On love and money and buying couches
How do you make it work in your relationship?
I want to buy a new couch.
My Instagram algorithm is constantly showing me new styles by Joybird. (I like this one.) I’m always checking out what my friends have when I visit their homes. And sometimes when I’m out by myself, I’ll pop into a furniture store and sit on a few floor models. (I have no idea how people buy sofas online!)
The one thing I haven’t done? I haven’t told Ken that I want to make this big purchase.
I already know what he will say—we’ve been married 14 years this week and together for 20 (!), and while there are times when he will surprise me, I know exactly how the couch conversation will go.
Me: “I think we need to buy a new sofa.”
Ken: “We don’t have the space. We don’t have the money.”
We’ll continue to go round and round for six months or a year, and maybe I’ll finally wear him down. Or I’ll give up for another six months or a year, until we finally reach crisis level because our little family of three really truly cannot all fit on our leather loveseat anymore.
I’m not quite ready for those discussions (I won’t call them fights), so in the meantime, I’m just enjoying the search on my own. I love a good consumer daydream.
Is this a healthy way to handle things?
Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. I think pretty much everyone in a long-term relationship knows that it can be a dance—there are things you agree on, things you can find a way to compromise on, and certain topics that are essentially off the table because you know they will cause the blowout fight of the century. Ken and I agree on a lot: that our kid is the greatest kid in the world, that we want to live in Brooklyn forever, that PBR is pretty much the perfect beer, and that there’s no reason to argue about who’s better, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, because we’re lucky enough to live in a world with both. Of course, there are lots of things that we don’t agree on, but the list may be too long for this newsletter.