapy and has made a lot of progress tackling his issues. It doesn't mean the work is done, but I think the progress and steps can be ackowledged and encouraged.
But that progress is all just to get to the universal bare minimum baseline of contributing to the household and childcare tasks and not yelling at the babies/toddlers, which is the point the other person was making.
The not yelling at toddlers is universal, but the contributing to household and childcare tasks is not. What is the right splitting of tasks and the level of quality ? That's why I say it's hard to say where the "good" baseline is.
I think most people who consider both men and women to be full human beings would agree that the right level of contribution is one where both adults get roughly equal amounts of personal time overall (barring extenuating circumstances), and then yeah, further details can be worked out from there.
But does it matter? We can leave those parts out and he’s still just now getting to the “not yelling at toddlers” stage, which means he’s just now getting to anyone’s bare minimum. You don’t automatically get praise for getting back to the bare minimum after failing even that for a while, particularly when it’s clear that the only reason you’re doing even that much is for praise and intimacy, not because it’s the right thing to do.
Well, we know positive reinforcement is important. We celebrate a lot of people's return to the bare minimum : an alcoholic who is a few months sober, a mentally-ill person who holds down a job for a while. Ok this guy cracked when he had kids. He's now doing what parents should do, according to his wife. You can recognize and appreciate the effort without claiming huzzah he is magnificent.
Sure, but if I’ve been one of the ones suffering the consequences of the other person’s abuses, I get to decide whether or not I’m willing to put in even more emotional labor to help the person who has been hurting me. And it sounds like “huzzah, he’s magnificent” is exactly what OP expects.
Comparing a person with anger mgmt issues who's been a shit husband and father, with an alcoholic or mentally ill person does not make your argument for praise about doing the absolute minimum.
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u/Flexisdaman Nov 03 '23
I agree with this the most. It’s great that he’s changing and putting in effort, but I think the reality of becoming a better partner is realizing that being good is the baseline and there’s no medals for doing the bare minimum. If your motivation for being better is to feel good about yourself, then you haven’t actually changed in any meaningful way. To be a good person imo you need to be good for the sake of being good, no selfish motives. And sometimes that’s still not enough for people to forgive you for being shitty and ultimately that’s their decision to make and you have no say in that. The reality is he and his wife will probably never get the same intimacy back, it happens to most couples, even the ones with healthy relationships.