Hours worked for full time employees in EU apparently has been falling year over year since at least 2013. Maybe it has increased for part timers though?
Not sure how to square that with the fact that there’s been low productivity growth since 2008.
In the higher income countries the hours worked have fallen, however it may be that in lower income countries they have increased.
That is to say, due to more work opportunities more people have gotten jobs that count towards measured work hours and GDP. Including households who used to have one person working jobs that count towards metrics now have two.
I don’t have numbers for this though, just an informed guess.
Good point. It would be sufficient for there simply to have been an increase in % of households where both parents work. That can lead to fewer hours worked per employee, low productivity growth, and increase in household income.
With so much of the UK with living with unspecified malaise, some significant part of which likely contributing to their low employment participation rate, I suspect giving everyone vitamin D would be very cost effective.
English food tends to be better at home than at restaurants. Also, it tends to mostly be undefined brown lumps but it does have flavor and there are some spices. (mostly mustard)
The exception is "Chinese takeaway", which is actually as bad as the stereotype.
The thing I find odd about British restaurants is that all the Japanese chains (Wagamama, Itsu) have names that are so dumb it's like they're actively trying to be offensive.
As a conversational point, I do recall reading an article sometime ago about people moving to the UK from sunnier places, and then suffering from Vitamin D deficiency!
The parent’s advice is toxic and mistaken. It’s a road to codependency. I’ve been with my wife 20 years, married 15. I would have said the same thing they said — I can’t do it all on my own, I need someone else.
Rubbish. And also dangerous rubbish. I’ve been weak for a long time simply because I hadn’t taken myself seriosuly. I literally believed that I couldn’t do it alone, which was wrong.
It was unfair to my wife to use her as an emotional support when she didn’t want to be. She’s been there for me a lot over the years. But when you tell someone that you can’t do it without them, it’s no longer their decision, and that’s unfair. Both to her and to me.
Please read Codependent No More, and especially Lost in the Shuffle by Subby. (I’ve identified a lot more with the latter.)
The point is, it’s okay to be having a rough time with your wife. Let go. Let her do her own thing. Stop caring so much. It’s okay for her to be upset and not want to help/have sex/go to an event/involve you/whatever the problem may be. The reason it feels rough is because you personally let it feel rough. Once I adopted that mindset, it became so much easier. And ironically my marriage improved.
Meds are also important. Make sure you’re on a good dosage of antidepressants if you need them, and a mood stabilizer. I recently started Latuda and dropped Seroquel per my psychiatrist, and it’s been night and day.
Lastly, keep trying to talk to people about your problems. I ended up reaching out to a random person on Twitter. They were kind and to my surprise happy to listen. It was one of the main reasons I was able to get through it all. The best person to talk to is a therapist, though I’d be happy to listen till you can find one.
You’re strong. You need to believe that. And you’re strong independently of your family or anyone else. Give yourself credit for getting as far as you have; that part has been important too.
Apparently “codependency” means something significantly different to what I guessed (which was interdependency, depending on each other). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codependency:
> In psychology, codependency is a theory that attempts to explain imbalanced relationships where one person enables another person's self-destructive behavior,[1] such as addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement.[2]
> Definitions of codependency vary, but typically include high self-sacrifice, a focus on others' needs, suppression of one's own emotions, and attempts to control or fix other people's problems.[3]
I've heard codependency described as being dependent on others being dependent on you.
It probably has some rational basis in child rearing, it will benefit survival for the parents to be deeply dedicated to supporting their children, to the point where they receive a psychological reward from that dependency. But unhealthy when it comes to adult relationships, at least beyond a certain point.
There is a huge difference between acknowledging that humans are an inherently social species that usually needs comfort and psychologically benefits from an intimate relationship and straight up codependency, where you violate the boundaries of each other and thereby take away psychological safety.
I agree! The point is, don’t use your wife for your comfort and psychology benefits. Use the other people in your life. Especially when you’re having marital problems.
Just want to point out codependency--especially if you read Codependent No More--is not about being dependent on another person. That is dependent personality disorder perhaps.
Codependency is better described IMO as secondhand addiction. It was coined to describe the symptoms of people who live with alcoholics and other substance abusers and the destructive coping patterns they use to survive in the addict's wake. The codependent does not depend on the addict. In fact closer to the opposite.
Upvoted just for mentioning the book though. It was life changing for me.
I get what you're saying. A therapist is one of the types of people I had in mind, although that obviously isn't an option for everyone.
I agree that it's important to be able to have your own independent autonomy to properly function in a healthy relationship, especially a romantic one.
The point I was trying to make is perhaps more subtle than it came across, namely that webs of trust between humans (e.g. 'community') are, in my view, essential to being a fully actualized adult. If you aren't close to anyone, I think that means something is wrong which deserves further inspection, particularly within yourself.
Sorry for the somewhat harsh words. You have a point. The problem is that it’s way too easy to fall down the codependency rabbit hole when you start thinking of it as “I can’t do X unless someone else Y’s”. It was true for me, and I just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be true for the poor fella going through marriage problems.
The trick and the trouble is that it’s easy to acknowledge the importance of being independent, especially in a romantic relationship, vs actually doing that in practice. After your 30’s your friends start to fade away, and one day I woke up without any except my wife. That was clearly a degenerate situation unfair to her, and expanding your social circle is something that should be done independent of whatever relationship you happen to be in. In fact, needs to be done.
Another complication / nuance is that, of course you should be serving and supporting your partner (and vice versa)! Its part of what makes relationships rewarding. They're not always 50/50 in all aspects.
The trick, as you say, is to know when that is crossing into something unfair. When it goes beyond something like who does the dishes or makes the most money into supporting the other person's core identity. Or when it becomes unsustainable / exhausting for other person. Identifying these issues can be difficult. It requires both partners to be in touch with their feelings and able to communicate openly.
Sorry I don’t know your circumstances but “Walking on Eggshells” by Langford has literally saved me.
The only wisdom I can offer: other people emotions don’t have to control yours (despite what they tell you). The best take on this that I know: be like a goose - they don’t get wet, just shake it off.
I have had many difficult times with my current S.O. over 15+ years.
Everyone's situation is different, but I can say that in even a semi-healthy relationship, time heals many wounds, greater mutual understanding grows, hard edges can soften and people will often surprise you. You can also learn things you could improve about yourself which you were previously blind to. The sense of stability this reinforces is immensely helpful.
On the other hand, I also have an ex-- and while I wish I would have ended that differently in hindsight, it did need to end for my mental health to improve. If you are with someone who abuses you, cannot be reasoned with and never admits fault, it is wise to plan several exit strategies.
I'd hit up a solo therapist. I went through a hard time with my wife and turns out she just sucks. Be warned that she sucked a lot worse in the divorce and states differ wildly in how biased they are against fathers if you have kids.
It was helpful to figure out some of my stuff and deal with a bunch of trauma.
Thanks unfortunately neither of those are the case. Things are quite bad (haven't spoken with the kid since Christmas) and probably have not yet hit the nadir.
Or else books / online communities. I can't recommend using ChatGPT for this kind of help but it can be used to validate your experiences, provide a different experience, and if you ask it, point you in the right direction.
For example, if you explain it (or Reddit) an interpersonal situation it can break it down and e.g. point out certain behaviours or boundary crossings.
But I would be careful, as these chatbots will by default put you in the right, even when you aren't.
Even therapists are a mixed bag - and some are legitimately dangerous - but in my experience at least 100x safer than a chatbot or just books.
If for no other reason than a chatbot can’t call you out on your bullshit, because it has no hope of telling what is or is not bullshit. And that is key. And has no actual feelings, remorse, license to lose, etc. etc.
I found a chatbot helpful when I explicitly requested it, in detail, to argue the other person's side with me. I basically approached it as "I want advice on this particular conflict," I explained who the other party was, I explained my best summary of the situation as a whole, and I went back and forth.
I found it cathartic because I could basically argue with that person about it, without asking that person to do emotional labor or be subjected to my criticisms of where I felt they were wrong. Ultimately I landed on several points I did eventually go to that person with, I dropped several others that the chatbot pointed out weren't really something it was fair to criticize them for, and I think our friendship is overall better for it.
I don't think there was anything revolutionary there, it's basically journaling with an LLM, but it was more efficient if nothing else.
Edit: I would also caveat that I've attended a lot of therapy, individual and couples, so numerous concepts that some people may not know, things like emotional labor, boundaries, healthy communication, etc. are already very familiar concepts to me. So, I wouldn't recommend a chatbot as a FIRST stop? But if you've attended a lot of therapy and already know a fair bit about how your own feelings work, I think it can help, as long as you explicitly request that it doesn't just glaze you continuously.
Consider posting on https://interpersonal.stackexchange.com/ . Note however that they don't allow posts about identifying problems - e.g. Why am I having a hard time with my wife?. Rather, you are expected to know what is your specific problem and seek solution to that. Don't go to Reddit - the standard advice there will be "your wife / husband is a toxic partner, run and get a divorce".
Every person is different. Some people don't need a stable relation, some people *can't have* a stable relation, some people thrive with it.
Every relation is different. A successful relation is built when both side are compatible.
What does compatible mean, though? Some relations are swingers. Some relations follow strict religious rules. Some people need taking a beating, and I don't mean an erotic one. In None of this cases I am meaning they are codependent, and then there are successful codependent relations.
The only constant I have seen is that every successful relation has discussions, fights, momments when they considered separating. And there is compromise, in every case.
I am sorry I don't have any specific advice. Good luck
Europe does have Microsoft. Actually, it has Microsoft in almost every single respect except the primary beneficial ones: taxes, employment and oversight.
High fractions of Europeans speak English, eg Poland has 50% of population speaking English (for those of working age it’s probably much higher) whereas the fractions of Americans speaking non-English European languages is much lower (0.25% for Americans speaking Polish).
If 50% of Americans spoke Polish by the shake of a wand, I bet there’d be more Americans in Poland than Poles in Poland.
OK, but by that logic lots more USA citizens should be moving to the UK, Ireland, Spain than the other way around. That's just not the case, at least until very recently.
I could see that the appeal of Ireland can be increasing and Poland sounds cool. I'm not saying that the USA is great, it has tons of problems.
UK numbers yes, though maybe gloomy weather plays a role? Just kidding. That said, Brits are slightly more likely to move to Spain than US despite it being a tiny country in comparison and not necessarily easier to move to after Brexit.
Spain, not sure. It’s tricky to compare since non immigrant Spanish speaking population in US is probably significantly lower than Spaniards speaking English. But yeah, you probably have a point on that one.
Your wand would also need to erase the reason people speak (or don’t speak) the languages they do, otherwise what you said would already be true for the UK, Australia, etc.
Would it? People don’t exclusively learn English to migrate to the US.
What language do you think Germans and Spaniards use to do commerce with each other? There needs to be a common language, there’s no bandwidth to learn all languages, so due to historical and modern reasons, English prevailed.
Re Australia, Australians have highly preferential options to move to US which is not reciprocated.
So you are already saying it isn't just language, your wand would also need to erase "preferential options" facilitating the direction of migration. Which is what I said but in different words.
So industrialization is a binary bit? You just “do” it and it’s over? Not a very convincing take imo.
Industrialization, like deindustrialization, is a continuous process. Every industry suffers from depreciation and decay which means that pace of industrialization per unit time matters.
reply