Meg,
....I think we lied to ourselves, not to each other... but we didn't communicate enough. We didn't fight enough, I think.
You know, I think that was part of the problem with Vex and I. We dated for 6 years before we were married and we only had one fight in all of that time. We didn't fight once during our first year of the marriage. But when we did finally argue, he left! Like a jack ass, I took him back.
That entire first year of marriage, the year that is supposed to be the worst, we never fought. (Actually, that last year was the worst, not the first.)
Arguments are a natural part of any long term relationship. Every so often, you have to have a good fight or you will explode. Most of us don't mention every single little thing that annoys us. Fights give you an opportunity to do some healthy purging.
Not that you should always hold it all in, you shouldn't. If you do, you end up angry all the time without knowing why. Your spouse certainly won't know. Ideally, people should politely mention the things that annoy them. But very few of us will say, "You know, darling...when you sit there picking your nose like that, I find it very difficult not to gag."
So what do you say? I didn't want to embarrass Vex when he did that but I didn't want to lose my dinner either. So, I just turned away, trying hard not to see. I shouldn't have done that...it was making me sick and you shouldn't get sick when you look at your spouse. I certainly wasn't going to start a fight with him, he learned early on that if he just exploded and threatened to leave, I would shut up.
He effectively shut me up for the past 10 years. We SHOULD have fought (not battled, just argued) but he didn't want to so we didn't.
That was actually a bad sign, looking back. Our marriage wasn't worth the effort it would take him to argue.
When he was cheating, he finally found something worth fighting over. We did it often. And he wondered how I knew! I think most couples can handle an argument and making up. Just be sure to have a couple of good rows before you get married. See what kind of sparring partner you have. You can tell a lot about a person by how they fight.
The type of fighter that spits out every nasty thing they can think of is not one that you really want to tangle with. If they are so good at being nasty now, it will only get worse later.
Another type of fighter that I don't think is a good partner is the kind who blames everything on you. "Yes, I know I didn't call. But whenever I do, you just get mad at me and I didn't want to argue so I just didn't call." He'll blame the fact that he didn't call on you. You might have gotten angry at him on the phone ONCE...and now it is his excuse never to call you again when he is out late.
Vex was a combination of these two fighter-types. If I tried to let him know that something bothered me, he would tell me everything I had done to deserve it. So, why would I complain? All that it accomplished was to have myself berated for a half an hour. Then, whatever I had to complain about sounded silly. My compaints about him not calling me from work anymore were nothing compared to his complaints that I was no fun. He would be sure to bitch about the things that I couldn't do anything about. I felt guilty enough sticking him with a sick wife, I didn't want to hear that I was no fun anymore and he knew that. Once again, I was effctively shut up. When I told him how insecure I was...he was sure to tell me what I had done to deserve said treatment.
Then he told me he missed "that confident young woman that I married."
Fights can be very healthy for a relationship, done properly. They are purgative and they do help us keep our self esteem. Those are the two main reasons to have fights. But if you are having fights and you feel WORSE after the fight is over, there is a problem. Fights are supposed to make you feel better about the relationship.
I lied to her once. Twenty years ago, before we were married. I think she never really trusted me after that.
Listen to this statement! I never truly trusted Vex after he lied to me. It doesn't matter how hard you try, if someone is a liar, you always have it in the back of your head that they could be lying. What a shame. I would love to have a relationship with someone who's word was as good as gold. Gold is easy, honesty isn't. If you have an honest partner, hold on tightly, that is quite rare. I can't tell you how nice it is to be completely honest all the time. If I were to tell a lie, I would always be afraid of letting something slip and having it give me away. There is so much less to remember by being honest. It might be hard to do at times, but find a way to do it. Two decent, honest people can work through anything. But there isn't anything that you can do with a liar because you never know what you are dealing with.
Well, I am going to go put some socks on...my feet are cold.
See ya soon.
Meg
....I think we lied to ourselves, not to each other... but we didn't communicate enough. We didn't fight enough, I think.
You know, I think that was part of the problem with Vex and I. We dated for 6 years before we were married and we only had one fight in all of that time. We didn't fight once during our first year of the marriage. But when we did finally argue, he left! Like a jack ass, I took him back.
That entire first year of marriage, the year that is supposed to be the worst, we never fought. (Actually, that last year was the worst, not the first.)
Arguments are a natural part of any long term relationship. Every so often, you have to have a good fight or you will explode. Most of us don't mention every single little thing that annoys us. Fights give you an opportunity to do some healthy purging.
Not that you should always hold it all in, you shouldn't. If you do, you end up angry all the time without knowing why. Your spouse certainly won't know. Ideally, people should politely mention the things that annoy them. But very few of us will say, "You know, darling...when you sit there picking your nose like that, I find it very difficult not to gag."
So what do you say? I didn't want to embarrass Vex when he did that but I didn't want to lose my dinner either. So, I just turned away, trying hard not to see. I shouldn't have done that...it was making me sick and you shouldn't get sick when you look at your spouse. I certainly wasn't going to start a fight with him, he learned early on that if he just exploded and threatened to leave, I would shut up.
He effectively shut me up for the past 10 years. We SHOULD have fought (not battled, just argued) but he didn't want to so we didn't.
That was actually a bad sign, looking back. Our marriage wasn't worth the effort it would take him to argue.
When he was cheating, he finally found something worth fighting over. We did it often. And he wondered how I knew! I think most couples can handle an argument and making up. Just be sure to have a couple of good rows before you get married. See what kind of sparring partner you have. You can tell a lot about a person by how they fight.
The type of fighter that spits out every nasty thing they can think of is not one that you really want to tangle with. If they are so good at being nasty now, it will only get worse later.
Another type of fighter that I don't think is a good partner is the kind who blames everything on you. "Yes, I know I didn't call. But whenever I do, you just get mad at me and I didn't want to argue so I just didn't call." He'll blame the fact that he didn't call on you. You might have gotten angry at him on the phone ONCE...and now it is his excuse never to call you again when he is out late.
Vex was a combination of these two fighter-types. If I tried to let him know that something bothered me, he would tell me everything I had done to deserve it. So, why would I complain? All that it accomplished was to have myself berated for a half an hour. Then, whatever I had to complain about sounded silly. My compaints about him not calling me from work anymore were nothing compared to his complaints that I was no fun. He would be sure to bitch about the things that I couldn't do anything about. I felt guilty enough sticking him with a sick wife, I didn't want to hear that I was no fun anymore and he knew that. Once again, I was effctively shut up. When I told him how insecure I was...he was sure to tell me what I had done to deserve said treatment.
Then he told me he missed "that confident young woman that I married."
Fights can be very healthy for a relationship, done properly. They are purgative and they do help us keep our self esteem. Those are the two main reasons to have fights. But if you are having fights and you feel WORSE after the fight is over, there is a problem. Fights are supposed to make you feel better about the relationship.
I lied to her once. Twenty years ago, before we were married. I think she never really trusted me after that.
Listen to this statement! I never truly trusted Vex after he lied to me. It doesn't matter how hard you try, if someone is a liar, you always have it in the back of your head that they could be lying. What a shame. I would love to have a relationship with someone who's word was as good as gold. Gold is easy, honesty isn't. If you have an honest partner, hold on tightly, that is quite rare. I can't tell you how nice it is to be completely honest all the time. If I were to tell a lie, I would always be afraid of letting something slip and having it give me away. There is so much less to remember by being honest. It might be hard to do at times, but find a way to do it. Two decent, honest people can work through anything. But there isn't anything that you can do with a liar because you never know what you are dealing with.
Well, I am going to go put some socks on...my feet are cold.
See ya soon.
Meg
posted by Meg Kelso | 6:23 AM
1 Comments:
Meg, I feel my marital problems are so trivial compared with yours that I almost feel guilty talking about them... but your insights are always interesting, and it's all grist to the mill : I suppose other people are learning things from our conversation. And I hope you get a boost out of the respect you inspire!
Anyway...
Why we didn't fight : (It's good to formulate this stuff, thinking it through makes it much clearer)
Very early in our relationship, I realised that any time I criticized her, she crumbled... she loved me very much, and was very fragile.
So I stopped criticising her. That wasn't hard : I'm very easy-going, she was lovable, and I loved her.
But that was a bad habit, in the end. She is not easy-going; she has high standards; there were always things to criticise about me. So it all got pretty one-sided over the years.
It wasn't even like I was bottling it all up: I got to the point where I couldn't even formulate a criticism of her in my head. Everything she did was fine with me. Meanwhile, since her criticisms didn't actually result in wholesale reform of my character and habits, frustration was building up on her side...
So, progressively, over the years, the classic thing happened : she became a nag, and I switched off. We saw it happening, and we hated it, but we didn't know what to do about it.
Hint : DON'T BE AFRAID TO GET PROFESSIONAL COUNSELLING! We could have patched it up.
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