Early Bird

This morning my wife woke up in a foul mood! She is having a friend over and yesterday she went to bed leaving the house a mess! Even if I stayed up later to do the dishes until late in the evening, she still blames me and the kids. Especially in the morning I can not handle this kind of injustice: it makes me extremely cranky and it ruins my entire day! What is more: if I say anything about it she will start a fight, making me late for work.



So what are her thoughts and feelings, what are mine and how can I prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future? My wife was undeniably stressed, including muscle ache and everything. But what in her mind makes her feel so cranky? Why lash out at every one? I must admit I often feel frustrated, with #ADD and all but I tend to bottle it up or, if there is no solution let it go.

Not so my wife. She seems to think that if she is stressed, every one else should suffer with her. She focuses on really small things. When the whole house is a mess, she will focus on one item and scold the owner of that one item for being the reason the whole house is a mess and being the reason her life is a misery. That type of generalisation appals me. I also fear for the kids. At their age I used to take such things both literally and personally. How can you put the weight of the happiness of an adult on a kid? How can anyone make anybody else responsible for their happiness. It smacks of emotional blackmail to me.

So what ticks her off? Is it negotiation? I never haggle and am unaccustomed to the principle. I have, however observed others using the haggling technique. It is all about stating your view of things extensively and then accuse the other of being inconsiderate. That way you can get leverage over your discussion partner. To me it feels wrong. It suggests that it is a dog-eat-dog world. The way my wife implements it, it looks as if she is superior to the rest. This feeling is augmented by the fact she would not accept the same type of behaviour from me, in fact she has berated me for it before (view old Blog). So somewhere there is an elitist thing going on as well: The spoiled princes, never learned to work, only learned how to handle servants (which she does rather well actually).

How do you diffuse such a thing? Haggle along? Perhaps that is the solution. A second option would be the emo-do response to kick the bunny: Ask her what is wrong. I wonder how she feels on these topics herself. I already know what she will say if I ask her why she is more important than the rest of us: She feels she is the only one holding the family together.

Oh well,


Brandon