My Husband and I Used This Clever Rule, and It Solved the “What’s for Dinner?” Dilemma for Good

When you live with your partner, you’re faced with so many day-to-day decisions you often make together. I work from home, and when my husband is on his way home from work around 6 p.m., we usually check in over the phone to talk through the same few questions: “What’s for dinner? How do you want to spend your evening? What are we watching tonight?” 

So when I recently stumbled upon a reel on Instagram all about the 50/50 method — a simple trick to help you make decisions with your partner or friends — I figured it would be the perfect thing to try out. I explained the rule to my husband, and we tried it for a week. Here’s how it went down. 

Coined by creator Kira Kosarin, the 50/50 method turns decision-making into a matter of percentages. For example, if you’re deciding on sushi or pizza for dinner, you can ask your partner, “What’s your 50?” You then give each option a percentage out of 100, like 60% sushi, 40% pizza, revealing a slight preference for sushi. Then the other person gives their percentage. So if my partner replied with a 90% pizza and 10% sushi, I’d know he has a stronger preference for pizza, whereas I feel pretty tied, and we can opt for that. Or at least, we can have an open conversation while knowing how we both feel about the options at hand. 

It can sometimes be tricky voicing what you really want, especially if you tend to put other people’s needs before your own. This method helps you reflect on your own desires instead of someone else’s. It’s also helpful for learning just how much you really want something, which admittedly, my husband and I learned a lot about this past week.

The 50/50 method made one thing very clear to me and my husband: I’m the one who usually feels strongly about things. My husband is a pretty easygoing guy, and his percentages were always fairly even. Me on the other hand? My percentages tended to be a little more extreme. Did this mean I got my way more often? In short, yes. But we also agreed on most things, I just felt a little more passionate. Here are the three main decisions we used the 50/50 method on.

We like to cook a bunch of protein at the beginning of the week to mix in with rice or salads, but by midweek we always need to make more. We asked, “What’s your 50?” when it was time to choose between grilled chicken or pork chops. This decision isn’t necessarily glamorous, and my husband was 50/50 on this one. I was 70% pork chops, 30% chicken so we ended up having pork chops.

It got a little more interesting when we had our end of the week “fun” meal, which was (you guessed it!) between sushi or pizza. I’m a big fan of both, but my husband is a pizza connoisseur. It was the only decision we made all week where he was all in on pizza. 100%! So pizza it was, and it was delicious. 

It’s always nice to check in to see what we need once work is over. Depending on our workflow though, sometimes we need extra time to send emails or finish up work tasks at home. When that’s the case, we chat about how long we need (it’s usually only about an hour), and then we discuss our ideal evening. 

When trying out the 50/50 method one night, we were deciding between going on a long walk after dinner or lounging on the couch. He was 70% long walk, and I was 80%, so we both basically agreed on that one. Another night, we were picking between watching a show vs. going to bed a little earlier. I work out early in the morning, so I was 90% on going to bed early. He was 40%, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker for us to go to bed at the same time, so that day, we each just did what we wanted. 

We learned that these decisions didn’t have to be make or break. Even if we had different views of what our ideal evening was — it was always OK if we spent time apart. 

We love winding down with a TV show, and these decisions were made easier because we only have a handful of shows we watch together. In fact, in trying the 50/50 method out on this part of our life, we realized we didn’t really need to use it because we were so in agreement. Scheduled live TV shows were no-brainers.

There are certain shows he loves that I’m just not interested in and vice versa. We don’t watch TV together every night, and it’s never a big deal if he watches a show downstairs while I watch one upstairs. It’s one thing I love about our relationship, actually, how we give each other space when we need it. We catch up after work, eat dinner, walk our dog together — then we either wind down together or separately. It’s lovely!

While the 50/50 method could potentially be handy when faced with a true dilemma, my husband and I found that we’re pretty agreeable people. I may feel a bit strongly about certain things, but in general, we found it pretty natural to align on most things.  And when we don’t, instead of picking one or the other, we’re totally fine doing our own thing. 

We celebrate 10 years of marriage at the end of this year, and by now, we’ve figured out our day-to-day rhythms. I can see how the 50/50 method may be helpful for couples who have recently moved in together, but for us, we’ll keep this method in our back pockets for big decisions. We’ve got our daily decisions down pat.