foxglove

it's amazing to me how many people rush into having children and getting married (let alone just living together) without basic conversations or logistics being figured out ...

Like, it seems so reasonable to sit down and have a conversation - like you say, hashing out a social contract of living together. It builds consent, avoids resentment, creates fairness, deepens trust and reliability ... it just feels like the bare minimum to make a relationship work, to be honest.

Well, I have a lot to say about this (someone needs to turn my verbose mode off, ugh).

The phrase "to each according to their need, from each according to their ability" seems to be an implicit organizing principle in my relationship, whoever is best situated to do a task most easily is most likely to do it.

However, this creates some unfairness.

Just because of the way my brain is, I have a harder time planning ahead, being reliable to a schedule, and maintaining an regular level of executive functioning. Especially historically I suffered from what I now realize were fairly bad levels of depression and anxiety, which put too much burden on my partner, who is extremely hard-working, reliable, and capable.

Small example: if I need to call a doctors office for something, it might take me weeks to do it and it was exhausting and difficult for me to do (both initiating the task was difficult, but also handling the anxiety of talking on the phone was overwhelming).

So I basically constantly feel like I'm not doing enough, esp. relative to my extremely industrious and capable spouse.

My depression and anxiety are much better now, so I'm more likely to finish a task like calling someone within a week rather than sitting on it for a week or longer, and I have much less anxiety during the call. I even pro-actively pick up social tasks like making a phone call sometimes to lighten my spouse's plate, which is something I rarely ever did before.

A lot of the time we end up competing to do tasks, e.g. I constantly have to fight my partner to be able to drive if we're going somewhere together (she tries to monopolize that labor).

Because I do all the cooking, my partner is also very aggressive about doing the dishes to compensate, which makes me feel bad, because I think it's not fair (doing dishes is dull labor, cooking is often fun - they're not equal). So I try to sneak a few dishes in, and try to wash as many dishes from my cooking before she can get to them, as a way to pull my weight there (even though she would prefer I don't do any of the dishwashing).

With laundry she always initiates washing clothes, because I wouldn't do laundry more than once a week, but she initiates laundry three to four times a week, so it's harder for me to ever initiate doing the laundry (and even if we were on the same page about doing loads once a week, I tend to struggle to initiate tasks like that anyway, so there would probably be inequality there just because I'm more flaky, essentially).

So to compensate, I try to be proactive and sneak down to swap loads and fold the clothes to help out, but it never really balances out the labor, e.g. the cognitive labor she does keeping track and initiating so many of the tasks isn't made up for by my inconsistent and minor contributions.

It's the same story with cleaning - she initiates cleaning more, and I try to make up for the inequality by doing some of the harder cleaning (like scrubbing the shower or bath, sweeping and mopping the dirty kitchen floors, etc.).

So we try to be egalitarian in our household work, but I don't think it works out perfectly.

no worries, gender is complicated and the community rules are meant to be maximally inclusive of trans folks, allowing them to decide whether they wish to include themselves in a women's-only community.

absolutely, there is a whole industry of profiting from sensationalizing crimes (true crime quickly went from blended journalism and fiction to basically reality-TV-ifiying real crimes), and with crimes committed by celebrities that dynamic is heightened

I feel like he has this uncanny non-Duchenne smile, or maybe just a smile that feels a bit inauthentic or forced, not sure ... there is also a shiftiness to him, either way - I'm picking up the vibe you're talking about, there is an uneasiness with him (honestly maybe he does coke or something and is a bit wired, lol)

I usually only buy online if the store has a very detailed / accurate size chart for their clothes (some places have generic size charts where the actual clothes sizes don't necessarily match).

Then I measure my body with a tape measure, and for a new place I make a small order usually with two sizes, usually of something I wouldn't mind having both sizes for.

(As others have said, usually I order from places online that have easy return policies, e.g. pact allows me to bring the clothes to any Ulta store nearby and they have a little kiosk that handles the return for me.)

Usually I have to figure out the size for tops and bottoms relative to the place.

But in general I prefer to buy clothes in person and to try them on before deciding.

no worries, and thanks for your understanding 💕

thanks for your comment, but this is a womens-only space. Hope you understand! 🧡

Yes, it's not the easiest rule to enforce, but to echo Lady Butterfly, we are intentionally fuzzy on the details there. Thanks for your interest though 😊

I know right!?

Thanks for your comment, but unfortunately this community is intended for women-only. Not that we don't appreciate your contribution! Hope you understand 💙

can't tell if you are joking or not, but the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia is not a day that celebrates homophobia, biphobia, or transphobia ...

Thanks for the comment either way, but unfortunately this is a womens-only community, and we have a rule that only women can comment or post. Hope you understand 🧡

not debunked, just made more complicated - the evidence still points to gender identity being biological, fixed (not subject to social or psychological influences), and the result of the early development of the brain, but ... it's not like we have some clear "gender essence" in the way that some people wrongly assume, that is there are no clear "female" and "male" brains, instead all people (cis and trans) seem to have complex sexually dimorphic brain structures that don't fit neatly into that kind of categorization.

maybe read this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31509086/