What kind of relationship includes a text like this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here, my issue is that despite the please and thank you, it seems like an order, not a request. But based on your replies I guess I am wrong.

We all take on all sorts of roles in different relationships. Sometimes, you and your spouse really are co-workers managing running a house together. Sometimes you are lovers. Sometimes (like when one of you is sick or tired), you parent each other.

That’s why it’s so funny to imagine this text going out to someone you just started dating who spent the night for the first time. At that point, you are typically only one thing to each other: romantic partners. A text like this, treating the other person as a co-worker could read as either rude or too intimate depending on the context.

Whoever sent this to you sees you as a colleague in the management of their house. Depending on the situation, they either see you as hired help or the see you as someone they are building a home with. That’s why parent to teen makes sense and husband to wife makes sense and homeowner to housekeeper makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being married to OP must be beyond exhausting. I can't imagine living with some so emotionally fragile.

Same. I wouldn't last a week with someone second guessing my motives over tests like this.

[Anonymous]

texts. I have a hard enough time just spelling out the words much less making them pleasant to the ear.

[Anonymous]

This is how I would text my STBX because he doesn’t do anything around the house unless I firmly ask/tell him to.

[Anonymous]

Don't you make half the garbage??? Do you need to be asked please and thank you to wipe your butt?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here, my issue is that despite the please and thank you, it seems like an order, not a request. But based on your replies I guess I am wrong.

Why are you so resistant to being told you need to take care of adult tasks?

Honestly your partner should be upset they have to send this at all.

+1

Teamwork
Be on top of things
Basic routine $hit should not need a reminder
If someone does *need* constant reminding, both sides need to accept that and be kind about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being married to OP must be beyond exhausting. I can't imagine living with some so emotionally fragile.

Agree, if this is happening a lot OP needs to not take things personally.
Don’t want to develop Oppositional Defiant Disorder

[Anonymous]

My hsuband might send this text to me if he was out of town because he does trash 99% of the time. It would not bother me at all. I have no idea which weeks the yard stuff goes out. We send lots of texts with kissing emojis but not over the trash reminder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't you make half the garbage??? Do you need to be asked please and thank you to wipe your butt?

I know, right?! OP contributes to garbage and, presumeably, has an interest in the grass being cut. Why would that text be problematic. The important thing is someone takes out the trash before the trucks come.

I'll send a text likt that to my DH or one of the kids the night before trash day. They're the first ones out of the house and we strive to empty the kitchen trash /recyclables the morning of.

[Anonymous]

My husband and I would text each other this.

If someone doesn’t want to get texts before 6am, they should silence their phone. We have little kids who talk All The Dang Time and we text each other from the same room sometimes because we can’t hear each other or get distracted by the kids and forget what was just said. The other scenario at 6am is that one of us is outside the house working out and realizes something needs to be done before we will get home -
“Please remember the kids are packing lunch today!” “Please grab the school iPads off the charger” and in the example you gave - yes, we’d text about the trash cans if one of us got home late the night before because our recycling and green bin pick-ups both happen before 8am.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I (DH) can see sending one to my DW. I usually (99.99%) take the trash out but, for whatever reason I can't/forgot/on travel, I can see myself sending something like that to my DW. Probably make the tone softer thou

trying to "tone" a text gets too wordy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here, my issue is that despite the please and thank you, it seems like an order, not a request. But based on your replies I guess I am wrong.

Proving yet again, you cannot understand context and intention in text (or email etc).
Too many problems between people when they fail to actually open their mouths.

There are so many unknowns. Did he type this? Was it via speech to text on CarPlay? My texts come out different when I write vs speak them. Was he hurried and doing 3 different things on the way to work, so not thinking about it, but panicking that he missed trash day? Were you hurried and late or just in a bad mood about something else?

I try to subscribe to the Brene Brown way of approaching such things. Try to give the most generous interpretation of texts, until you 100% know different.

I agree with the last point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here, my issue is that despite the please and thank you, it seems like an order, not a request. But based on your replies I guess I am wrong.

A request is for something optional and nice to have.
Presumably the person sending the reminder cannot take out the trash themselves or they would have done it -
Broken leg? Traveling? Forgot to do it and left early for work?

If the person is equally capable of taking out the trash and sent an order instead of a request, that seems a bit brusque. My reaction would depend on how often the sender communicated that way.

[Anonymous]

I can totally see myself sending a text like this to DH

[Anonymous]

IMO if it is between 2 people in a relationship it could be less formal and demanding.

"Good morning! Can you please take the bins...

...Thank you and love you"

Or some such. I would not send a text like that nor would I want to get one like that from my SO.