...to ask what your criteria for a life partner would be if you had to choose one now?

[NeverMetACakeIDidntLike]

(Tongue in cheek)

I met DH when I was 20. I chose him based on interests in common and his dashing good looks.

I’m now 37 and wish i’d discovered:

• that he didn’t sleep through the night until he was 5 (and he seems to have passed this onto our DD1)

• that he seems to take longer and longer to do a poo as he’s getting older and I seem to spend half my life waiting for him to get off the loo.

So... whilst ‘did you sleep well as a baby?’ and ‘are you likely to consider having a poo as one of your major hobbies later in life?’ are not good chat-up lines, I feel like I should have asked them before I committed...AIBU?

My husband narrates what he’s doing on occasion

Oh, I second the Tom Hardy post!

When you are unwell do you:

A) moan incessantly to your partner and get very grumpy but do nothing about it, at all
B) buy relevant over-the-counter medicine and take it i.e. make an effort to make yourself better
C) see a doctor/physio/relevant professional and do something about it

If I were looking again now it would have to be B) as a minimum, C) for the win.

I now know DH well enough to ask if, after an hour of stroppy grumpiness, he has a headache and would he like to take some Nurofen —which is still in the same fucking cupboard it’s been in for 18 years—.

Oh and I’d choose ability to do DIY over ability to cook any day.

You can buy a nice sandwich or a ready meal. Less cheap/easy to buy DIY help!

I’ll third the Tom Hardy post 😀

mine is so fussy about ironing that he does it all himself even underpants and socks have sharp creases in them and he sings 'Stand by your man' while he's doing it

that he seems to take longer and longer to do a poo as he’s getting older and I seem to spend half my life waiting for him to get off the loo

Are you me?

I spend half my day closing cupboards or putting the kitchen towels back on the rung for the oven. I'm trying so hard to ignore it sometimes. GAH.

I’d actually have chosen someone who had less ambition and who could be more content to do ‘normal’ things in moderation and didn’t have food issues.

Someone who empties the water after he’s finished the washing up rather than leaving it to go cold and gross and then making his wife put her clean, dry hand into the water to pull the plug out.

I should have checked that his defintion of Tidying Up was more their out ask the shire you have accumulated and no longer need, then put everything in it's place. Not move the shite into a slightly different less visable pile , then clear a bit of space in the middle of the room.

Rich . Then it is irrelevant if they can cook, clean, do DIY....just pay someone else to do it!

I would have made sure they passed the DIY challenge, if I could have got one that could do anything at all it would be an improvement.

Ok so mine earns more than enough to pay professionals to do things but really when you only need a clock putting up or a sink unblocking?

I have learnt to do these myself out of desperation. You Tube is my husband in times of need.

If I had to choose one now? You mean I might have to do this again. Is there an opt out clause.

The ability to read my mind, have a 6th sense about when the big bin needs emptying and a lifetime’s supply of chocolate stored away in handy places around the house.....

Seriously, the ability to laugh at themselves, honesty, a good moral compass - oh, helps if he loves me too!

I was going to say earn more money :)

But having thought about it a bit more, I think I'd have appreciated someone who was a bit more adventurous. Not in a crazy way, eg making me do sky diving, but sometimes I feel I am a bit constrained because he doesn't want to do things like learning to dive. It's really in the context of holidays and where we go and what we do.

What I thought was important at twenty: tall, similar line of work to me. What turned out to be important: kindness and similar standards of housekeeping, and an open mind.

Money, or good earning potential. Love and fresh air don’t cut it in midlife

I feel very lucky in that I ended a decade-long relationship in my late 20s, by which time I was old enough to know myself and to have figured out what was really important.

When I met my ex I was looking for someone who liked the same things as me, who was a challenge, who presented a bit of mystery and was unconventional. By the time I got together with DH at 29 I knew that the only things that were really important were:

• Kindness
• Honesty
• Patience
• A willingness to work together
• Shared values
• Generosity (of time and effort, not money)
• Sense of humour

DH ticks all those boxes and as a result, our marriage is 99% harmonious, and he'll be a wonderful dad.

Ooh, also, tidiness. I forgot that. I think home life is infinitely more pleasant if you both have the same standards of cleanliness (regardless of what those standards are). Also while money is obviously nice, more important I think is a shared idea of the value of money - so DH and I are pretty broke but value time together more than money, so aren't particularly career-minded and don't mind not having foreign holidays etc.

I wish I'd asked. 'Does your life run similarly to that of Arnold Rimmer' in his defence, everyone told me how meticulous and anal he was, and I found it endearing. Till we had kids. Now it's boring and dithering and I roll my eyes way too much when he barks at me for making a smudge on the dining table with, pray tell, FOOD.

I'd also take the hint when we've spent 3 hours talking mostly about himself without much guidance from me. Attractiveness, being funny and like minded are great, but my god my DP is a total bore when he talks about himself - work, hobbies, it's all so endlessly self indulgent and the moment you try talking about yourself, something miraculous happens and he needs to suddenly interject with 'need a wee/smoke/give blood/go skydiving'

I’d choose ability to do DIY over ability to cook any day.

I'd pick the opposite (so we can divide potential life partners up between us!)

DIY needs doing only rarely. Cooking needs doing every single day. Sometimes multiple times a day.

But at the moment I'm enjoying being single so someone would have to be pretty damned interesting to make me want to give that up. (and even then, can they be interesting in their own house or in bars and I'll just go see them occasionally?)

The ability to put dirty clothes in the washing basket not the floor! Other than that I'm pretty happy with my lot.

@ButtMuncher Arnold Rimmer 😂 ... yeah, there is a reason that he’s single in Red Dwarf!

Great post peachgreen those values have got us through 26 years and counting... except the tidiness, he is so untidy, I still haven't cracked that one.