I think the responses / strategies / etc. are diverse because relationships are as diverse as the human race. What works in one relationship has no guarantee of working in another.

The article is certainly well-meaning but it has a bit of a "one weird trick" feel to it. It's written by a 30 year old man who has done something to improve his marriage which is great. It's anyone's guess what kind of article he's going to write when he's 60. He's on a good track, he's learned that regular communication is almost always a win, my own $0.02 is that if there's any one secret weapon, it's that.

But there are also relationships and people where there's nothing that will work, someone is just a rotten apple, or maybe the trust is irreparably damaged. I've had partners who were such supportive, caring human beings that I felt humbled - a little ashamed of my own selfishness by comparison. But I've also had partners who were clearly in it for themselves, seeing what they could milk out of me, and no amount of communication was going to change that. For the latter there was no strategy that was going to fix it - the only right path was to end it and move on.

I don’t fear much but my wife dying before me is up there, right after my kids. I hope to experience and provide the marriage you’ve experienced.

This year will be my third married and my 10th being in a relationship with my wife. It’s been a tumultuous journey at times because of lack of communication.

In lieu of notes like OP mentioned, my wife and I just check in with each other every morning. And, throughout the day. She’s naturally thoughtful while I’m mostly focused on myself. We had a talk a few months ago and it was revealed that my self-centeredness was a defense mechanism I haven’t needed to deploy for at least a decade.

I could go on and on so I’ll just stop here and co-sign once more; communicate with your spouse. And then do it even more than that.

This is probably the most abjectly negative comment section I've seen on HN. Really reddit-tier comments coming from some well aged accounts.

Author here - so awesome your marriage lasted 37 years. I can't imagine that loss. Thanks for the kind words.

Sorry to hear about your loss.

I have been married for ~10 years. Ups and downs, but mostly happy to have chosen her. And hoping to get to 37, and past that, and live a long life together. I really hope that.

I think the main lesson from the article is that communication is key. There's different ways of going about it, and daily notes is just one of them.

I guess I just don’t care about any of this. I can tell if my wife (or girlfriend) loves me or not based on body language and actions. These sorts of things have no significance to me, words mean very little. I’m all about action— body language, your tone when speaking, a respectful demeanor, being gracious and pleasant, smiling a lot, keeping the peace - are the only things that matter in my opinion.

Yeah, notes are the polish, not the foundation.

I'm really sorry to hear that :(

> But it failed nevertheless. In fact, I was told by her that these notes put her in guilt. Weird.

I think you're missing some perspective here. You make it sound like you were the one really trying, and your partner is the one who was weird for not "getting it".

I would honestly be pretty freaked out if my partner wrote me daily poems for 400 days. It would come off as very needy and obsessive, and if it continued after me bringing it up, I could see it as a reason to break things off.

Of course some people might really like daily poems. But from what you wrote, it sounds a little like you've failed to read the room, and are now blaming others for that.

> have written a poem every day for 400 days straight to her

I'm sure this was a painful lesson to learn, but I hope you took the right thing away from it.

No healthy relationship is going to include 400 daily poems. It makes it seem like the subject of the poems is being put on a pedestal and idealized, not perceived as a real person with flaws.

It comes across as obsessive and, perhaps, insincere -- how can someone have 400 poems' worth of feelings for someone they've known for less than 2 years? And if they don't have those sincere feelings, what are they trying to accomplish?

Read a little bit about "love bombing" (not because I think you love-bombed anyone, but because it might help you understand how the recipient of this behavior might feel about it).

Obviously it's not quite the same thing, but reminds me of an old neighbour we had.

She used to love baking, and would bring round cakes/pastries/bread for us all the time.

It was really nice at first, but also made us feel very awkward/bad that we didn't reciprocate (neither of us really cook much), even though we'd never asked for the cakes.

Eventually we had to ask her to stop, since we just didn't want to eat that much unhealthy food. She took it as a bit of an insult, and ended up being a lot colder to us after that.

It was a shame, but I'm not sure what else we could have done - she was giving us something unasked for (which we felt burdened by, even though she said she never expected anything in return), and got upset when we asked her to stop.

From the article...

> Though, I’ve set that expectation, and she holds me accountable to it, so I do it very often.

This is a shared ritual, which I feel is powerful in any type of relationship. You have rituals at work and with your friends. These rituals are an ingredient in the glue which give relationships meaning.

They need that shared sense of importance to work though. Other parts of the relationship should be healthy. Good communication is a must. Did she tell you that the notes made her feel guilty during this 400 day stretch? If not, then maybe communication was off.

I'm sorry for what you went through. When one person is giving more that the other relationships can be a real struggle. I've been there I gave 110% and it scared someone off. The entire thing felt awful.

Some years later I found my wife and she responds very differently. She would love a note every day. Any attention I give her is welcomed.

I hope things work out for you.

> I was in a relationship for 2 years and have written a poem every day for 400 days straight to her.

While there may be some people like you enjoying maxed up romantic relationships I would run away in no time from a partner just trying to hard. Imagine getting home everyday to be greeted with a "gift of a day", 10 bullet points in refined calligraphy how much he/she loves me, new scent, yet another laborious make up etc.

Most of us will never be able to match that, be it because of no time/energy or a simple "let me rest after work, read a book/go for a walk". Relationship imho is not an attempt to create a Siamese twins in a mental space. Satisfy the needs of your partner, top it with extra stuff, but do not try to kill it drowning him/her in a waterfall of attention, gifts, questions about everything, etc.

In order for a relationship to remain healthy, the communication has to be bi-directional (and both parties need to feel that it is bi-directional). Writing a poem to your partner every day can be fine; if it makes your partner feel like it drowns out or undermines their signals to you, it's insensitive.

If you have an issue with your communication to your partner (either in not producing it consistently or not feeling that it's received consistently), changing it up to something you can generate (and/or your partner can receive in the intended spirit), building a habit that changes up your communication can help. On the other hand, if that habit makes your partner feel inundated, overwhelmed, or drowns out their communication to you, it can make things worse.

> Just wanted to add a bit of more context.

This isn't really context it's more a subjective and singular viewpoint from somebody who's relationship failed and perhaps was always going to fail regardless of the poems.

Not trying to be horrible here...just pointing out that this is not context.

Writing a poem is a bit different than the writing OP doing which is communicating in general about everything and everyone.

I don't want to dunk on the act of writing poems which is perfectly fine, but that's the creation of art. If you look at how he structures his communication, there are active day-to-day issues/problems being addressed that if left unresolved prevent the appreciation of something like a poem.

And as everyone else said, sometimes relationships don't work out and you did your best.

Regardless of outcomes, your faithfulness is still virtuous. Living completely in inner truth is what you want to aim for. Sometimes that means persevering in truth over a period of time. When it doesn't work out, you have trained yourself to be faithful. The most important thing is probaly that whatever you are doing is truth for you, but without dependency on the other. There is no dependency when reciprocation is not necessary in order for you to feel loved by the simple act of doing what is true for you. I've met a person with an imaginary relationship and it keeps him focused on his creative output. It's very important to be able to maximise creative output (perhaps through your muse?) and to not overrationalise. That is because we live in the age of DALLE and artificial imagination, and you need all the entropy you can get!

Sure but if your problem is that you don’t think about your spouse enough, this might help. There’s a lot of reasons relationships fail, this seems to try to address one or more ways it can fail.

I feel the poems are more like gesture, as you say, than communication.

And yes, 400 could easily slip into the category of demonstration, that may be bothersome for the receiving end.

Pure kind words in natural form may be better.

Now you can go and turn them into a poetry book with artwork from Dall E. Sort of recycling effort.

this is probably related to the effect of different ways we perceive love. see the five love languages. we need to talk to our partners about that and try things to find out what makes them feel our love. and also tell them how we receive them.

Since we're being party poopers, it's worth noting that if your relationship fails it is, by definition, because you are unattractive to your partner. If that's the case, then yes attention from an unattractive person is a major turn-off. That's hardly a great revelation, but even so that kind of common sense appears to be sorely lacking amongst many persons.

Author here - We do that too! Typically we'll write a letter for the other person for their birthday. It's a much more reflective letter (whereas the daily note is more "what's going on right now"). Great tip.

To be honest, I think of something like this as far more intimate and thoughtful than writing a letter once a day. Sure, they're apples and oranges. But taking the time to write a letter each year forces you to think about the year in an anniversarial lens; the meaningful moments, the memories, the struggles, the victories, the journeys.

I do this as well with my wife of 10 years, although it's not something we agreed upon -- it just ends up happening in lieu of or in addition to a birthday/anniversary/valentine/whatever gift. Agreed on all points.

I still have all the letters that me and my partner wrote each other when we started dating. They're always nice to read again.

I love this idea, thanks for sharing it.

some of that is what i write for myself in my journal. some times i share parts of my journal, or i share something with my partner that then gets added into the journal...

Marriage takes work, lots of work. The reward in my experience is totally worth it. You have to lay down part of your life for the new life that you experience with your spouse and children. The individual you once were is now part of a family and no longer exists as an individual. You serve your family and they serve you back. For me the amount I give of myself is much less than I receive back from the marriage / family. I would argue the amount everyone involved receives is more than the sum total they put in.

If writing a note each day is too much work for you, then the daily sacrifices of being in a loving marriage may be too much for you. If that is the case you might want to think about what you're giving up and why. If you are happy with the exchange then great but I think many don't know how great it can be.

Modern generations have been influenced by the Romantics, who, amongst other things, put forward the idea that self-sacrificing marriage is actually less noble than purely passionate love. This evolved into the notion that a marriage requires consistent passion, and that if you don't have it, something is wrong.

But it turns out that marriage is really just a partnership and relationship, and all different kinds of people have different styles and interpretations of what that is and how it works for them. Some people need a lot of passion, some people need a lot of stability, some may need both, or neither.

But there is definitely something to the notion that good relationships don't come easy. People are all flawed in different ways, and sometimes people need help to work through those flaws in order to have successful relationships. Plus, a marriage may involve some long term expensive investments, like a mortgage, pets, children. So "saving your marriage" might actually be quite a rational and emotionally intelligent act, if all partners are amenable to it. Best-case scenario: you end up with a long-term loving partnership and a wonderful life; worst-case, you don't. Seems like it's worth saving?

i think you're missing the point. it's not that you have to write a note to your spouse to save your marriage. the act of writing forces you to think and evaluate, and those acts of reflection, and 'public' appreciation, help keep the small problems from becoming the big problems.

like in karate kid, "wax on, wax off" is not about the wax.

but, you're right, marriage isn't for everyone. but i also don't think TFA is trying to convince everyone to get married.

I would frame it differently. There seem to be many dysfunctional marriages that are carried by e.g. inertia - and because of this, I do agree that perhaps marriage shouldn't be taken as such an assumption. By the same token, though, those that _do_ choose to engage in marriage should accept the responsibility and the (apparently, I am not married) large amount of effort it takes to make it successful. I'm choosing to look at this tactic as embracing that effort, and striving for an excellent marriage, instead of the "passable" marriage which seems to be the norm today.

Some relationships work by being easy. Some work by being well suited to partner on a big and delicate project, like raising a family.

The person you’d most love to raise a family with (or run a fishing boat with, or whatever), isn’t necessarily the “easy” partner whose super cozy and gets you all the time and never needs you to make a special effort beyond what comes naturally.

But at some point, if it’s what you want to do, you pick a partner for what’s important to you and make good on that choice. Depending on who you are and who you picked, that latter bit of “making good” might benefit from a few contrived gestures and rituals that wouldn’t have been necessary in some other “easy” relationship. But that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong relationship or an unhealthy relationship, it’s just your relationship; and if those things make it better, why wouldn’t you do them?

Completely agree. I’m convinced that the get married have kids, raise them well, they become good workers, if you time it right we are all corporate drones as a happy family - dream is pretty horrible.

I want to work to not have to work anymore. I can’t think about a partner because I’m too dead from work to give someone else the commitment they might deserve. Don’t want kids that sounds like work. Nothing is wrong with me just want to be able to relax without commitment.

This is very much a fair-weather first-third-of-life perspective.

I see quite a lot of elderly people with health problems. The ones that are completely alone… it’s a pretty wretched existence, frankly. That’s the reality. Not to say all marriages are great obviously, but often even an ex-husband is better than no husband at all.

>marriage is not for everyone

For quite a long time this was a very obvious and common sense statement. That is literally the traditional view of the Catholic Church on marriage, for example.

Things changed only very recently.

Marriage isn't perfect, especially not with today's divorce law and family court system, but the idea of joining into a union with a new person and creating a new family unit, even if without kids, is probably the best system for most people. Single people have a way of going feral IMO.

I agree 100%. Marriage works for some, but we shouldn’t assume it works for all. People should be encouraged to seek the model that works for them best. That said, if you have a relationship that works, it’s definitely worth putting time into it in some way.

This is simply a tip that has worked for this person, and could work for others.

It doesn't have to work for everyone to be useful.

Also, I feel like far too many people have "holywood" views on what marriage is.

Did you consider that your comment sounds a little mean towards the author?

That's was one thing that seemed odd to me. Take 15-45 minutes to write a note. Or, y'know, be present for 15-45 minutes right there in person.

However I suspect this is less about time management and more about communication styles: this person is a writer. They communicate better when writing.

It’s an old, oft repeated saying, but nobody ever laments not working enough when they’re on their death bed, but frequently people do regret not spending enough time with loved ones.

Author here - that's exactly my thinking. Just sharing my perspective even if it helps one person be a better spouse/parent.

Relationships exist for a lot of reasons simultaneously, and long ones will become more and less about different reasons at different times.

For people raising kids together, the relationship can often become dominated by the practical partnership of family-rearing because it’s so consuming. You do that parenting thing all the time and you love your partner for what they add to it and that feels like plenty. That project becomes so fundamental and sufficient that a lot of other parts of the relationship can quietly fade even while the relationship as a whole is very strong.

Consciously investing in sharing (or romance, or sex, or travel, or career encouragement, or business partnership, or whatever) can help revive and sustain the multidimensionality of the relationship, and keep it strong and richly satisfying as various other parts wax and wane.

Of course, you can also just have a great relationship that rides a “no (conscious) effort” vibe and it can be a long and exciting and rich relationship too. It’s not like there are rules.

There’s just no reason to question the OP’s relationship just on the grounds of them choosing to put in some extra effort.

OP didn't say they don't want to talk to their spouse and I definitely didn't read anything here that suggested broken trust, emotional discomfort, etc. Maybe you are reading your own experiences into this? They were clearly saying that their life was happy, but extremely busy, so writing is a way to connect when they aren't able to do so in person as often as they would like.

i think part of the problem is, that when everyone is busy it is easy for habits to take over and communication to reduce, especially when things are otherwise going well. but then when things get worse the lack of communication makes it more difficult to notice.

in that case, doing something to break out of that and increase communication again sounds like the right step.

They have kids, pretty ok for fatigue to come in.

I think this is great, Jordan found something new and novel to reconnect and it worked. Who cares what it is if it worked. Shows affections.

People are different, what makes she happy would be weird for your spouse maybe.

I like it.

I only have two kids, not four like the author, but I can say it’s impossible to have a real conversation sometimes.

You obviously didn't read the whole blog post.

Yes. I'm in what I feel to be a shitty marriage and it's a lot more communicative and healthy than what is described.

Author here - Sounds like you're in a similar situation (just 10 years ahead of me). I think this would work great for you, but you clearly have been doing something right to keep the marriage afloat for that long!

The author is the founder, owner, and operator of a company, and from a quick view, is quite successful at his work. Plus, he is in a relationship where his partner is supportive of his dreams and long hours. And he has kids at the same time.

That sounds like a great life to me. Not a lot of people get the opportunity, and not very many people can pull it off. I'm sure life will be more relaxed when the kids leave the home after become adults, too.

I have two kids under 6 and while it was very hard for about a year or so I realized that I am a lot happier than I was before I had kids, even though I do an order of magnitude more chores. Then I realized that this is the reason I am happier --- I work; and I don't mean I work for an employer, I work for my family, my children, my house. This is what makes me happy.

There is an ancient Greek saying: Not working is the root of all evil.

Ha. I can understand your pov for sure.

We (family with two kids under the age of 4) just moved to Texas, been in there ER once, urgent care twice, had stomach flu, ear infection, viral rash, a flat tire, water damage in the house we bought resulting in lots of money flying out the window and a scramble to find temp housing.

All in the past two weeks.

It’s pure hell to the point you laugh instead of cry.

For example, yesterday our kids got into daycare which meant the only thing my wife and I had to do was work. We could finally get a few hours of focus. Not thirty minutes into work the house cleaners I had forgotten about showed up to start cleaning.

Sometimes life seems nonstop.

But when my three year old gives me a kiss on the cheek or my one year old just wanted me to hold him, my world stops for just a moment and I realize how lucky we’ve been to even get to this point.

I guess I’m happy in hell.

It does sound hectic, but it's not hell, because he loves what he does, and clearly loves his wife and kids. That sacrifice (on the part of him and his wife) is for those they love.

I do think it's kinda weird to write his wife a daily note -- presumably it takes him 15-30 minutes to write the note. Why not spend that time talking face-to-face with her instead? For me and my wife (I'm in a similar stage of life) we cherish that ~30 minutes before bed to have a cup of tea, regroup, chat about the kind of things he writes in his note, and so on.

Though he did say that writing the notes has helped their relationship, and they now "talk more than ever (weird, right?)". So if it's working for him, keep it up!

Getting what you want is often unpleasant. Accomplishing nothing is quite often very pleasant. The trick is to find a happy medium between those two.

Now imagine doing that with two minimum wage jobs. That is true hell.

Women almost never willingly birth 4 kids in the span of 6 years without very strong outside influence. My guess here would be religion based on age (first kid at ~24).

Either that or there's multiple multiple births.

If their religion demands they have so many kids so quickly it's unlikely he helps out with the childrearing activities and leaves it to his wife, I'm which case his life is probably not very different than a childless man.

Children require a lot of time. I only have a single one, and I am already struggling with no time to do anything. I admit I am not the best at time management.

With 4 children ... I can't even conceive how that would be. I would probably love them to death but would consider escaping into the wildness every night.

I think it's the American Reality, if you're extremely fortunate. The American Dream was to be able to comfortably support a family on one income with a high school diploma.

Life with 4 kids under 6 is exhausting as hell but feels like heaven.

They have 4 kids under 6. Sounds like reality of families with manu small kids.

People who keep on having children are often the kind of people who like children. Under those circumstances I assure you that is not a hellish life.

I've stopped reading at ".... 4 kids" :D

Author here - She regularly talks about her perspective to me and I listen, so a reciprocal note isn't usually necessary or expected.

disagree, when it comes to a relationship some things turn into rituals that are helpful. what the author is doing is more reflection than just paying attention to their partner. daily reflection is very healthy, whether you do it for yourself or you share it doesn't matter. but it doesn't lose its impact.

Author here - I added an addendum to the end of the article. I write notes in a notes app (I use notion, but you can use whatever). Then I usually text it to her (though email would work fine). I keep it very simple, and I type a lot faster than I write by hand.

My wife will point out in the evenings if I didn't text her much during the day, or even send me a message some point during the day asking if I'm alright. These days are few and far between, usually just meeting heavy days or when I really get sucked into a time-sensitive problem.

Yeah, people act like this is uniquely weird, but it's quite similar to the sms / IM that many of us do every day. It's just all in one message as opposed to broken up, and it's more intentional.

they are explicitly stating that writing those notes allows them to talk more because they can move the transactional stuff out of the way and use their face to face time for more enjoyable topics.

The underlying value here seems to be that good communication is absolutely essential. The kind of person who goes into SEO blogging professionally is likely a very comfortable writer. It may be that one person is better able to express themselves in a written form, and one person is better able to express themselves orally. It sounds like this isn't really about the ceremony of the note - they're handling household logistics – so much as putting the effort into communicating, so I could see that being best done by one person as writing, and by the other spoken.

find some female friends first. and i specifically don't mean try to just date women. friendship without expecting to get married is a better startingpoint.

start here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31713720 and maybe here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29100862

online dating can work, but only if both partners are open to a serious conversation of your respective expectations from a relationship. or of you both accept that building a relationship takes time to get to know each other.

Having recently found a partner, I never want to go through the search / date / getting known each other process ever again. If you did not get to known someone from young age, the dating culture gets increasingly worse

Look at you, now you're the one commenting stupid.

a bit to much snark for HN i am afraid, but communication with your partner is really what it comes down to.

A lot of the comments on here seem to feel this is a controversial topic, so maybe it's not that simple or it's an idea some people would find useful.

Imagine how expressing daily gratitude might change who you are.

If you say things enough, you come to believe in them and act to make them true. Even if you wrote such notes every day, and never gave them to your partner, the act of writing them changes you. Perhaps, even, into a better partner.

Imagine how it feels to _receive_ daily gratitude for your part in the hamster wheel