Spin off - household compromises

[PollyannaMom]

A post in the presents under the tree thread got me thinking. - What was done one way in your childhood home, and a different way in your spouse's - and how did you work it out in your combined household?

I mentioned one over there. - In my family, Christmas presents were opened one a time, taking turns. In DH's, each of the kids had a pile of presents, and just went at it. - I "won" this one when establishing our own norms, because DH actually likes my way better. He was amazed that Christmas morning could be quiet and relaxing!

I'm imagining another one for lots of people is whether the toilet paper rolls over or under. - I came from an "over" house, DH from an "under". - I got my way on this one as well, mostly because I'm always the one who changes it! (But I don't feel guilty because we ladies use it more often.)

And another Christmas one that went DH's way. - In my house, most of our presents were from Santa, including our "big gift". Something smaller but sentimental or special in some way was from Mom and Dad. In DH's, the big requested item was from Mom and Dad, and just stockings and a couple of small things were from Santa. We went mostly that way DS, because it was important to DH to get some of the credit!

 

[Christine]

My DH never really had any strong opinion about things and, I supposed, was happy with whatever my traditions were/are. So I pretty much got my way on everything!

 

[mjkacmom]

Same as Christine, I won. Growing up, all gifts were from Santa, and not swapped. DH is lazy, he likes that!

 

[ronandannette]

My DH came from a very dysfunctional home - I doubt there's anything about it he ever wanted to carry forward into our family life. {{shudder}}

In general, we don't "compromise". I can't think of any issue we were seriously divided on that was important enough that one of us couldn't just happily give way to the other. Compromise would have just meant that neither of us was fully satisfied. (And for penny-ante issues like the toilet paper roll - who cares!?! I couldn't tell you how they are hanging right now to save my life! )

 

[kimblebee]

Pretty much, everything is my way. That's because my husband came from a dysfunctional family and they didn't have a ton of traditions. As for the over/under struggle I am FIRMLY an over girl. My bathroom is over and my husband and daughters bathroom is under. I don't use it very often so I try not to think about it lol

 

[Gumbo4x4]

We've reached an arrangement where everything is done my wife's way, and I keep my mouth shut.

 

[tarheelmjfan]

We've reached an arrangement where everything is done my wife's way, and I keep my mouth shut.

 

[tvguy]

My wife grew up with a mother and a step mother who were compulsive about house cleaning.

Her mom, when she still lived at home, made her spend most of Sunday morning cleaning the house. Then after DW moved out, my MIL hired a maid to come in every Wednesday, which meant that my MIL cleaned the house every Tuesday night so the maid wouldn't think she was a slob!

Her step mother, cleaned top to bottom EVERY day, including wiping down all interior walls every day. But my wife's step sister had severe dust allergies, and apparently the daily cleanings made a detectable difference.

Me, I grew up with a mom who worked full time. And especially after my dad died when I was 9, my mom had to make priorities. Going to my Little League games, band concerts, church events took priority over cleaning. She tried to do a top to bottom scrubbing every couple of months.

So the first few years we were married we cleaned house weekly. And I mean deep cleaning But when the kids came along, and my wife has always worked full time, I tried to convince her that family time was more important than cleaning. The kids are grown now, and we sweep the laminate flooring twice a week and wipe down the kitchen counters twice a week, but we only deep clean about once every 4 weeks now.

 

[usnuzuloose]

I can't stand a dirty house. And lately I have had to let some things go. My poor DH has to try and do a lot of it. It drives me crazy. I try to get someone to come in once a month to clean. I can't stand dirty bathrooms. I usually gag.....So I try and to the toilet and tub. I try but it is very rough.

 

[RedAngie]

We've reached an arrangement where everything is done my wife's way, and I keep my mouth shut.

Smartest man on the DIS.

Or the best faker.

 

[lizabu]

We never really had issues we were divided on. I do the bulk of the work around the house so I do it my way. There are members of the family that insist on loading the dishwasher wrong or putting the toilet paper under. Once I notice I fix it.

 

[SanderMC]

There are only a couple I can think of. When it comes to general cleaning, I can't think of anything that we had to talk about or really disagree about except maybe the under/over for the toilet paper.

I did ask my husband when we were first married if there were any special traditions he wanted to carry on. The only thing he requested was yams with marshmallows on top at Thanksgiving. That has now become a staple on our table.

He did have a couple of traditions he wanted to incorporate at Christmas when our daughter was born. In his family when he was little there was always one present under the tree for him that was only from his dad (instead of being from both his mom & dad). It is something special he remembers and wanted to carry that on with our daughter. The other item he was pushing for that we were divided on was when I was growing up presents from Santa were not wrapped. They were in his family and he really wanted it this way with our daughter. That is he wanted it that way until we started running out of time two Christmas's in a row where we just did not have time to wrap them. So he finally gave in and said ok you're right no wrapping of the presents. What's funnier was when I had mentioned this to my MIL and she agreed with me. She told me when my husband was little that he and his siblings came to her and asked why Santa has the same wrapping paper she does. It turned out she used a roll wrapping paper one year for presents from Santa and forgot about it and used it the next year to wrap presents from them. She told me "Save yourself some hassle and keep them unwrapped."

We have taken the Christmas Eve dinner that I grew up with and tweaked it into our own. When I was growing up we had Christmas wafers, a shrimp salad, cheese blintzes, and stuffed clams. We still have the Christmas wafers, but we changed the rest of the meal to fruit crepes and crab cakes. So the familiar sentiment is there for me but we have made it ours. We have a turkey dinner on Christmas which is my family's tradition (my husband's family did ham). The other tradition that comes from my family is that my daughter receives a new pair of pjs every Christmas Eve.

 

[scrapquitler]

A post in the presents under the tree thread got me thinking. - What was done one way in your childhood home, and a different way in your spouse's - and how did you work it out in your combined household?

I mentioned one over there. - In my family, Christmas presents were opened one a time, taking turns. In DH's, each of the kids had a pile of presents, and just went at it. - I "won" this one when establishing our own norms, because DH actually likes my way better. He was amazed that Christmas morning could be quiet and relaxing!

I'm imagining another one for lots of people is whether the toilet paper rolls over or under. - I came from an "over" house, DH from an "under". - I got my way on this one as well, mostly because I'm always the one who changes it! (But I don't feel guilty because we ladies use it more often.)

And another Christmas one that went DH's way. - In my house, most of our presents were from Santa, including our "big gift". Something smaller but sentimental or special in some way was from Mom and Dad. In DH's, the big requested item was from Mom and Dad, and just stockings and a couple of small things were from Santa. We went mostly that way DS, because it was important to DH to get some of the credit!

We have mostly just gone with whatever made more sense to both of us. When we don't agree, we usually just go with the way that one of us is most passionate about, or with the way the one of us who performs the task prefers. He definitely wanted a single level house, and I didn't care that much, so we bought a single level house. We both wanted the parking spot closest to the front door (no attached garage), but since I was the one that always had kids in the car, and was always the one with the groceries to unload, I got the closer parking spot because it made more sense.

But really, the bottom line is that most of the time, I get my way because he wants me to be happy. He adheres to the theory of 'happy wife, happy life' When it's not something that I am passionate about, or it doesn't make my life more complicated, I give in to what he wants, because I don't want to be a selfish you know what.

 

[barkley]

as far as Christmas traditions go-the only hard and fast one when I was growing up was the meal on Christmas eve. since all my sibs were much older than me and had to travel to come to my parents for Christmas my mom came up with the idea of doing french dip sandwiches with a few sides for Christmas eve b/c it was something she could have prepared and ready to serve up quickly as each individual sibling arrived over the course of the evening. dh LOVES this, probably in large part b/c he was raised vegetarian so the idea of a dedicated single night to beef, beef and more beef w/not a tofu based product in sight-along with lots of leftovers for days on end would have fulfilled many of his childhood wishes. this is a tradition we keep.

other than that our traditions have largely come out of what dh and I would have liked to have experienced as kids vs. what we actually did. for the most part it deals with having our holidays celebrated on the actual holiday in our own home. this I believe also comes from being the much youngest in my family (dh is in the same situation)-it seemed that once our siblings married off both our mom's took the mindset that the actual day of Christmas should be gifted to the new spouses and their respective families so that meant we celebrated Christmas either on Christmas eve or some other day-which for both dh and I led to pretty anticlimactic Christmas days for years on end.

when we married we did the family get togethers whenever they wanted to have them but we did our own full blown Christmas celebration on the actual day (and as our kids came along we made it known that our kids would spend chrismas in their own homes-family was welcome to come over but we never wanted our kids to wonder, as we had heard our own nieces/nephews say 'why doesn't santa ever come to our house-how come he always leaves our presents at other peoples?'). nope-santa comes to OUR house and you can stay in those new pjs mom and dad gave you last night ALL DAY LONG if you want to

 

[loves to dive]

My honey is pretty easy when it comes to traditions because he could just care less,he's basically bah humbug. There are little things around the house I've kind of given in about. He leaves the toilet seat up and it drives me crazy. I grew up in a house as the youngest of 6 kids and the only girl and never was a toilet seat left up in our house. I mean even the back seat goes down, no one wants to see inside a toilet. He leaves it all up, says he's going to back in there soon anyway so why put it down, he'll just have to pick it up again, like that's hard to do. After years of fighting it I just gave in. Thankfully, we have 5 toilets in our house and he usually uses the same one all the time. For the longest time he was a no pets person, again I grew up with pets in the house, dogs, cats, turtles, fish, birds, snakes, mice, rabbits and even skunks. You name it and we had it. Took me 20 years but we finally got a puppy 2 1/2 years ago, basically he said to just shut me up about it. Little yorkie who now rules the house and has him wrapped around her little paw, he goes nowhere without her. That one kind of came back to bite me because we no longer go on dive trips because he refuses to board her because she is so submissive and used to not being alone (he works from home so the longest she is ever been left alone was when he was travelling. I work outside the home and could take her into the office with me one day but not 2).

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

After this many years, it is hard, sometimes to remember which traditions came from which family.

Just guessing that most came from my family, simply because my family had more to start with.

 

[QueenIsabella]

Christmas morning is done a little bit of both sides. On Dh's side, they could open stockings right away, but presents waited until after everyone was up and had eaten breakfast. On my side, it was a free-for-all. Now, we do stockings as soon as they get up, but wait for everyone to open presents.

I grew up going to church, then breakfast, then off to Grandma's every Christmas (2 hours each way). I refuse to do that to my kids, so we stay home. Dh would visit cousins, but they were close by, and they would visit in the afternoon.

DH was never allowed to have pie for breakfast, it was dessert. He likes my way better--pie is a fruit-laden breakfast treat!