I (34M) do everything wrong according to my partner (30F)
Hi,
Posting this on a throwaway account since I want to stay somewhat anonymous. I think I just need to vent and get your opinions on what to do to feel better in my relationship with my partner.
I am a pretty successful person on paper, I work and teach in academia and recently got promoted to associate professor, which I have been working hard for through many years. I had a daughter when I was quite young (not with my current partner), she's now in her teens and lives with my partner and I full time. I have a nice, spaceous flat, a good car, a decent pay, and life should be good.
Yet it feels like that in everything I ever do there's something wrong, according to my partner. Whatever I try to do to maintain the house, do chores, etc. I do it the wrong way. She has told me "multiple times before" that stuff is supposed to be done a different way, yet I never learn it seems. I have started to doubt whether I am putting enough effort into remembering how things are supposed to be, but there's ALWAYS something minor I forget to do the right way (such as which slot is for forks and which is for knives in the dishwasher). I find myself very often feeling uncomfortable when she has been away and is returning home, because I KNOW I've done something wrong even if I tried my best, but I don't know what that is.
Yesterday I picked her up late at work. She works at a hospital and has to do late work twice a week, so it's more and more become expected that I pick her up. I'd rather sleep that late, but I can sacrifice some sleep to be nice and make her happy, I think. In the last couple years it's become expected that I pick her up, though, so it's not something I think she notices very much as me trying to be nice, but rather something that I just do.
When we got home yesterday, I decided for once to write down the stuff I have done wrong while she was at work. In the last half an hour before I went to bed, this is what was wrong:
- I did the laundry, and I put the clothes in the wrong place on the drying rack
- One of her stockings that I washed was made of wool, and even though it says 40 degrees on the label (which I washed it on), I should have known that she wants them washed at 30 degrees.
- I should have made more food for dinner, there was only a small portion left for her after work
- I forgot to put olives in the salad, and there was too little tomato
- I didn't monitor my daughter's screen time closely enough, she spent too much time at the computer
- I didn't ask about one important thing about my daughter's exam, so I couldn't answer her question about that
- My daughter hadn't eaten all the fruit they bought in the weekend, and now the strawberries start to look shabby. Why didn't I tell her to eat the fruit? (I didn't even know they bought fruit)
- The pillows on the couch looked like they had been sat on. They were not straightened up after.
- I had opened the curtains in the bedroom from the wrong side.
- I still hadn't ordered train tickets for one of the days of our vacation, coming up in a month.
That last one made her so upset that she told me "we still have no train tickets", went out of the room, and closed the door on me. I was afraid my fingers were in the doorframe and had to remove my hand quickly.
I guess this is just a rant and a sigh, and that I have to straighten up and remember things better. But the list above is literally just half an hour, after I did her the favour of picking her up late, sacrificing sleep, and it felt a bit unfair having to go to bed feeling not good enough. It is often like this, so I have decided to write down what she criticizes me for so that I can avoid these mistakes in the future.
I might be unfair, she is a loving person and when we have a good time, things are good. It's just all that stuff pulling me down, and I don't know how to handle this. I guess I just need to start remembering how things are supposed to be done.
Has anyone else experienced something similar in a relationship? How did you handle it?
tl;dr: In everything I do, there's something to criticize, and I feel like I'm doing everything wrong. I am unsure whether there's something wrong with me, and what can be done to be better in my relationship. Sorry about the long post.