During the row's most recent manifestation Bert accused,
"You're the one whose supposed to have all the emotional intelligence."
I roared back,
"D'ye think if I had any emotional intelligence I'd be acting like this?"Here's what happens. I go to work. I do extra hours. I get tired and I become emotionally drained. I come home. I try to be nice. But I bring an electrically charged aura of tension with me. This unsettles Bert. He becomes defensive. He knows what's coming. We both prickle. We have a row. We shout (mostly me), I cry. He retreats to the male cave place. I feel very sorry for myself. Later I attempt reconciliation. But I really want to winkle him out of the male cave place to row more. He knows this. Stays there. I feel very, very sorry for myself.
The next day dawns. I feel silly. At some point we have a genuine reconciliation.
This is my aim. It's not to never ever have the She Bonkers, He Inconsiderate Bastard row ever again. It's to have longer and longer gaps in between. And if that's the standard then we are making progress.
4 comments:
Sounds so familiar Nelly - there are definately lessons to be learned. Perhaps one of these lessons is to leave work at work. Another is to realise that Bert may have been having his own tensions, you can't assume that your life and troubles take precedence. Another could be not to expect being at home to be less stressful than work, sometimes a woman's work is never-ending!
Point One - Can do
Point Two - Should do
Point Three - How true!
It does sound familiar, i think its very much a male thing to try and distance yourself from the situation in the hope it might just go away-i think your standard setting sounds pretty reasonable though, hope it goes well.
mikey xxx
And I thought you just retreated because angry women are so scarey!
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