Quite a lot actually, i even play in a band with her.
I mean sure she listens to country sometimes, which i cant stand, and likes temperatures approaching the surface of the sun where i would gladly accept 65-75 forever but the differences make it interesting.
We also have very little common interests, yet we’ve been together over 14-years & married almost 13. I think the reason it works for us comes down to a few main points:
docwyte said:I am curious to see how we do when I retire and have far more time to pursue my hobbies. Since she isn't interested in them that may be interesting.
Yep, that’s the big thing that’s on my mind.
I’m 7.5 years older than Mrs. Reven’ and at my age, there’s a ~3.5 year gender spread in life expectancy so based on actuarial estimates, I’m eleven years closer to pushing up daisies than she is.
Given her personality / world view, there isn’t a chance in berk she’d voluntarily work eleven minutes let alone eleven years after I retire so a storm may be in our future.
I make 2.3 times as much as her so from a collective best interest prospective, it does make sense for me to work more years but how many?
As a statistician, I know that “when in doubt, shoot for the middle” and in this case, that means her hanging it up ~5.5 years after I do.
I can’t visualize walking her through that logic without giggling to myself a little…in reality, I anticipate some external event picking the timing for us.
On January 20, 2020 I’ll be the same age my brother was when he died suddenly so a straight shot from the cube farm to the coffin is a pretty reasonable prediction.
We are pretty similar, even down to curly brown hair.
As far as tastes, she grew up pretty meat and potatoes, I grew up eating ethnically so I have a more diverse taste but I have gotten her hooked on some stuff - buffalo wings, falafel, gyros, etc. We both love IPAs and hate stouts/porters. We both love travel, me maybe a bit more than her, she does not like the long duration stuff. I could go for months.
I am a bit more adventurous - i want to go to eastern Europe, she does not.
We are both active, love the outdoors. I got her into biking, she got me into running. Both of us hate video games, love kitty cats, and are atheists. I love to spend money, she loves to save money. We both like nice cars but hate fancy restaurants.
I got her into Frieburger/Finnegan/Roadkill and I think she loves those dorks even more than I do, which is understandable. Great that Roadkill swag is a great gift for all occasions.
We connect on a lot of the important stuff like kids, lifestyle, and political/religious views. We also like being outside. Not always doing the same things but we like to not be inside all of the time.
As far as hobbies and such, We are pretty different there. We do both hike and stuff but she is not a car girl. We are both supportive of what the other one wants to do and will let one go and do it. I travel a lot more than she does. Mostly work stuff. We've been together for 17 years so we must have figured something out.
Nick Comstock said:Well I guess it's good to hear that we're not alone. I think the conversation she had with this other couple got to her a little bit this weekend.
I think what it boils down to is how much you take an interest in each other's interests. You don't have to have the same interests as your wife, and vice versa. But you should recognize their importance to each other and be willing to share them with each other.
DD#1 broke up with her live-in boyfriend last year. They both had extremely similar interests (though some basic compatability issues that needed work, too). But the real relationship-killer was this:
He didn't see any value in doing things she wanted to do but he was not directly involved in. He was perfectly happy to let her go and do them, but if the thing itself did not interest him, he wouldn't go. He failed to take these as opportunities to become more integrated as a couple.
In reply to Pete Gossett :
Must love Turtles.
wearymicrobe said:My wife and I are so similar that she basically is just me with better tits.
Easily the most brilliantly humorous thing posted in this thread. Thanks for the LOLZ.
In reply to Duke :
funny you mention that... the wife has zero interest in auto-x. She will make it out to one event at most a year. She supports me doing it but has no interest in it at all. I'm a little split on this as I'd love her to be interested and come socialize with my car-friends. But that's not her thing.
Let's see. There's my paycheck.....
Think that's it!
But it's been working for over 30 years now, so there might be something I'm not thinking about.
In reply to RX Reven' :
I know my wife will work far longer than me. She took time off to stay home with the kids, then bought a business 6 months ago. I plan to work maybe another ten years and will have owned my own business for 25 year by then. I'm ready to be done now! I doubt she'll be ready to sell her business in ten years when I will.
More importantly, even if she did sell it and retire with me, she wouldn't want to join me in my activities. So we're better off with me going skiing, biking, track stuff etc while she's still working...
Wife will almost certainly work for longer than I do- but that's because a) she's 8 years my junior and b) absolutely LOVES what she does and will probably want to do it until she dies (I'd say, 'until she physically can't do it any more,' but she would easily dance until she can't walk and is stuck in a wheelchair- and will then keep teaching her adaptive dance classes from the wheelchair...). Unless something happens and we can both retire early and move someplace tropical, though I'm not sure either of us will be totally happy just sitting around doing nothing all the time...
Coming up on year 27.
We agree on most things financial, having dogs instead of kids, doing road trips, most of our music tastes are similar, her utter disinterest in what I'm buying or working on in the garage (she never tells me I can't buy something).
Things that I can't believe we tolerate in each other: wildly opposing religious views, her ability to sit in front of the TV for hours every day, massively different libidos, taste in movies and books, huge division in intellectual pursuits, her head-in-the-sand view of domestic and world events vs my observing them, her smoking vs my utter distaste of it.
I mean, why are we together? Beats the heck outta me. It is a good business arrangement, good friendship but very little passion. It works but I probably wouldn't do it again, frankly.
I'd say don't sweat it. My wife and I share a similar background, similar religious beliefs, similar political opinions and a similar personality. Beyond that, almost nothing. Our interests only intersect in a few places. We try to make the most of those intersections, but they are few and far between. Been together for almost 25 years now.
I guess you could call it coming up on 5 years for us, even though we aren't really together. We have the kid in common at least.
Music, movies, tv, books, sex, we tend to agree on for the most part. Even gaming a bit I guess. Which considering we only got together in the beginning for one particular interest, I guess is pretty good.
I've tried dating opposites, I've tried dating similar, relationships just aren't my strong suit. This is currently my longest relationship, and it almost wasn't. I was trying to find a nice way of ending things when the little one decided she wanted to exist. Usually after 3 to 6 months I'm either bored to death or running for cover. Probably helps we only get a couple date nights of just the two of us a year.
ddavidv said:Coming up on year 27.
We agree on most things financial, having dogs instead of kids, doing road trips, most of our music tastes are similar, her utter disinterest in what I'm buying or working on in the garage (she never tells me I can't buy something).
Things that I can't believe we tolerate in each other: wildly opposing religious views, her ability to sit in front of the TV for hours every day, massively different libidos, taste in movies and books, huge division in intellectual pursuits, her head-in-the-sand view of domestic and world events vs my observing them, her smoking vs my utter distaste of it.
I mean, why are we together? Beats the heck outta me. It is a good business arrangement, good friendship but very little passion. It works but I probably wouldn't do it again, frankly.
I’m a fan of Hannah Fry (Ph.D. Mathematician) and I watched one of her videos on YouTube over the weekend titled “Predicting the Future with Maths”.
At one point, she put up a graph showing how attractive people of one gender rate those of the other on a one-to-ten scale.
First, she showed the men’s scores for women…nearly perfect Gaussian distribution (bell shaped) with the mean centered right on five.
Then she showed women’s scores for men…highly skewed to the right (conspicuous absence of high scores) with the mean centered way down around 3.5. In other words, women think about 80% of men are uglier than average; let that sink in.
RX Reven' said:In other words, women think about 80% of men are uglier than average; let that sink in.
Despite the mathematical issues, they're not wrong.
My wife and I have been together for 20 years. We've been married for 15. Being together for five years before we got married was apparently enough time to get most of the bugs worked out.
We agree on kids and general politics. We're both introverted- her more so.
I've thought about this myself and sometimes wonder what keeps us together other than the cheaper to keep her stage and too old to try to find someone else. SWMBO and I have very little in common. We had a little in common when we got married but even then not a lot. She grew up not well off in South Korea and has worked for everything she ever had. I grew up very middle class. She is very smart but not educated which is typical for the time and place she grew up. I've always thought that if she had the education opportunity that exists in the states she would be well above my class. About the time we met she was just getting into religion and is very deep into it now. Her schedule revolves around it. I'm not really religious but have gone when the kids where growing up as I think it isn't bad for them to be around it. Attend American English services now just to pacify her. But don't have anything to do with her Korean church. She thinks cars are appliances that are just to get from one place to another and disposable. She has nothing to do with my toys and has never ridden in my Opel GT or my Miata and doesn't want to. She doesn't like to travel. Although talking about doing it when I retire. I do like to travel and travel regularly for work. There are other differences not worth mentioning.
But whatever the reasoning is for us to still be together it must be working as we've been married over 37 years.
.
My wife are 17 days apart in age so we grew up in the same era. We are really similar except I’m seeing later in life I really married her mom.
Known her since 1980 - when did this happen?
bobzilla said:In reply to Duke :
funny you mention that... the wife has zero interest in auto-x. She will make it out to one event at most a year. She supports me doing it but has no interest in it at all. I'm a little split on this as I'd love her to be interested and come socialize with my car-friends. But that's not her thing.
It's a trap. Ex-swmbo used to come to car stuff with me. Then she hung out with them without me. At some point along the end of the road, she started berkeleying one of them and now I have few car friends.
She isn't a car person beyond "Oh that's cute or it looks nice" although she loves my 135i and is starting to understand driving something that is quick, nice, and has a great stereo.
She reads WAY more than me. But we tend to enjoy a lot of the same movies/TV shows.
She has started to come around on the much heavier music I listen to like Mastodon (she's seen them live with me twice), Gojira, and some much heavier stuff (we both love a ton of classic rock). But she still likes her pop, rap, and country. Last year she took me to Miranda Lambert, and even though I don't like country, I really enjoyed the show.
So some similar, some different.
I think the probably the biggest thing is we can get into an argument/fight, and the next day we can both say, "Hey, I'm sorry I was being turd. I love you and that will never stop."
RX Reven' said:ddavidv said:Coming up on year 27.
We agree on most things financial, having dogs instead of kids, doing road trips, most of our music tastes are similar, her utter disinterest in what I'm buying or working on in the garage (she never tells me I can't buy something).
Things that I can't believe we tolerate in each other: wildly opposing religious views, her ability to sit in front of the TV for hours every day, massively different libidos, taste in movies and books, huge division in intellectual pursuits, her head-in-the-sand view of domestic and world events vs my observing them, her smoking vs my utter distaste of it.
I mean, why are we together? Beats the heck outta me. It is a good business arrangement, good friendship but very little passion. It works but I probably wouldn't do it again, frankly.
I’m a fan of Hannah Fry (Ph.D. Mathematician) and I watched one of her videos on YouTube over the weekend titled “Predicting the Future with Maths”.
At one point, she put up a graph showing how attractive people of one gender rate those of the other on a one-to-ten scale.
First, she showed the men’s scores for women…nearly perfect Gaussian distribution (bell shaped) with the mean centered right on five.
Then she showed women’s scores for men…highly skewed to the right (conspicuous absence of high scores) with the mean centered way down around 3.5. In other words, women think about 80% of men are uglier than average; let that sink in.
That is...interesting...but no idea why you quoted my post to make this point.
RX Reven' said:docwyte said:I am curious to see how we do when I retire and have far more time to pursue my hobbies. Since she isn't interested in them that may be interesting.
Yep, that’s the big thing that’s on my mind.
I’m 7.5 years older than Mrs. Reven’ and at my age, there’s a ~3.5 year gender spread in life expectancy so based on actuarial estimates, I’m eleven years closer to pushing up daisies than she is.
Given her personality / world view, there isn’t a chance in berk she’d voluntarily work eleven minutes let alone eleven years after I retire so a storm may be in our future.
I make 2.3 times as much as her so from a collective best interest prospective, it does make sense for me to work more years but how many?
As a statistician, I know that “when in doubt, shoot for the middle” and in this case, that means her hanging it up ~5.5 years after I do.
I can’t visualize walking her through that logic without giggling to myself a little…in reality, I anticipate some external event picking the timing for us.
On January 20, 2020 I’ll be the same age my brother was when he died suddenly so a straight shot from the cube farm to the coffin is a pretty reasonable prediction.
All of this "work until you're a certain age, and expect the spouse to work until the same age" stuff seems weird to me. I figured that a statistician like yourself would simply have a target number, and when you guys (together/for better or worse) reached the target number in your retirement savings, then you'd both press the eject button on the 9-5 stuff.
We've been married 45 years. We have a small mortgage and two children in common. At first .we had a lot in common, but she has morphed more than me. Over the years we have learned to pretty much leave each other alone.
You'll need to log in to post.
