Some are fortunate enough to be blessed with good taste and a man with no opinion (at least when it comes to furnishings). Unfortunately, our author only has taste. And unfortunately a man with an opinion – mostly the wrong one, of course. Sometimes the divorce papers are ripped off. But nobody has signed yet, thanks to the Ikea principle.
"And your husband also liked the pink wall?" I ask my neighbor as she proudly presents the new kitchen to me. "pink??? The color is called Deep dreamshe counters indignantly. "And my husband doesn't interfere when it comes to the furnishings." This sentence again. How often have I heard it. The worst phrase of the same thing: "My darling trusts me there completely and completely. "Life could be so beautiful … But it's not. When it comes to furnishings for my" darling "and me, we call each other a lot. Treasure is definitely not there. And trust is not there either. Real Not.
He has an opinion. I couldn't have guessed that.
I mean, if I were married to a man who was a decorator, a designer, or an art teacher for all of me, then for me. But I am not. I married a man from whom I would have expected a lot, but certainly not with any self-confidence when it comes to furnishings. When I first visited him in his bachelorette party, there were moving boxes and bright lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling. He's only lived there for four years, so that can happen. So I thought I was the decorator and decorator, and I came up with the best ideas. Then we moved in together. And suddenly the same man was a furnishing expert. Self-proclaimed, mind you.
The ugliest bathroom cabinet ever
Do you know that when something is particularly important to you and you search for a long time until you have found the right one? That's how I felt with the vanity unit. It should be special, make the bathroom cozy, match the rest of the furniture, and so on. I searched and searched. My husband found. Alone. Without being asked, he bought the cheapest piece of compressed wood he could find in the hardware store and assembled it directly. When I got home in the evening, he proudly presented what he had done FOR ME. I got breathless, gave him a taste of my Italian temperament, and changed my Facebook status from "In a relationship" to "It's complicated". It's basically the same. Did you know that you can like relationship status? Not me. My husband's ex obviously does.
The Ikea principle saved us
At some point at Ikea I understood what was going wrong. We went through the textile department. "Oh look, the bed linen that I like so much is on sale!" I said and looked at my husband questioningly. "We don't really need it!", He replied, I trotted along disappointed and without bedclothes after him. One corridor down he reached purposefully for a gray blackout blind. I was flabbergasted. "Why can you just pack what you want and tell me not to buy the bed linen?" I stood before him angry. An image that Ikea employees are likely to see thousands of times a day somewhere between Stockholm and Nicaragua. "But why are you asking me? I will always say no when I find it insane." Please what??? "What should I do instead?" My husband looked at me blankly. "If something is important to you, just do it!"
Consensus doesn't always make sense
That day I learned something important about myself, about him and about the world. He was right. Somehow I always need consensus to make a decision. He does not. He just does when something is important to him. Meanwhile, the "just-do-it-without-asking-thing" is called the "Ikea principle" and I'm almost as good at it as he is. That in turn does not necessarily lead to a straightforward furnishing concept, but to the fact that we both find each other in our apartment. Me in the bed linen (I bought it!) And he in the ugliest bathroom cabinet ever. Me in the kitschy Buddha next to the bathtub and he in the horrible beige curtains.
Me above, he below
If there are serious discrepancies, we have a second principle in-house. The "I-above-he-below principle" is sometimes cruel, but protects us from nonsensical power struggles. If we are of completely different opinion and we both regulate the same thing in different ways according to the Ikea principle, the sovereign territories come into force. He has the last word on the lower floor, I on the upper floor. I recently found out that this can be undermined. If you look with a very specific look like "Me above, you below?" asks, his opinion is sometimes a little more flexible.