Trying to understand…

I’m going to preface this by saying I do personally believe there are significant differences between men and women, not only physically but emotionally and psychologically as well. I think this is the case much of the time but certainly not always. There are outliers, exceptions to the norm and unique situations of course, but it seems pretty evident to me that men tend to be more interested in things and utility and women tend to me more interested in people and relationships. Like I said, thats not always the case, but it certainly seems to be the case most of the time.

Now to get to my real conundrum! My wife is painting… again… And she hates painting. She complains the whole time. Shes already painted everything and it all looks great but here she is like 3 years later repainting the house. My mom, my sister and most of my wife’s friends are all like her: want things to look different every couple years and are willing to suffer through the painting process that frequently.

It’s annoying because obviously it disturbs the whole house and routines. Everything is a mess, theres paint fumes in the air and all of her “free time” is spent painting. And she has the nerve to make comments to other people (while she’s complaining about painting) about how I never help her paint. This really gets on my nerve because its not like I’m refusing to paint because I dont want to. Im busy doing actual important things. Things like cooking all our food, doing dishes, laundry, working full time, doing house repairs, installing a wood stove and chimney, cutting firewood… basically the necessities.

I feel like its a plain fact that appearances are not important. I dont mean not important to me, I mean not important to human life. Period. Whether the walls are blue, red, green or have dicks painted everywhere the facts of life remain: we need food, water, warmth, sleep and clean air. The house needs maintenance, food needs to be cooked, wood needs to be cut and bills need to be paid. I feel like its a fact, not an opinion, that even if you dont like the way something looks you can carry on with life just fine. Even if you look at a grey wall and really really wish it was a different color, you dont have to paint it. At least not make it a priority. Maybe get to it when there’s less going on, or when I could help, or when its winter and we’re stuck inside all the time. But she doesn’t agree. She thinks it’s absolutely crucial that she feels comfortable and enjoys the way her house looks. To me, this means life is too easy. I feel like she doesn’t have enough problems to deal with if she thinks the color of walls is crucially important. The craziest thing is, most women I know think the same way!

People, please help me figure this out! Is this a simple fact of men and women having different priorities? Or is it a matter of western civilized life being too comfortable and easy so wall color gets more attention than it reasonably should? Or am I just too detached from my own feelings? I dont understand how so many people can think that the way something looks is equally important as maintaining the basic necessities of life.

You two sound like me and my husband: he is always quite at home in the real world of things and physical states of matter, and I always live in my head where ideas, ideals, and plans seem more real to me than the objects around me.  

My husband loves me dearly, but he (and most people) secretly think I've come from Mars. I walk into walls because I am always daydreaming so hard--I'm the absent-minded professor without the degree!  Naturally, things that appeal to him are things that do not appeal to me--fast cars and motorcycles, food in general, and the aesthetics of various objects that I didn't realize were even there in the first place. And he is very good at using and enjoying those things! As for me, I am good at loooooooong discussions of grammar topics, discussions on all topics of philosophy, ethics, and religion, and all manner of educational concepts that put him right to sleep, although he does his best to listen to me because he is so kind.

I love looking at people issues through the lens of Myers-Briggs personality typing (Keirsey also used this system, link to his site below). I suspect your wife is in the Guradian/SJ temperament group, https://keirsey.com/temperament/guardian-overview/ and perhaps you are from the NT/Rational temperament group, https://keirsey.com/temperament/rational-overview/

People more comfortable with ideas than things will see someone else's attachment to physical objects as irrational and downright peculiar, and people more comfortable with things than ideas have no idea where the idea-people are going on their trains of thought or even why they want to go there (and let them go alone!). My husband and I are so glad we know of these differences between our own patterns of thinking--it has helped keep things from getting bitter or personal by knowing we are totally differently wired mentally.  

My husband and I just had a really interesting conversation about this, spurred by your post.

I'm more on your spectrum.  I could (and did until my husband came along) live with my home's original off-white interior paint color for the rest of my days.  I had it painted that way after remodeling. Then I met my dear husband to be, and he HATED it.

He puts it this way: for him, aesthetics feed the soul.  He also finds that colors affect the "feel" of the room.

Thing is, I didn't care either way from the aesthetic point, so I let him go for it and paint many rooms in colors he particularly liked.  I did hate the smell and it made me feel crummy. We used non-VOC paint, but I am sensitive to even those.  But it made him happy and I had to admit it kind of perked things up.

Now we are building a house.  We had to do a 100% remodel of our last home and sold it to move to our new location.  My husband did almost all of the painting in the house we remodeled and thank goodness, he is finally totally sick and tired of paint.  

In our new home, in part to make it paint-free - some of the interior walls are going to be finished in metal, and the rest of the walls in clay or lime plaster.  We had to really agree on the colors because they aren't suitable for changing in the future, not easily at least.  

Next topic, I have noticed that in people coming from different regions, there seems to be more or less of perceived typical masculine/feminine tastes/priorities/roles.  I noticed this by selling real estate for 20 years in Oregon.  People in Oregon had less, overall, focus on keeping up appearances as well - versus people from the Mid-west, upper Midwest, South, or Atlantic coast.  I was often shocked by "foreign" (meaning form other regions of the US) client comments and criticism about how homes looked, how lawns looked, how Oregonians looked/dressed, about how I managed my hair and appearance even.

A side note about a little culture shock I had - my cousin-by-marriage is from Michigan.  She got married to my cousin-by-blood and their wedding was a potluck.  That was pretty normal and rather pleasant and convenient by my family's standards; by Oregon standards in general it wasn't a "new" thing.  She ended up having to point out to me how that was going to be extremely shocking and actually uncouth to her family, and that they were going to be quite disapproving.  I was young at the time and had no clue!

Back to housing and marriage. I am aggravated by messes. I've had to come to terms with living a messier (by my take) life because my husband wants to have all his projects out in the open where he can see them.  He also likes his supplements out in the open or he forgets to take them. I'd love to change that in our new house-to-be, but not sure it will happen! It's not a deal breaker, though. ;-)

I've noticed that people are different, affected by different things in their environment and personal space. I haven't noticed that to be particularly related to gender, but I have noticed differences in how people from other regions of the US prioritize things and behave with one another and their environment that have surprised me a lot.

I'm sorry you are frustrated with your wife's interest in remodeling so frequently.  Winter is a rough time to put up with repainting if you can't open the windows!  That would knock me on my butt... I'd be so ill from it.  Maybe you two could come to a compromise and she could switch to repainting in summer instead?  Or is it too humid?

From your description of your wife's painting, this reminded me of my best friend from years ago.

This lady wanted her home just so.  Nothing ever out of place, never a speck of dust, etc.

There might always be found on her coffee table a copy of a home decor magazine.  Though she never said it, my guess was that she wanted to be an interior decorator.

Be thankful that you have a loving and caring wife.

One day, you and your wife will have children.  After that there will not be time for home decor.  It will be an endless trip to kids' activities.

Enjoy your time while you can.

A thought that comes to my mind is how people react to stress. Sometimes when I don't feel I can fix any of the real problems, I focus on something that's not super important, but that I CAN fix. It keeps me from freaking out over the non-fixable stuff for a while.

Rachel Lindsay wrote:I love looking at people issues through the lens of Myers-Briggs personality typing (Keirsey also used this system, link to his site below). I suspect your wife is in the Guradian/SJ temperament group, https://keirsey.com/temperament/guardian-overview/ and perhaps you are from the NT/Rational temperament group, https://keirsey.com/temperament/rational-overview/

People more comfortable with ideas than things will see someone else's attachment to physical objects as irrational and downright peculiar, and people more comfortable with things than ideas have no idea where the idea-people are going on their trains of thought or even why they want to go there (and let them go alone!). My husband and I are so glad we know of these differences between our own patterns of thinking--it has helped keep things from getting bitter or personal by knowing we are totally differently wired mentally.  

Thanks for sharing the site above, Rachel! What good sum ups. I've found those sorts of personality/temperament breakdowns very helpful in understanding how different others can view things.

And I think your next point there is very meaningful.

My husband and I have learned a great deal about one another, about listening to and interpreting needs, and also learning to communicate with each other a lot better from Marshall Rosenberg's videos online.  There is a really funny part in this video below where he talks about "The Neats and the Slobs" and how they for whatever reason, attract one another.  And how to manage each of those needs better.  (He says he's a Slob, btw.)

One of the concepts that has helped me a lot is where he proposes this:

Behind every feeling there is a need...certain feelings tell us there is an obstruction in our thinking...and that anger, depression, guilt and shame are very valuable feelings that tell us we are not directly connected to our needs.

Learning to recognize this has helped me a lot. I fall into the "NT/rational" temperament group and definitely prefer to deny feelings.  This often leads to resentment in relationships and life when they don't go the way I like - as you pointed out above, bitterness.  It's really nice to start to learn to not do that.  

My husband and I each would have loved to have started learning this stuff a few decades ago!  But it's like a tree, right?  Plant it now. :-)

Oh, boy. John and I are a wildly mixed bag, on this score. I would like things to have some level of organization, so I can easily lay hands on what I want, when I want it. That said, to me, piles are a perfectly acceptable temporary organizational system, especially if more structured options aren't currently available. That is, as long as there's some understandable method to the madness - like goes with like, for example. John THRIVES on chaos - he might have bits and pieces of any given project in every room of the house, and he likes it that way. It drives me bat-shit-crazy. I crave organization (which drives him bat-shit-crazy), though we both struggle to keep to any specific form of it.

He refuses to paint - it was actually something he insisted I fully understand, before we married. I'm cool with that, because I'm a one&done kind of gal, myself. I like what I like, and once it's how I like it, God help the person that messes with it - ever (which he's great with). I'll keep the leftover paint so I can touch it up - if it REALLY needs it. Furniture gets moved only if some part of life changes, necessitating accommodation, or allowing new use of the space - kids moved out? AWESOME! I get a new room for _____!! One of the best things we did, was move into a log home, with minimal drywall - is mostly exposed logs. There is no room in our house with more that 2 walls of drywall to paint, and those are the smaller walls, broken up by interior doors.

So, I'm not sure it's a gender thing, either. We're both creative types, and have learned to mostly live with & try to comprehend each other's oddities.

Two things occur to me, reading your post.

First, when we were a young couple with lots of problems and living in a crappy apartment, I was often doing redecorating stuff. Because we were in a crappy place with minimal control-- we weren't even allowed to paint the walls or hang anything. The little I could change, I did. Now that I live in my own place, we paint as little as possible, and once something works it stays (10 years with the same paint color). Some people like change, some need change.

Second, yesterday my husband spent the entire day (12+ hours, on a Sunday) cleaning. Cleaning the cars (which were already clean), power washing the outside of the house (didn't need it either), scrubbing the heck out of the front patio, the gate, etc, it went on and on. We just had our elections yesterday, which are fraught and miserable (the country's totally divided, run-off happening in a month, which means another month of partisan crap and electioneering). He didn't want to watch TV, didn't want to hear about it. Needed to keep his hands busy and work off his frustration. I stayed out of his way and worked in the garden, let him get it out of his system.

It seems like the best thing is to make a cup of coffee for the both of you and ask with nothing but love and maybe a light heart: honey, you hate painting! why are you doing this to yourself, really? Maybe she feels she needs to keep up with her sisters, maybe she's working through something. If you don't ask, you'll never know, and the more we know about the people we love, the better experience we can have with (and make for) them.

I'm reading all the lovely responses and sharing and agreeing/sympathizing with so much of.    It also makes me wonder if this ties into love language expressions as well.   Telling other people about doing a job you don't enjoy, and mentioning not having a lot of help,  how hard it all is...   could possibly be an attempt at receiving more "words of affirmation."  Some folks need help finding better ways to get needs met, and revert to what was modelled to them growing up, or what has been successful in the past.   I have certainly run into a fair number of women who have this pattern of trying to connect with other women especially through shared "hardship" experiences.    It could be frustrating or aversive to someone without that sort pattern of behavior,  especially if you are the subject of the sympathy/connection seeking behavior.   Does she know how it makes you feel?

Kim Goodwin wrote:My husband and I just had a really interesting conversation about this, spurred by your post.

I'm more on your spectrum.  I could (and did until my husband came along) live with my home's original off-white interior paint color for the rest of my days.  I had it painted that way after remodeling. Then I met my dear husband to be, and he HATED it.

He puts it this way: for him, aesthetics feed the soul.  He also finds that colors affect the "feel" of the room.

Thing is, I didn't care either way from the aesthetic point, so I let him go for it and paint many rooms in colors he particularly liked.  I did hate the smell and it made me feel crummy. We used non-VOC paint, but I am sensitive to even those.  But it made him happy and I had to admit it kind of perked things up.

Now we are building a house.  We had to do a 100% remodel of our last home and sold it to move to our new location.  My husband did almost all of the painting in the house we remodeled and thank goodness, he is finally totally sick and tired of paint.  

In our new home, in part to make it paint-free - some of the interior walls are going to be finished in metal, and the rest of the walls in clay or lime plaster.  We had to really agree on the colors because they aren't suitable for changing in the future, not easily at least.  

Next topic, I have noticed that in people coming from different regions, there seems to be more or less of perceived typical masculine/feminine tastes/priorities/roles.  I noticed this by selling real estate for 20 years in Oregon.  People in Oregon had less, overall, focus on keeping up appearances as well - versus people from the Mid-west, upper Midwest, South, or Atlantic coast.  I was often shocked by "foreign" (meaning form other regions of the US) client comments and criticism about how homes looked, how lawns looked, how Oregonians looked/dressed, about how I managed my hair and appearance even.

A side note about a little culture shock I had - my cousin-by-marriage is from Michigan.  She got married to my cousin-by-blood and their wedding was a potluck.  That was pretty normal and rather pleasant and convenient by my family's standards; by Oregon standards in general it wasn't a "new" thing.  She ended up having to point out to me how that was going to be extremely shocking and actually uncouth to her family, and that they were going to be quite disapproving.  I was young at the time and had no clue!

Back to housing and marriage. I am aggravated by messes. I've had to come to terms with living a messier (by my take) life because my husband wants to have all his projects out in the open where he can see them.  He also likes his supplements out in the open or he forgets to take them. I'd love to change that in our new house-to-be, but not sure it will happen! It's not a deal breaker, though. ;-)

I've noticed that people are different, affected by different things in their environment and personal space. I haven't noticed that to be particularly related to gender, but I have noticed differences in how people from other regions of the US prioritize things and behave with one another and their environment that have surprised me a lot.

I'm sorry you are frustrated with your wife's interest in remodeling so frequently.  Winter is a rough time to put up with repainting if you can't open the windows!  That would knock me on my butt... I'd be so ill from it.  Maybe you two could come to a compromise and she could switch to repainting in summer instead?  Or is it too humid?

Glad to have helped spark a good conversation for you!

My wife would agree with your husband about aesthetics “feeding the soul” and I agree that they do affect the feel of the room. I guess my issue is that “feeding the soul” and affecting how a room “feels” naturally falls into a category of secondary importance in my mind. I feel like making sure the room is warm and dry is more important than how the room makes you feel. If you love the way a room looks but it’s drafty and leaking rain and snow on your head, you wont be feeling too good for long! But this is how I think: physical needs come first, emotional needs come second. My wife translates that into my wants coming first and hers coming second. She makes it personal. For me, its just a matter of fact that a human can struggle through bad feelings and what I like to call “head stuff” for a very long time if their physical needs are met. But if your physical needs arent met, a human wont even get the chance to struggle through “head stuff” let alone actually find peace and enjoyment in life (because life would end). So my view is that needs come first, feelings come second. So I spend most of my time focusing on meeting physical needs. She seems to overcompensate and then just dwells on feelings.

She says a house needs to feel relaxing and comfortable for her to want to live in it. For me, a house needs to be warm, dry, practical and functional for me to want to live in it. I could look at an ugly wall for decades and every day think to myself “thats an ugly wall” and then just carry on with life anyway. For her, that ugly wall gets attention equivalent to dinner, sleep and staying warm.

And as far as compromise goes, she’s literally been painting all summer. First it was our boat (still not done), then the basement stairs, now the living room. By the time she finishes the living room she will probably have grown unhappy with the basement stairs! This is just like my mom, sister and my wifes friends as well. They all seem to hate painting but also be addicted to it or something.

Anne Miller wrote:From your description of your wife's painting, this reminded me of my best friend from years ago.

This lady wanted her home just so.  Nothing ever out of place, never a speck of dust, etc.

There might always be found on her coffee table a copy of a home decor magazine.  Though she never said it, my guess was that she wanted to be an interior decorator.

Be thankful that you have a loving and caring wife.

One day, you and your wife will have children.  After that there will not be time for home decor.  It will be an endless trip to kids' activities.

Enjoy your time while you can.

I know we will have children one day, thats why I’m so focused on fixing moldy walls, installing a wood stove, planting the garden, establishing a flock of chickens, and getting our house in order. I feel like painting (a room that was already painted like 3 years ago) just isnt helping us prepare for anything!

Kim Goodwin wrote:

Rachel Lindsay wrote:I love looking at people issues through the lens of Myers-Briggs personality typing (Keirsey also used this system, link to his site below). I suspect your wife is in the Guradian/SJ temperament group, https://keirsey.com/temperament/guardian-overview/ and perhaps you are from the NT/Rational temperament group, https://keirsey.com/temperament/rational-overview/

People more comfortable with ideas than things will see someone else's attachment to physical objects as irrational and downright peculiar, and people more comfortable with things than ideas have no idea where the idea-people are going on their trains of thought or even why they want to go there (and let them go alone!). My husband and I are so glad we know of these differences between our own patterns of thinking--it has helped keep things from getting bitter or personal by knowing we are totally differently wired mentally.  

Thanks for sharing the site above, Rachel! What good sum ups. I've found those sorts of personality/temperament breakdowns very helpful in understanding how different others can view things.

And I think your next point there is very meaningful.

My husband and I have learned a great deal about one another, about listening to and interpreting needs, and also learning to communicate with each other a lot better from Marshall Rosenberg's videos online.  There is a really funny part in this video below where he talks about "The Neats and the Slobs" and how they for whatever reason, attract one another.  And how to manage each of those needs better.  (He says he's a Slob, btw.)

One of the concepts that has helped me a lot is where he proposes this:

Behind every feeling there is a need...certain feelings tell us there is an obstruction in our thinking...and that anger, depression, guilt and shame are very valuable feelings that tell us we are not directly connected to our needs.

Learning to recognize this has helped me a lot. I fall into the "NT/rational" temperament group and definitely prefer to deny feelings.  This often leads to resentment in relationships and life when they don't go the way I like - as you pointed out above, bitterness.  It's really nice to start to learn to not do that.  

My husband and I each would have loved to have started learning this stuff a few decades ago!  But it's like a tree, right?  Plant it now. :-)

Thats a long video, I’ll have to pick away at that this week. I definitely feel that im in the rational category as well. I dont feel like I deny or suppress my feelings though. I just dont see their relevance most of the time. I know they are there, I see what they want me to do and I watch like I watch clouds roll across the sky. It can be entertaining but certainly not important. I almost look at feelings as natures way of ensuring a human could never possibly be bored. Because even if you were locked in a white room and blindfolded, at least your feelings would keep you entertained! Other than that they really seem to be unhelpful.

“I dont feel like doing dishes” = oh well, dishes are dirty and they wont wash themselves

“I dont feel like going to work”= oh well, bills need to be paid. Get a different job or suck it up

“I dont want to cook dinner”= oh well, being hungry would be worse

“I feel like laying around all day”= today is the only day all week that it isnt going to rain. Better install that chimney through the roof

Im not saying I have the healthiest or most ideal mindset, especially towards feelings. But I also cant wrap my head around their significance in most day to day activities.

Carla Burke wrote:Oh, boy. John and I are a wildly mixed bag, on this score. I would like things to have some level of organization, so I can easily lay hands on what I want, when I want it. That said, to me, piles are a perfectly acceptable temporary organizational system, especially if more structured options aren't currently available. That is, as long as there's some understandable method to the madness - like goes with like, for example. John THRIVES on chaos - he might have bits and pieces of any given project in every room of the house, and he likes it that way. It drives me bat-shit-crazy. I crave organization (which drives him bat-shit-crazy), though we both struggle to keep to any specific form of it.

He refuses to paint - it was actually something he insisted I fully understand, before we married. I'm cool with that, because I'm a one&done kind of gal, myself. I like what I like, and once it's how I like it, God help the person that messes with it - ever (which he's great with). I'll keep the leftover paint so I can touch it up - if it REALLY needs it. Furniture gets moved only if some part of life changes, necessitating accommodation, or allowing new use of the space - kids moved out? AWESOME! I get a new room for _____!! One of the best things we did, was move into a log home, with minimal drywall - is mostly exposed logs. There is no room in our house with more that 2 walls of drywall to paint, and those are the smaller walls, broken up by interior doors.

So, I'm not sure it's a gender thing, either. We're both creative types, and have learned to mostly live with & try to comprehend each other's oddities.

Interesting that it doesn’t seem to be gender related for some of you because I dont know a single man that actually cares (enough to actually put the work into changing it) about paint colors. All if the men I talk to say their wife is the same and all of the women I talk to say their husbands are like me. I mean sure, if my walls were pink I would prefer a different color. But I have things to do. Satisfying all of my quirky preferences and feelings takes a back seat to eating dinner and preparing a heat source for winter!

Maybe its more regional than gender based though. I can’t imagine why that would be though.

Tereza Okava wrote:
It seems like the best thing is to make a cup of coffee for the both of you and ask with nothing but love and maybe a light heart: honey, you hate painting! why are you doing this to yourself, really? Maybe she feels she needs to keep up with her sisters, maybe she's working through something. If you don't ask, you'll never know, and the more we know about the people we love, the better experience we can have with (and make for) them.

I asked her last night why she’s always painting when she clearly hates it, I dont have time to help and it obviously isn’t necessary to do. She thinks it is 100% necessary. She thinks that a home is supposed to feel comfortable and relaxing. This is a woman who lives in discomfort, so I dont know what she thinks is comfortable about our home. And maybe if I spent more time relaxing I would feel like a home is meant to feel relaxing, but I’d hardly call me rolling around on the floor for 10 minutes “stretching” before bed relaxing as much as I’d call it crashing and shutting down. So far owning a home has not felt comfortable and relaxing, its felt like responsibility, bills, maintenance, constant problems and a never ending process of learning how to do new tasks. I dont know where she got the idea that houses are relaxing from! Mayne its because I deal with most of the onslaught of problems myself so it isnt a constant source of frustration for her.

Brody Ekberg wrote:and it obviously isn’t necessary to do. She thinks it is 100% necessary.

That right there.

All my "nest" relationships improved dramatically when I realized if it's important to any of us, it's important to all of us.

I think a psychologist answer would be along the lines of the difference in how male and female brains interpret things chemically, through oxytocin and all that. What I find striking is how you say she dislikes painting but still feels the need to do it every few years anyway. This makes sense in this scenario, because due to the oxytocin response, many women tend to feel a sense of happiness from newness and change and excitement. Maybe for her this manifests itself in the way the house looks. If she is the type who needs a sense of excitement, maybe there are other methods you could provide her to satisfy that need that are less trouble to you. At the same time, I think she needs to understand that you also have your own needs/wants and hers do not have a right to override yours. I think it is uncool for her to badmouth you for not wanting to jump in and help her do something you really don't want to do. Especially if you have some ethical objection, like wasting natural resources/energy on paint to paint something already painted. Maybe you could come up with something better for both of you.

Brody Ekberg wrote:She thinks it is 100% necessary. She thinks that a home is supposed to feel comfortable and relaxing. This is a woman who lives in discomfort, so I dont know what she thinks is comfortable about our home. And maybe if I spent more time relaxing I would feel like a home is meant to feel relaxing, but I’d hardly call me rolling around on the floor for 10 minutes “stretching” before bed relaxing as much as I’d call it crashing and shutting down. So far owning a home has not felt comfortable and relaxing, its felt like responsibility, bills, maintenance, constant problems and a never ending process of learning how to do new tasks. I dont know where she got the idea that houses are relaxing from! Mayne its because I deal with most of the onslaught of problems myself so it isnt a constant source of frustration for her.

I've always felt that our home is meant to be our refuge from the world, be it from jobs, weather, social issues, etc. And, how we need that refuge to manifest is very individual, incredibly compelling, and all between our ears. Not only does that mean something different for each person, but I fully believe it begs compassion and as much accommodation as we can manage, whether we understand it, or not.

I'm with K Kaba: if one person ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!!

My husband, a few years ago, developed a burning need to replace our curtains. I would literally rather do a taste-test of the dirt in my garden beds before even thinking about curtains, and have no comprehension of why he was so keen on those damn curtains. But I kept my mouth shut and we spent a day (a DAY!) knee deep in curtain-store land choosing curtains, and he was happy. So I'm not sure how much weight I put on the male-versus-female thing, but I do know for sure that when things are important to one partner, it's worth the time.

That said: it sounds like you are carrying an awful lot. Maybe she would like to help you bear that load? Learn new skills? Her wanting to make the house seem more relaxing seems to mesh very well with the fact that you are having a heck of a time relaxing there. Can the conversation extend to "I could really use a hand here" and rather than "I'd rather you spend your time on XX instead of painting" make it "I kind of need help, and I would love to have you learn a new skill so that together we're better able to handle things in the future". You have a good point- you're getting things in line before having kids, things will get more complicated. Being able to identify and express your needs and ask for help will be an absolutely critical skill when kiddies take over your life, and even better they will strengthen your relationship through that and beyond.

K Kaba wrote:

Brody Ekberg wrote:and it obviously isn’t necessary to do. She thinks it is 100% necessary.

That right there.

All my "nest" relationships improved dramatically when I realized if it's important to any of us, it's important to all of us.

I understand that believing that would help improve relationships. What I don’t understand is to to convince yourself that its actually true!

I mean take this real life situation as an example: Its afternoon. We have no dinner cooked. All of the plates and silverware are dirty. We’ve already even used all the plastic silverware we had stashed away. Its the only rainless day in a week so I’m trying to install a chimney for our new wood stove and get our half-feathered chicks acclimated to the yard. Firewood needs to be cut, laundry needs to be hung out to dry and grass should be cut. My rational brain says “better go get all of these things done while I have the chance because soon it will be raining again”. Her brain says “i dont really like this color so Im going to repaint these walls”.

I agree that if I treat her line of thought as equally important to my own that it might help our relationship. But I dont understand how I can honestly convince myself that her line of thought is equally important. I feel like its a flawed way of thinking. A lack of rationality. But me telling her that means I’m insensitive and selfish. Like I’m the only one who benefits from eating dinner, with clean utensils in a warm dry house!

Jordan Holland wrote:I think a psychologist answer would be along the lines of the difference in how male and female brains interpret things chemically, through oxytocin and all that. What I find striking is how you say she dislikes painting but still feels the need to do it every few years anyway. This makes sense in this scenario, because due to the oxytocin response, many women tend to feel a sense of happiness from newness and change and excitement. Maybe for her this manifests itself in the way the house looks. If she is the type who needs a sense of excitement, maybe there are other methods you could provide her to satisfy that need that are less trouble to you. At the same time, I think she needs to understand that you also have your own needs/wants and hers do not have a right to override yours. I think it is uncool for her to badmouth you for not wanting to jump in and help her do something you really don't want to do. Especially if you have some ethical objection, like wasting natural resources/energy on paint to paint something already painted. Maybe you could come up with something better for both of you.

She most certainly gets excited from change and newness, but that isnt explaining this situation. We just brought home 2 barn kittens and are installing a wood stove; two totally brand new experiences for both of us. I could have used plenty of help installing our chimney but she felt it crucial to repaint the room before the stovepipe is in the way. I would have thought the stove pipe itself and stove would have been enough change in one room (plus moving furniture around) to stimulate her excitement!

Carla Burke wrote:

Brody Ekberg wrote:She thinks it is 100% necessary. She thinks that a home is supposed to feel comfortable and relaxing. This is a woman who lives in discomfort, so I dont know what she thinks is comfortable about our home. And maybe if I spent more time relaxing I would feel like a home is meant to feel relaxing, but I’d hardly call me rolling around on the floor for 10 minutes “stretching” before bed relaxing as much as I’d call it crashing and shutting down. So far owning a home has not felt comfortable and relaxing, its felt like responsibility, bills, maintenance, constant problems and a never ending process of learning how to do new tasks. I dont know where she got the idea that houses are relaxing from! Mayne its because I deal with most of the onslaught of problems myself so it isnt a constant source of frustration for her.

I've always felt that our home is meant to be our refuge from the world, be it from jobs, weather, social issues, etc. And, how we need that refuge to manifest is very individual, incredibly compelling, and all between our ears. Not only does that mean something different for each person, but I fully believe it begs compassion and as much accommodation as we can manage, whether we understand it, or not.

I guess I agree that it would be nice to feel relaxed and comforted whenever I’m home but the fact remains that the home itself constantly requires attention, maintenance and work from me. Maybe I need to have compassion for myself too!

Tereza Okava wrote:I'm with K Kaba: if one person ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!!

My husband, a few years ago, developed a burning need to replace our curtains. I would literally rather do a taste-test of the dirt in my garden beds before even thinking about curtains, and have no comprehension of why he was so keen on those damn curtains. But I kept my mouth shut and we spent a day (a DAY!) knee deep in curtain-store land choosing curtains, and he was happy. So I'm not sure how much weight I put on the male-versus-female thing, but I do know for sure that when things are important to one partner, it's worth the time.

That said: it sounds like you are carrying an awful lot. Maybe she would like to help you bear that load? Learn new skills? Her wanting to make the house seem more relaxing seems to mesh very well with the fact that you are having a heck of a time relaxing there. Can the conversation extend to "I could really use a hand here" and rather than "I'd rather you spend your time on XX instead of painting" make it "I kind of need help, and I would love to have you learn a new skill so that together we're better able to handle things in the future". You have a good point- you're getting things in line before having kids, things will get more complicated. Being able to identify and express your needs and ask for help will be an absolutely critical skill when kiddies take over your life, and even better they will strengthen your relationship through that and beyond.

Its so surprising for me to hear of your husbands having particular things that they really care about as far as appearances go. I really thought it was gender related and that theory really makes sense to me.

I have to ask: in your situation where you so graciously spent a day curtain shopping to please your husband, was it a time where you didn’t want to go but otherwise didnt really have an “excuse”, or were there like 12 good reasons not to go curtain shopping that day but you went anyway? I ask because if things were settled and in decent order, I’d be happy to help her paint. Id do it with a smile and we would get it done fast. But when, like you pointed out, I’m already carrying an awful lot, colors and appearances be damned, I’m busy!

You have some very good points though and I think (know) your way of wording things would work much better with her than my way of being direct and blunt a lot of the time. For me it seems plainly obvious what needs to be done and when she picks other things to do instead, I just get irritated and bear the load myself. Maybe those same things dont seem so obvious to her. I also almost never ask for help (i get that from my mom) and I know that isnt a great thing and I’m working on it. If I NEED help I definitely ask. But if I can struggle through it n my own, I will struggle.

Brody Ekberg wrote:I have to ask: in your situation where you so graciously spent a day curtain shopping to please your husband, was it a time where you didn’t want to go but otherwise didnt really have an “excuse”, or were there like 12 good reasons not to go curtain shopping that day but you went anyway? I ask because if things were settled and in decent order, I’d be happy to help her paint. Id do it with a smile and we would get it done fast. But when, like you pointed out, I’m already carrying an awful lot, colors and appearances be damned, I’m busy!

We both are super busy people and value our time together on the weekend above anything else. So just spending time together is a plus. But to be sure, if we needed to move chickens or install a stove or help someone move, we would have done that first. We value each other's time: just the fact that he asked made it clear to me that it was important, and I know he would drop anything else to help me if I had things "in line". This is only clear to me because we have *many* years together (and a few rounds of couples therapy).

Something that came clearer to me over the years is the difference between trust and assuming. We all know the old saw about assuming makes an ass out of you and me. When we didn't communicate as well, I might have assumed I knew what my husband wanted, maybe wrongly, then gotten all resentful when it turns out I read it wrong.
After communicating, I know him as well as I know myself (sometimes better....) and it becomes more of a question of trust. Maybe he couldn't sleep with the old curtains and didn't want to put me on the spot about them. Maybe he was really excited to even have curtains (you grow up in poverty where light fixtures and curtains are "for rich people" and sometimes these things have meaning). What I do know is I didn't need an explanation, I could trust that he respects my time just as much as I do his. And if I'm not sure, I ask.
It comes with time and effort.

you say something really interesting:  

Brody Ekberg wrote:For me it seems plainly obvious what needs to be done

It might be.... or it might not. Communication is work, but I promise you it pays off.

Brody Ekberg wrote:and when she picks other things to do instead, I just get irritated and bear the load myself. Maybe those same things dont seem so obvious to her. I also almost never ask for help (i get that from my mom)

Oh man. I hear you, I have the same tendencies (and so does my husband). But I'd like to throw out something for you to chew on.
Teaching children or a spouse things is so hard because it's so much easier to do it yourself, the way you want it done, than to watch someone slop through something and do a half-assed job. But it is also the only way a new learner gains confidence and skills. It's so much easier to do the dishes yourself, cook your own food, fix the tire yourself, but the final outcome is a million times more valuable, for both parties. It's a great time to practice asking for help and to let your spouse know you want to be able to share responsibilities more.  I'll bet she'd be glad to help, and you both grow together. And it'll give you some practice for teaching kids stuff.

Brody Ekberg wrote: I could have used plenty of help installing our chimney but she felt it crucial to repaint the room before the stovepipe is in the way. I would have thought the stove pipe itself and stove would have been enough change in one room (plus moving furniture around) to stimulate her excitement!

Ahhh!! And here, it feels like we get down to the crux of the matter, from her pov - at least for this situation, though it may not translate to the rest of the times. In her mind, painting first could be not only a logical progression of steps, but an ease & safety issue. She may well be thinking along the lines of 'painting this first means when the pipe is in, the job is done', but there may be an added, 'if I don't do this first, it may never get done properly or safely, with the stove pipe there, and probably hot'.

Obviously, I'm guessing, here. I don't know her, at all, and only know you from what you've posted here, that I've read. But, if you offer to spend a couple hours painting the rest of the room with her later, maybe she'll be ok with just doing the part of the wall by the stove, for now, while you get all the stuff assembled to install it. Then, while you're putting in the pipe, she can hold the ladder for you, or something? Does either task *REALLY* have to be an all-or-nothing, right-this-very-second sort of thing? We do projects in stages, often (each having our own disabilities has forced us to learn 'how to eat an elephant'), and stuff gets done. Maybe not as quick as we want, but it gets done.

Tereza Okava wrote:

Brody Ekberg wrote:I have to ask: in your situation where you so graciously spent a day curtain shopping to please your husband, was it a time where you didn’t want to go but otherwise didnt really have an “excuse”, or were there like 12 good reasons not to go curtain shopping that day but you went anyway? I ask because if things were settled and in decent order, I’d be happy to help her paint. Id do it with a smile and we would get it done fast. But when, like you pointed out, I’m already carrying an awful lot, colors and appearances be damned, I’m busy!

We both are super busy people and value our time together on the weekend above anything else. So just spending time together is a plus. But to be sure, if we needed to move chickens or install a stove or help someone move, we would have done that first. We value each other's time: just the fact that he asked made it clear to me that it was important, and I know he would drop anything else to help me if I had things "in line". This is only clear to me because we have *many* years together (and a few rounds of couples therapy).

Something that came clearer to me over the years is the difference between trust and assuming. We all know the old saw about assuming makes an ass out of you and me. When we didn't communicate as well, I might have assumed I knew what my husband wanted, maybe wrongly, then gotten all resentful when it turns out I read it wrong.
After communicating, I know him as well as I know myself (sometimes better....) and it becomes more of a question of trust. Maybe he couldn't sleep with the old curtains and didn't want to put me on the spot about them. Maybe he was really excited to even have curtains (you grow up in poverty where light fixtures and curtains are "for rich people" and sometimes these things have meaning). What I do know is I didn't need an explanation, I could trust that he respects my time just as much as I do his. And if I'm not sure, I ask.
It comes with time and effort.

you say something really interesting:  

Brody Ekberg wrote:For me it seems plainly obvious what needs to be done

It might be.... or it might not. Communication is work, but I promise you it pays off.

Brody Ekberg wrote:and when she picks other things to do instead, I just get irritated and bear the load myself. Maybe those same things dont seem so obvious to her. I also almost never ask for help (i get that from my mom)

Oh man. I hear you, I have the same tendencies (and so does my husband). But I'd like to throw out something for you to chew on.
Teaching children or a spouse things is so hard because it's so much easier to do it yourself, the way you want it done, than to watch someone slop through something and do a half-assed job. But it is also the only way a new learner gains confidence and skills. It's so much easier to do the dishes yourself, cook your own food, fix the tire yourself, but the final outcome is a million times more valuable, for both parties. It's a great time to practice asking for help and to let your spouse know you want to be able to share responsibilities more.  I'll bet she'd be glad to help, and you both grow together. And it'll give you some practice for teaching kids stuff.

Im going to take your advice and try to openly and honestly communicate with her more effectively. And do it in a way that hopefully doesn’t come across as selfish or insensitive to her.

And you’re totally right about it being easier to do things yourself but taking the time to teach others is way more valuable. I understand that and already know that I’ll struggle somewhat with that and children. But at the same time, having a child to teach sounds exciting enough that it makes me think maybe watching them slop through a half ass job might be easier than I first thought!

Carla Burke wrote:

Brody Ekberg wrote: I could have used plenty of help installing our chimney but she felt it crucial to repaint the room before the stovepipe is in the way. I would have thought the stove pipe itself and stove would have been enough change in one room (plus moving furniture around) to stimulate her excitement!

Ahhh!! And here, it feels like we get down to the crux of the matter, from her pov - at least for this situation, though it may not translate to the rest of the times. In her mind, painting first could be not only a logical progression of steps, but an ease & safety issue. She may well be thinking along the lines of 'painting this first means when the pipe is in, the job is done', but there may be an added, 'if I don't do this first, it may never get done properly or safely, with the stove pipe there, and probably hot'.

Obviously, I'm guessing, here. I don't know her, at all, and only know you from what you've posted here, that I've read. But, if you offer to spend a couple hours painting the rest of the room with her later, maybe she'll be ok with just doing the part of the wall by the stove, for now, while you get all the stuff assembled to install it. Then, while you're putting in the pipe, she can hold the ladder for you, or something? Does either task *REALLY* have to be an all-or-nothing, right-this-very-second sort of thing? We do projects in stages, often (each having our own disabilities has forced us to learn 'how to eat an elephant'), and stuff gets done. Maybe not as quick as we want, but it gets done.

You’re definitely partially right about her thought process. She said something like “i had to paint the wall so that you could put the stove pipe in”. I just bit my tongue because my mind was saying “the wall was just painted 3 years ago and the new color you picked is barely any different. The wall doesn’t need to be painted at all let alone before I install the stove pipe!” But I knew that would not sit well with her so I kept that one to myself.

I am most certainly an “all or nothing” sort of person, and she calls me that once in a while. Despite that, most of my projects do still happen in stages, though it irritates me most of the time. And no i guess we didn’t absolutely need to get the stove installed right now, but then again we dont need it at all, we already have propane for heat. But propane is uncontrollable, unsustainable and expensive. And it’s getting colder, darker and wetter by the day, so when I finally had a half day with nice weather it seemed like a golden opportunity to put a hole in the roof.

Kind of funny, but kind of serious: she says she cant paint in winter because we cant open windows. I say true, but you cant paint in summer either because theres actually lots of important things to do. So dont paint ever!

Count your blessings bruh.  My wife wants the house repainted all the time too and she expects me to do it all.

Thomas Tipton wrote:Count your blessings bruh.  My wife wants the house repainted all the time too and she expects me to do it all.

Oh boy! Well if you dont mind and have the time, go for it. I would definitely at least help her if I had the time but I’m overwhelmed and struggling to keep up with everything as it is! And colors just aren’t important enough to get a slot on my priority list.

Hell, I know multiple colorblind people who live damn good lives so obviously the color of a wall isnt that important of a factor in quality of human life!

"And no i guess we didn’t absolutely need to get the stove installed right now, but then again we dont need it at all, we already have propane for heat. But propane is uncontrollable, unsustainable and expensive."

This changes things. I don't know her, and I'm not a woman, but I would guess with 99% certainty she sees your woodburning stove project exactly the way you see her painting project.

I agree with the statements that some very intensive communication would probably be a good idea.

Jordan Holland wrote:"And no i guess we didn’t absolutely need to get the stove installed right now, but then again we dont need it at all, we already have propane for heat. But propane is uncontrollable, unsustainable and expensive."

This changes things. I don't know her, and I'm not a woman, but I would guess with 99% certainty she sees your woodburning stove project exactly the way you see her painting project.

I agree with the statements that some very intensive communication would probably be a good idea.

She had been on board with the wood burning idea for a while, but making it happen this year was unexpected. Just due to propane prices here, whats going on in Europe, political instability and the fact that we stumbled across some nice relatively cheap wood stoves it made sense to pull the trigger now. I figured why spend $2-3,000 on (hopefully) propane when we could spend the same money on a wood stove and enough wood to heat the house for at least a few years. She agreed. She also said shes kind of excited about it. But she seems to think of this as a nice casual change. I see this as me needing to make firewood and get this all put together as soon as possible since we’ve begun heating season, are losing daylight and getting more rainy weather. And I don’t doubt that she might see it that way but how is this “my project” when its our house and both of us will benefit from this? And how can having a reliable heat source throughout winter be honestly compared to slightly changing the color of some walls?

She may see things that way but if thats the case I feel like she might need to clean her glasses!

Brody, I can see and understand your frustration. But, quite honestly, I can't help thinking that at some point, you're going to probably have to simply accept that there will always be differences in how you and your lovely wife see things. While there's a strong chance that you'll never truly and completely understand why she thinks the way she thinks, it's going to be up to you to decide whether your relationship or your projects & timing will be your priority. This isn't to say that she ought to get her way in everything, but to advise that if your relationship is important to you, it will probably be wise to choose your battles very, very carefully. A day or a week of giving her what SHE feels is a necessity may be what decides whether you get to enjoy being with her, for the long term.

Lol - from hubby, John: " Dude! Is this really a hill you want to die on? Paint the 1 wall, to restore the status quo. Then she can finish painting the rest of the house, you can finish the stove, and you'll both live happily ever after. "

Carla Burke wrote:Brody, I can see and understand your frustration. But, quite honestly, I can't help thinking that at some point, you're going to probably have to simply accept that there will always be differences in how you and your lovely wife see things. While there's a strong chance that you'll never truly and completely understand why she thinks the way she thinks, it's going to be up to you to decide whether your relationship or your protects & timing will be your priority. This isn't to say that she ought to get her way in everything, but to advise that if your relationship is important to you, it will probably be wise to choose your battles very, very carefully. A day or a week of giving her what SHE feels is a necessity may be what decides whether you get to enjoy being with her, for the long term.

I guess what I want is someone to tell me “yes, you’re right, she is crazy.” Because I’m pretty sure thats the case! And I can live with that. But me pretending that wall colors are equally important to staying warm in winter makes me wonder if I’m the crazy one and I’d have a hard time with that😆

Brody Ekberg wrote:I see this as me needing to make firewood and get this all put together as soon as possible since we’ve begun heating season, are losing daylight and getting more rainy weather.

I'm stuck here. You are putting in the stove AND THE FIREWOOD for the winter yourself? Without her help?

I remember as a kid, every weekend in the summer was firewood duty. I may not have been running the chainsaw at age 6 but I was put to work like everyone else. Is this not a normal group effort? Could you say, honey, gas is likely to be a total disaster this year, can we work on getting this stove and wood in ASAP before the SNOW!!! and I swear I'll help you with the walls later?
Maybe my house is different, we do all the heavy work together, whether it's construction, cleaning, pouring concrete, turning over garden beds or making pasta. I just assume everyone else does it the same way.... it's no fun if you're doing all the donkey work yourself.

Tereza Okava wrote:
I remember as a kid, every weekend in the summer was firewood duty. I may not have been running the chainsaw at age 6 but I was put to work like everyone else. Is this not a normal group effort? Could you say, honey, gas is likely to be a total disaster this year, can we work on getting this stove and wood in ASAP before the SNOW!!! and I swear I'll help you with the walls later?
Maybe my house is different, we do all the heavy work together, whether it's construction, cleaning, pouring concrete, turning over garden beds or making pasta. I just assume everyone else does it the same way.... it's no fun if you're doing all the donkey work yourself.

Here where I live, it would be EXTREMELY rare to see a woman bring firewood into the house or often even put it in the stove, let alone harvest it. The old "man job/woman job" thing is still very strong here. "Donkey work" is generally for men. You just made me laugh to imagine my mother helping my father cut firewood. I think she would sit and complain as she froze to death before she would deal with firewood, lol. She also has no sense of urgency or priority. She will want to go on a vacation or do some entertainment at the most inappropriate time, and dad will tell her he has to get something done before "X." She'll sulk about it, but certainly not help get it done quicker. As a result of a lifetime of this, she has virtually no idea how hard some "man work" is, and I feel she often greatly under-appreciates how much my father does for her, especially when it comes not to things he does essential to running the household, but when it comes to her non-essential cosmetic projects that seem so simple to her just standing there giving directions. She places a very high value on her labor, like cleaning the house, and complains profusely about lack of help from him. I grew up cutting firewood with him, and cleaning the house with her. In my opinion, cutting firewood is about 25 times more work. That is just how it is here.

Brody Ekberg wrote:
I guess what I want is someone to tell me “yes, you’re right, she is crazy.” Because I’m pretty sure thats the case! And I can live with that. But me pretending that wall colors are equally important to staying warm in winter makes me wonder if I’m the crazy one and I’d have a hard time with that😆

Well, no one is saying she is NOT crazy...lol! You are trying to look at this logically. In the words of the Mad Hatter, "This is not unlike searching for darkness with a torch." There does not have to be any rhyme or reason to it. It just IS. Her mind is telling her it needs to see the walls a different color for whatever reason. Knowing that reason isn't really relevant. We can change our perception, at least sometimes. She has probably spent her entire life in a relatively warm house every winter. She has probably never nearly frozen. She knows you have a propane system already installed. Her mind just doesn't see the urgency like yours does. Her mind probably relegates the heating to you, so it's just not perceived as her responsibility. If she were to spend a winter staving off freezing to death, her mind would likely change its perception and make firewood a priority. I saw a psychology thing not long ago, that said a lot of women are this way due to many generations of women simply not being allowed to take responsibility. Responsibility was the husband's job. So maybe we are still working to overcome this old system.

I think we all kinda have our own brand of crazy. For example, I was the girl who would rather be outside cutting, hauling, splitting and stacking firewood, with my dad & brothers, instead of being inside (where the temps were controlled), cooking, cleaning, canning, sewing, etc, with my mom or stepmom, though I was still required to do the 'girl stuff', far more often than I was happy about. I have spent winters, both as a kid and as an adult, desperately trying to get/ keep the indoor temps above freezing - and didn't always succeed. I really do see you, Brody. But, ahem, I can neither confirm, nor deny either your sanity or your wife's, lol!

Is there any input from the wife regarding the posts and responses on this thread? I'm assuming she's aware that her mental state is being showcased for discussion and amateur psychoanalysis on a public internet forum.

This might be a mental health thing for your wife. You talk about food, shelter, etc. as being priorities and everything else coming after. Well, it sounds like basic physiological needs are already met and you're just trying to improve things now. If you look at Maslow's heirarchy of needs, you might be stuck on the bottom couple tiers while your wife is trying to fulfill some of her higher up needs. My husband and I live in a 12 x16' house. In order to not feel like I was living in a dark box, I made sure we had high ceilings and lots of windows. We lived in a basement suite for five years and my mental health was pretty bad at times, despite being warm, properly fed, etc. I need windows. Maybe your wife needs fresh paint.

Are all these projects you're so busy with things that she wants or are they things you want? You say you're doing them to improve things for both of you, but maybe some of them are things she doesn't  care about. My husband does this to me sometimes. He works ridiculous hours and is super stressed at his job, and this has been going on for years. Last year, he took his vacation time and spent almost every minute of the day working on getting our road to the point we wouldn't need to walk in at times over the winter. While he was doing that, I was busy with my existing projects in the garden. The first day he was out, he came back to the house at lunchtime and  was super pissed I didn't have lunch waiting for him. I was confused. "You never mentioned lunch. Why would you think I'd have lunch for you? I've been in the garden all morning." He figured that since he was doing a project that benefited both of us, I would naturally drop what I was doing to help him out in any way I could. Obviously, to him, that meant maximizing the time he could spend on the bobcat by, for example, making sure there was lunch waiting for him. I'd been trying to talk him out of his plan for over a month. I wanted him to take some actual vacation time - like go dirt biking or out drinking with buddies or even just get some sleep for a change.  Hey, maybe I'd even get to spend some time with him! I really didn't care if we spent another winter walking in if it meant he could actually take a break. He was so focused on what he'd decided was OUR top priority, that he didn't even register that it was pretty far down the list for me, even though I'd been trying to talk him out of it.

You obviously love your wife, but you also sound pretty contemptuous of and lacking respect for her at times. There's no way she's not picking up on that, and who knows how that's affecting her.

Brody Ekberg wrote:...
People, please help me figure this out! Is this a simple fact of men and women having different priorities? Or is it a matter of western civilized life being too comfortable and easy so wall color gets more attention than it reasonably should? Or am I just too detached from my own feelings? I dont understand how so many people can think that the way something looks is equally important as maintaining the basic necessities of life.

Maybe this subject needs more research to be sure. But I can give my own personal opinion.
I am a woman. But from my early childhood I was taught: the looks are not the most important! Things (like a house, clothes, furniture) need to be strong, durable and most of all useful. People need to be reliable, their 'yes' meaning 'yes' and their 'no' meaning 'no'. It's important to have (good quality) food and clothes and a roof over your head, and to pay your bills.
This is still how I feel about it.
I think many people are influenced by modern media, ads and magazines, telling then that looks are important ... (both men and women, young and old).