SoleInvictus

What matters most is you're doing something now! My wife and I have been together for over a decade and she's only now starting to really work on her issues. I love her and we're still together. She's also not the sole source of issues, just the main source of ADHD issues, which is why she was thrown under the bus (for educational purposes). I contribute plenty, just as I suspect your partner does too. Don't beat yourself up.

One thing that has been helpful for me is taking an objective as possible accounting of positive and negative contributions to the relationship, with what is being done to address anything seriously negative. It's a good reference when I'm feeling emotionally overwhelmed or am mentally beating myself or my wife up, which is never helpful.

I have ADHD, as does my wife. Here's what we've learned.

First and foremost, handle your ADHD. It doesn't just go away on its own. You might medicate it away for awhile, but it's progressive and it'll be back. You need a combination of strategy, lifestyle changes, and medication. A therapist experienced with ADHD is great, but literature exists if therapy isn't affordable.

My wife is a great example of what not to do. She never pursued therapy, doesn't take great care of herself, and never developed any coping strategies past popping more pills without taking medication breaks. Now she's at the maximum dose of adderall combined with strattera and it's not cutting it. Since her ADHD is out of control, she's having difficulty developing strategies to handle her situation and it is torture for both of us. Similarly, if you have any emotional trauma, get on that now. These things only become more impactful and harder to handle with time.

No one makes assumptions. We don't make inferences, we don't play guessing games, we don't try to read minds. If one partner doesn't directly request something, they have no right to be upset if they don't get it. If one doesn't directly state something, they have no right to be upset if it isn't understood. It's nice when my partner anticipates my needs, but it's unreasonable to expect them to. 

Have regular, formalized meetings to discuss needs and the state of your relationship. Important communications are finalized in  impersonal, precise, "business style" writing and made accessible. We've had far too many agreements that led to conflict when it turned out someone later mixed up details or never understood to begin with. We have a giant dry erase board in the dining room where important reminders are left.

Because they're too stupid to follow along and understand everyday politics, so this level of insanity seems like 3D chess to them.

I bet they loved Iron Sky.

From your source, the last sentence is

The U.S. goods trade deficit with China was $295.4 billion in 2024, a 5.8 percent increase ($16.3 billion) over 2023.

Doesn't that confirm their assertion of a $200B+ trade deficit or am I confused? I'm not particularly economics savvy.

Edit: derp, I reversed the meaning of their comment, they thought the US has the deficit. They got it backwards!

That's just a fantasy.

This is a great idea!

Fixed link for anyone interested:

Democrats' 'comeback retreat' suggests party to 'embrace patriotism' to win back working-class voters

Why would you do that to this poor man? No one deserves to be saddled with Elon.

I'm sorry, but that's just word salad - it doesn't actually make sense. Even if it did, it would still be easily accounted for with control tissue.

I'm a microbiologist but my grad school work, research, and coursework was very chemistry heavy. There are no "probably does somethings" of significance here: the chemistry of plastic generation is extremely well researched.

Plastic is made of polymerized hydrocarbons, linked up identical tiny units of carbon strands called monomers. Polymerization, the linkage of the monomers into a polymer, requires the use of a catalyst. This is often done with increased heat and pressure to increase the speed of polymerization. Maximum temperatures are around 350°C for certain plastics but are more commonly 140-160°C as higher temperatures can cause the material to break down. Once the desired size of linkage is created, the polymer is capped to keep it from growing further.

Polymerized hydrocarbons degrade, not further polymerize somehow, at high temperatures like 600° C. Saying there's some mysterious, high-heat-driven polymerization is like saying burning wood, which is largely a polymer of glucose called cellulose, somehow creates more cellulose as it burns. The burning is due to the release of the energy contained in the bonds in the wood as they break down and react with oxygen.

Even if the process DID somehow create some plastic, a given mass of brain tissue would be expected to create predictable amounts of this mystery polymer, giving a background measurement that can be subtracted. Again, though, we know how this all works so it's not really a concern.

I'm assuming they're looking to buy after this condo sale. If that's the case, they may not have much choice as their next place will be similarly insanely inflated, so they need that money to get the monthly payment to something affordable.

That's the position my partner and I are in. We have equity in our house, but it's mostly because it has "appreciated" to a level that we could never afford, despite making a combined over quarter million dollars a year (due to living in a high cost of living area). Even if we sold our house at full inflated market price and used it all as a down payment, we'd be hard pressed to afford a place with the same price.

It's not that I'm complaining about the equity, it just doesn't get me much when everything else is insanely inflated. We barely squeaked into the place we're in because COVID tanked interest rates and prices in our area.