Commenter Jacquie has written an excellent post on her marriage and facilitating changes within it. In it, she describes what she went through to regain her husband’s trust and rebuild her marriage. The whole post is excellent and I urge you to read it in its entirety, but what really stood out for me was her husband’s reaction to a deeply heartfelt letter that she had written to him and then her reaction to him.
I’d given him the letter. And I waited.
My mind had already constructed his reaction to my letter, my ten page letter. I knew how he should respond to me. This is laughable. The flaw in my scenario was that it was based on the female process of thought based on emotion. For this reason my husband did not respond as I had wanted. More than two decades of life together living in a certain pattern was not going to magically reset by the stroke of a pen on a few sheets of paper. A natural reaction would be to throw the shield back up, go on the defensive and demand things to be as I wanted them to be. I had put myself out there now he should respond in kind.
But I’d taken that look in the mirror.
I could choose to be a child about the situation or I could be an adult, take responsibility. Those were the only two choices. I was no longer ignorant; I had no excuses. I was the one who had to rebuild trust.
If her husband had done exactly what she thought she wanted him to do, I have to wonder if the whole endeavor would have been lost. Please understand that I don’t say this in any way to debase Jacquie. I say this because I remember this same thing happening at several points in the beginning of my marriage. I would do something I thought significant and expect my husband to react a certain way. He never did. What I was expecting from him was a reaction to me based on something as if I had already accomplished it, not the reaction to my saying I would do it. I have the utmost respect for Jacquie because, when her husband didn’t react the way she wanted, she didn’t get angry, or if she did, she didn’t let that stop her. She didn’t use that as an excuse to turn the mirror away from herself and back onto her husband and therefore not make the personal changes she needed to make. She changed anyway, because she knew that was all she could do. It was her responsibility to change the only thing she could. Herself.
It took me a long time to see this in my own marriage and to take responsibility for myself. Maritus would call me out, and I would refuse to (or couldn’t) see what he was saying. I would go off on some sort of irrational rant and I would expect him to say “Oh, I’m so sorry. I understand that you are upset and why. I will change” Instead he said, “Stingray, you’re being irrational. Come talk to me when you are making some sense.” and would walk away. (What just happened?!) Then, instead of taking responsibility, I would proceed to come up with every excuse in the world why I was right and why he was wrong, alone in my room because I was not going to talk to him about it and be called irrational again. Eventually, we would talk again and things would be fine. However, it took me a very long time to figure out that it was me who was wrong and needed to change. I was being irrational and it needed to stop. I could not have done this without Maritus. I could not have done it had he reacted the way I wanted him to. I was able to learn what our marriage needs and what he needs. He knew already what was needed. He expected nothing less and would allow nothing less. I am eternally grateful to him for standing his ground and calling me out. He didn’t know if I would change or not. Regardless, he would not let me disrespect him or our marriage. He stood fast. This gave me the opportunity to face myself in that mirror, realize where I was wrong, and change. I don’t think I would ever have done that on my own. I would never have been inspired to. His strength gave me what I needed to see myself, see what needed to be fixed and then the courage to fix it. He is my Rock.
Both these stories are “nice” in abstract, but without the context or detail of what actually happened… it makes very little sense to me. Am I missing something?
I had a fight with my spouse, it was about something, and we made up, the end…
Nice one. Keep it up.
OffTheCuff,
Context here is really irrelevant. I don’t remember now what any of the fights were over. Some of them were over seemingly big things, some small. My point is that I expected my husband to react a certain way in which I felt I deserved. He didn’t react the way I expected and I certainly did not deserve to be treated in any way other than what he did.
Not bending over backwards for me and giving me what I thought I wanted gave me the chance to hold the mirror in front of my face, see what my behavior and demeanor actually was, and change. I could not have done that if he had not been steadfast.
I agree it is important to have a mirror even if one gets a jolt looking in it. Unless someone cared, they would not go to the trouble of pointing out a flaw because it really doesn’t feel good to criticize or be criticized. I had a talk with my daughter last night about the fact that she needs to stop sucking her thumb because its causing her teeth to move out of alignment. She became very upset worried that her teeth were going to fall out and simply because, she, like me, is extremely sensitive to the slightest rebuke because she is so wanting to please. This morning she told me she didn’t suck her thumb last night, and I lavished her with praise and she was very proud of herself, but last night was tough.
What I think OffTheCuff may be saying is that without knowing what the dispute was about, one can’t form an opinion of whether or not you deserved to be treated that way.
For instance, I found David’s plate throwing story upsetting. Without the details of what his wife actually did, I can’t know whether she “deserved” that or not. I know I certainly didn’t feel like I deserved treatment similar to that. On our seventh and last wedding anniversary, I had made us a special dinner. It was a new recipe and it did not come out perfectly. Rather than seeing that I tried to do something new and make the ocassion nice, my ex complained that it wasn’t cooked right, threw his away and went to eat somewhere else.
But, its true: often fights are about things we forget completely later, so sometimes it is hard to give a detailed example.
You ladies are superstars. And I do mean ladies in the noble sense. I hope you find the audience you deserve (and this culture desperately needs).
GeishaKate wrote:
No, Stingray is 100% correct. Context is irrelevant. You and OffTheCuff are thinking like litigators rather than jurists. The smaller injustices (lack of appreciation for an anniversary meal attempt, throwing dishes, being called irrational) fall under the systemic injustice of imbalanced power. The wife and husband must check each other’s excesses. When resentment and pride are thrown into the dynamic, this balance becomes impossible to strike.
Take your anniversary example. Was the injustice that he failed to appreciate your effort, or was it that you expected a showy sign of appreciation that he could not give? Or was it both?
A relationship that is healthy enough to embody an automatic system of resolution rarely see disputes turn into catastrophes. Because it’s not the dispute per se that escalates matters, it is the stubborn attachment to pride. Stingray’s initial sulking in her room gave way to enlightenment and “rationality,” because 1) her husband insisted on it and 2) she developed the self-awareness to look within. Without one or the other, the obduracy remains forever. Think of family disputes that go back so far no one remembers the details of their origin beyond a vague mutual resentment, and they’re still not talking.
Of course, the husband could be just as irrational as the wife. But while you are trying to weigh who has the right to outrage, the dispute descends from right to pique. The way to resolve pique is to release your own claim to it, not to argue more strenuously about the righteousness of your claim. Maybe you have every right to be resentful. But the resentment is what stands firmly in the way of resolution. Once the process of reconciliation is reopened, then you might make your case for justice independent of mutual suspicion.
I simply do not get into snits with people, especially women. Sure, they get in snits with me, but I do not fuel their flame one drop. Stingray’s husband acted similarly because he could see the bigger dynamic of what was happening. Whether or not Stingray had a reasonable case, she was in no condition to discuss it reasonably. Likewise, I can sniff the stink of pride in any contention — whether it be my own or others’ — and compartmentalize it until the way is clear to speak like adults.
And face it. Men are simply better by training and by nature at compartmentalizing. The sooner a woman acknowledges that fact of sex and trusts in it, the better a chance the relationship will have at success. God forbid she is dealing with a man more emotional and less rational than she; for that I can see no resolution, other than a thorough sex-role change. How long could an unnatural reversal be sustained, though?
Matt
“God forbid she is dealing with a man more emotional and less rational than she'”
There.
You just summed up the problem with my marriage. Now, Matt, I truly respect and amire you and I acquiesce. I do allow you to ruffle my feathers, but I need you to do just what you did and de-escalate the argument. I am very proud and stubborn, but I’m not entirely unsalvageable.
Some background. My wife is not the sensitive type. We are still together after 26 years and many challenges, so I must be doing something right.
What my wife did was cook dinner, sit in my usual place at the head of the table, and tell me that she would not be feeding me. It was a provocation.
GeishaKate wrote:
Were we having an argument? Was there escalation? I would have called it a minor correction.
I am no mere ruffler, woman. I am a hurricane on chicks. Literal representation:
You’ve experienced a mildly discomfiting breeze, duckling.
Matt
@ David: K
@King: Yes, we were. But there is no rough housing at Stingray’s. Its a safe zone. She keeps a clean house and I’m not going to be responsible for knocking over the china cabinet.
“K”?
Que?
OK?
Okay :)
Darn. And here I thought Geisha was asking you for Potassium David.
This is another great example that reason and trust need to dominate relationships. It’s not that emotions and happiness don’t matter, but that long term emotions and happiness are a result of decisions made based on reason and trust – not the other way around. So many are taught that if it feels good or right then it must be a rational decision and then find ways to make their hamster accept it.
Haha. Chemistry nerds unite!
@Stingray,
I’m a little late commenting here, I was away and then working on a new post for my blog.
Thank you for the mention. I like the way you expounded on the subject and put your personal touch to it. Good post.
Hmm, any tips to hold yourself together and keep irrationality to a minimum?
Here’s the thing: it seems some people can separate their feelings from reason. But is it something you can learn? can one learn to look at one’s feelings through an objective lens and conclude logically that you might be feeling outrage, but the husband haven’t actually done anything to deserve it? If the husband is not reacting in a authoritative manner?
Emma,
In short, yes. I can’t stop to explain right now as we are running out in a few. I will when I am able. Apologies.
Emma,
Ugh, I apologize. I have been thinking about this question today and I think it best to turn the answer into a post. It may take me a day or two to get my thoughts on this together and written down. Busy weekend and I’m too tired to sort through my brain on this tonight. I want to be able to give you a complete answer, not a half hearted one in my tiredness.
Stingray,
Thanks for the response anyway :) This is an interesting topic and I’m curious what others think of it, but no rush.
The best I came up with is a variation of “just do it”. Once it happens, try to objectively look at the situation and then at your feelings, and see if they are appropriate. But it’s hard – sometimes feelings lie, sometimes not.
Emma, cognitive behavioral therapy has tools in it that aim towards this. It uses terms such as all or nothing thinking, maximization, minimizing etc. to characterize errors of thought such as thinking just because you mess up on one small thing you will mess up on a larger scale or blowing things out of proportion or downplaying the positive etc. It teaches you to question common errors of cognition that easily leads to anxiousness, depressive thoughts and self esteem issues. By learning to perceive the world more rationally so do our feelings become more rational.
Meditation increases your awareness so that you more easily see what you feel and the thoughts that underlie what you feel. It also teaches you how to feel something strongly but not reacting to the feeling if you don`t want to. So it is very useful for learning to perceive more rationally.
But, it is critically important I think for a woman to respect her own feelings as well and not try to over rule them with a able type of perception of the world. That just leads to repressing yourself IMO and undermining your self esteem as a woman. I think this must be approached in the way Stingray seems to be doing where she respects and actively uses her instinctual female emotional responses but molds them to help her function better in relationship and society. It is more about mature femininity than just rationality.
I think David Deida can be highly useful to read for this sort of work. He describes so well how the feminine functions and how it can function in more or less mature ways that you can get a lot better at understanding how you operate and take a step back when you need to while at the same time respecting and indeed cultivating feminine modes of operating. THe sphere should really, really start reading more Deida. It would be immensely helpful. He has a ton of female fans and is held up by many PUAs as the most insightful gender thinker.
There is though something to be said for learning to really set your emotions to the side a lot more than usual when reading stuff such as in the sphere and debating publicly. Stingray has said something about that before. I think for example women tend to react negatively to Rollo for no good actual reason in terms of content but just react to the cold analytical nature of the posts and some other stuff and get emotional and from there on can not digest what is being said which is a shame as his writings are very useful. Learning to recognize such stuff and working around it can probably be very useful.
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Thanks for the response, Wudang. Seems some of my friends had therapy, but nobody told me it included this. Or, when it does, they forget to use the tools when it actually counts. Is there a tool that reminds you to use all the other tools you have?..
I hear you on repressing your emotions, too. Or overpathalogizing them. They are not to be destroyed, just managed and sorted. Plus sometimes, other people really are to blame for them. The trick, I think, is to learn when to express disapproval and when not.
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