What is the main thing you argue about with your partner?

[feemee]

Ours is definitely housework!

Different attitudes to money, parenting, free time, his grumpiness

Mainly the fact that we're both still alive and living in the same house....

Sex. I want much more than he does, and more spontaneously. But we do seem to be in improving and communicating about it better than ever at the moment, so I’m feeling more positive. The only other arguments are those that are really just silly bickering because we’re tired etc, and are quickly forgotten.

We've only argued once in nearly three years and that was alcohol fuelled miscommunication.
My exH and I used to argue (I say argue, it was more him shouting in my face and me nodding) frequently about anything and everything, and it was always 'my fault'
DP and I both hate arguing and how it feels afterwards. If we disagree on something we'll discuss it and compromise.

@Branleuse I have me one of those too! 😩

Him exercising. Sometimes I'm waiting for him to help me do something, e.g.start dinner, mop the floor, see to a crying baby if I'm busy doing something else and I find him doing a workout, sit ups, jumping etc.

Or it will be his day off and instead of giving me a hand for once with the kids in the mornings, he takes himself off for a swim!
I'm not complaining as he's in great shape, but I wish he wouldn't prioritise it over other more important things and can see that I don't have the time to do things for myself the way he does.

Competative tiredness and general malaise.
He finishes stuff then doesn't replace it. I.e. Paracetemol, toothpaste. , bin bags etc...
Him eating everything I've planned on using to feed family , as a small snack.
Eat all you can buffets, imho a great idea but he gets frowny about them, because he can't trust himself to stop when he is full!

Writing this down I've realised what a binge eater he is! Yet he is annoyingly thin.

Not listening/repeatedly getting hold of the wrong end of the stick
Being glued to his phone
Always being late/making me wait for him
Not using his initiative and expecting me to micromanage him like I'm his mother.
"Not seeing" that household tasks need doing.

Lots of bickering really except when it comes to his mother which is the major point of contention in our marriage.

Ooh I meant to add:
Him coming to bed while I’m nearly asleep and watching videos on his phone without headphones. We’ve fallen out over that many times but I can’t possibly see how I’m in the wrong there! Or putting the telly on and then watching videos on his phone and getting shitty with me when I turn the TV down/off

And I can now add that finally at the end of week five (bear in mind he was off with me in the first week as we were on holiday) I’ve had my “well you’ve been off work for five weeks why didn’t you get our son a birthday card that says son on it?” When I said the choice in Tesco wasn’t great. Because our two year old will really remember the card he got.... bear in mind also my husband goes to fucking Tesco’s EVERY DAY to buy his lunch but of course it’s my fault the card is wrong. Because I’m on my summer holidays for work and should therefore get absolutely everything done that he can’t because he’s working - even though if I was at work the situation would be exactly the fucking same!!!!

(I’ve only sorted his birthday presents, for someone to do the food for his party, hired the room out we’re using, bought and made up party bags, decorations...)

I love my husband and he’s an amazing man but sweet Jesus sometimes I could just scream.

Housework definitely. I don't do enough apparently - he does it mostly. as mine is not up to his standard. I take the kids out rather than tidying the house. House should come first. And kids behaviour because he sees them as second to the house he doesn't ever really give them any attention so they play up when he is home. Apparently they are naughty and spolit!!!

Me being messy and him being a clean freak. I'm naturally clumsy so when I'm cooking I make a mess, I don't know why I just can't help it, and it drives him up the wall. To the point where he stops me cooking and takes over just so I can no longer make a mess. (I don't mind this it gives me more time to chill out, its just the moaning that comes with it)

And money, he is extremely tight, whereas I don't mind spending a bit of money here and there on nice things. And our respective families are the same. His parents saved up their entire lives, being tight as anything (literally not even buying their DC new clothes, new toys, going anywhere remotely fun, never went on holidays etc) to buy a nice £650k house. My parents have a nice house (3 bed detached nice garden but nothing too exciting) but they have a nice car, go on a 2 week holiday every year + city breaks, buy clothes when they want to, buy nice new things for the house when they want to. And this is where we massively clash. I don't want to be skint my entire life just to have a flash, big house when I'm 55. I'd rather have a nice house but actually be able to afford to do whatever I want, whenever I want. There's a lot of compromising (mainly on his half hehe)

About which one of us is most tired, he moans about who works more, that the housework I do isn't good enough (it probs isn't, I hate doing it) the fact he wants to go pub last minute (we have a 1 year old) his tone of voice and the little digs he makes, the fact we can't afford to move. (He's just annoying most times)

My housework is never good enough either - my answer is he should do more of it than fucking moaning about it!!

He constantly asks me questions which I couldn't possibly answer. Sometimes really inane stuff

No, I don't know if you will need a jacket this afternoon when you are in a city 50 miles away.

No, I don't know if you have time to do xyz later.

No, I don't know why your sat nav is telling you to turn this way and as I haven't been here before I don't know if going the opposite way would be any quicker and stop asking me if that's the roundabout exit we need to take as we have literally just gone past it.

Money.

Housework, housework, housework.
One of my friends hired a cleaner as she said it's cheaper than marriage counselling . Thinking of doing the same

The way he hangs a washing out!
Drives me bonkers.

The future. He is a "let's just see what happens" guy, which I tend to hear as "I can't be bothered to do anything about this, so let's see if it turns out OK anyway." I am a planner, researcher, and interventionist, which he hears as catastrophism. Elements of truth on both sides.

It comes up in all kinds of scenarios, but it's always about the same essential character difference.

The Dog.

I love my dog, he's been around longer than my partner has. He's a rescue with some quirks which my partner finds annoying, and I am constantly defending the dog & telling my partner to not be so hard on him.

Housework. He does help out and I have OCD which exacerbates things.

Me doing the mental / emotional load / invisible labour. Sorting birthdays etc. He will physically go get things once I've asked but the planning and chasing is the exhausting part. This is an ongoing discussion.

LadyLapsang Ipswich, why would you argue for five years about a dishwasher? If mine broke down I would be at John Lewis straight away for a new Miele.

Lovely as that sounds we don’t really have the money lying about for me to march out and buy a Miele at the drop of a hat. We have to plan for these types of purchases, and there’s often other things that need to be bought with the money we do manage to save. It’s not been a constant argument for the last 5years, more of an every so often when I’ve done a massive pile of washing up sort of thing. I’m working on getting one in the January sales, so he’s doing all the washing up now (since he thinks we don’t need one), and I reckon by then he’ll have had enough!