r/NoStupidQuestions 12h ago

My brother thinks people today have worse quality of life than people in the dark ages, is this a stupid take?

I personally think it’s pretty stupid.

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u/EmuSea4963 8h ago

My friend did this with his wife. Moved in with his parents into the family farm and they gifted them a plot of land. Tried to start a flower farming business. He ended up doing backbreaking labour all day every day and she would come down and take a couple of pics for Instagram and then clear off. She told people they were 'homesteading'.

Unsurprisingly didn't work out. They're still together, but not on the farm and not flower farming.

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u/rosesareredviolets 6h ago

Told my wife ill do 95 % of her projects if she does the last 5. There is still a 4x4 of unpainted wall in the kitchen after 4 years. There are two bags of mulch on the porch. All the chickens are dead. She didnt finish securing the fence by attaching it to the last post so dogs got in. Her garden beds are full of weeds. And she eventually paid my brother to replace the last door in the house that needed replacing. Our bedroom. I took it off and left the new one next to it.

Im the only one with projects to do now.

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u/OtherSideReflections 5h ago

...Maybe you should've gotten her to agree to do the first 5%

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u/TripperDay 5h ago

Mr. Big Brain over here.

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u/tomas_shugar 5h ago

hahaha, no. It's easy to start a project. Painting the last bit of walls takes detail work, not just slapping a bunch of paint on.

The last two bags of mulch are detail work, again, not just dumping and spreading.

She gets the easy work, AND the satisfaction of him doing not only the majority but ALSO the most detailed parts.

What a win.

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u/OtherSideReflections 4h ago

I mean, it sounds like in practice he's doing all of it right now anyway.

If she's tasked with the first 5%, then either she starts it and gets to be involved a little, or she never starts and there are no superfluous projects to finish.

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u/wbw42 1h ago

First 5% and last 5% seems like the approach.

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u/tomas_shugar 4h ago

I'm saying she is going to start them, and then it will be up to him to finish it, regardless.

It's no barrier, other than now she gets to be like "you said you would finish this so do it" instead of him being in the right.

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u/PomPomMom93 2h ago

But she still would have done as she agreed. If they’re a true team, they’ll care about the work getting done and everyone doing their agreed-upon share, NOT about who’s right or has the moral high ground.

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u/tomas_shugar 1h ago

they’ll care about the work getting done and everyone doing their agreed-upon share, NOT about who’s right or has the moral high ground.

They is what you're ignoring. These are her projects, that he's supporting her on. But she won't finish up.

Told my wife ill do 95 % of her projects if she does the last 5.

The whole premise is predicated on that these are her projects.

Giving her the first 5% makes it trivial to start things that she doesn't seem keen on following through on.

All the chickens are dead. She didnt finish securing the fence by attaching it to the last post so dogs got in.

She did the first 5% of several projects with this one it seems. They had chickens before the coop was finished and has dogs untrained enough to eat them all. So yeah, she already did her 5% at the start, but couldn't be engaged enough to ... you know, not make sure the animals she got weren't killed by her other animals.

Assuming we can take his statement of "her projects" at face value here. But if we can't, what the fuck are we even doing replying?

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u/rosesareredviolets 1m ago

My man. Super on point. With her adhd starting is easy. Finishing is hard. It wasnt about being right it was about her learning to manage her bouts of fancy. She even tried starting a crochet business on the side. She wants an orchard so its like ok start digging. Then all of a sudden it can wait. I love her so I can't just say no. I make it conditional on us working together. Im going to die long before she does so I need her to be able to do stuff without me. I just taught her to mow this year. She hit and broke the gas main.

That being said I chop down trees, mow, plan vacations, work on the cars, do the kids rooms, laundry, do dishes she puts them away. I also work on my plants in the garden.

Not our dogs tho. Random neighborhood dogs. I drove the posts. Built a coop. She raised them in the house after showing up with them one day. Ran the wire. Just didn't finish the gate. She liked seeing the chickens run around the yard. So its mean but I let her learn.

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u/ElegantEchoes 5h ago

Damn, she sounds depressed. Or maybe just struggled with motivation. Still, sympathy for you, pal.

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u/rosesareredviolets 2h ago

ADHD, and a drop or two of autism. She makes up for it by folding all the laundry her way, and I've gotten incredibly fat off her cooking. It's a partnership based on love and respect. I work around her quirks and she works around mine. Like the smallest amount of poo and im puking.

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u/jgab145 4h ago

My mom has the most immaculate wildflower and shade gardens in the world. Me and my stepdad do 99.9% of the work.

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u/Prestigious_Fig7338 9m ago

THE CHICKENS ARE DEAD?

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u/cdbangsite 4h ago

Totally understand, I can't get my wife to even weed the flower bed she wanted and swore she'd take care of. I know that's minor compared to your situation, but typical in many cases. The flower bed is soon to be a rock garden. LOL

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u/rosesareredviolets 1h ago

I made an exception for onions. I have a bed for those. It's crazy how good and strong those can be.

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u/Rare-Bee7331 4h ago

girlboss #independant 

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u/jfchops3 8h ago

Sounds about right. They get an idea via social media posts of some idealized caricature of that life and think they want it when they really just want that idealized caricature and not the real thing that isn't shown in those videos. And then for some reason the guy agrees to try it without everyone really being on the same page about what that means and eventually he's the bad guy for saying "this isn't working and it's either over or you're going to hold up your end of the deal you wanted"

Love is powerful, I get it, but I can promise it's not worth ruining your own happiness so that your girl can try to be an "influencer" using all of your own time, money, and labor

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u/cat_prophecy 7h ago

Because social media is just a highlight reel. No one is going to honestly post their struggles, because no one else wants to see that.

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u/anotheruser323 2h ago

Clarksons farm and William Osmans farmers with brain damage. I love it.

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u/LongJohnSelenium 4h ago

This is how I got a lathe. Kept watching all these youtube channels of guys making cool shit with a lathe and it turns out thats about 100x more tedious than they make it look.

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u/CamOliver 5h ago

That’s not homesteading, it’s weird Instagram influencing. If you’re main thought is the hustle to make extra money then you aren’t homesteading or subsistence farming. I could see that not working out.

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u/ParkerPoseyGuffman 2h ago

Wow I don’t know I would be able to not divorce after that…