Parallel Annoyances

One of the things I enjoy about gatherings or text chains with my dad friends is that, invariably, the conversation turns to complaints about our wives and kids. Of course, everyone loves their family, but it’s healthy to have a safe space to complain about the inevitable frictions that come with living with other humans who don’t share the exact personality and preferences we have. 

Recently, on one of the text chains, a friend shared a complaint about his wife, introducing us to an interesting concept—parallel annoyances. 

Parallel annoyances are those situations in which someone objects to their partner’s behaviors, while not realizing (or ignoring) that they have a similar behavior in another domain that irritates their partner. For example, one person might dislike when dirty dishes are left in the sink rather than being placed directly in the dishwasher, while overlooking their own habit of leaving dirty clothes outside the hamper.

The annoyance can create a relationship issue when either person voices criticism of the behavior or the conversation turns to counter-accusations. As my friend said, “If I point out that she’s doing the same thing… oh no.” Because these kinds of annoyances are inevitable—and usually unsolvable—the healthiest relationship choice is often to bite our tongues and redirect our complaints to conversations with friends. 

I was thinking about this recently when the head of a nonprofit told me she disliked that a member of her executive team failed to coordinate effectively with others. After considering the issue, however, she realized that, in most situations, the offending behaviors benefit the organization because they result from the executive being proactive and ambitious. So, rather than trying to “solve” the issue, it was more important to manage their reactions to the issue so that it did not disrupt a generally positive working relationship. 

The same dynamic came up in a conversation with another leader who was complaining about the implications of an organizational restructuring. There, the conversation went to, “OK, you don’t like this, but if you listed the pros and cons of this job, would it still have more pros?” The implication of that analysis was that it wasn’t worth raising a stink over the issues.

In those cases, and indeed across many of the situations we face, the key aspect to success is being able to recognize the things we don’t like, understand where they fit in the larger context, and make informed choices based on that analysis. And in many cases, this means having the emotional maturity to recognize that it’s more useful to simply vent to others about our dissatisfactions, understanding that trying to change them isn’t useful.