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My Profile
She blinded him with whiteness - 2008-07-25
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10:22 a.m. - 2008-04-10
Gads, I'm exhausted. Mick and I have been 'working on our communication skills'. Fighting is tiring work. So far our fights have always been about something concrete and we've always talked them out to a satisfactory conclusion. No fight yet hasn't led to a better understanding between us and this is great. Nothing worse than wrangling over the same thing over and over and getting nowhere. Still and all, it's tough hacking through the tangles of fear and prior rotten experiences with former mates. Bad, too, is that he and I tend to come at things from completely opposite directions. It also doesn't help that at the first sign of trouble Mick goes bullshit with panic. One cannot talk to and negotiate with a panicked person. Mick goes on full red alert scramble and is so busy throwing up defenses and freaking out he can't hear me. He latches onto stupid stuff and blusters, nitpicks, and does everything he can to deflect things away from the subject at hand. Insists on pulling me into idiot go-rounds about how and why I said something rather than listening to what is actually being said. Meaning and listening for context goes right out the window and he turns into Mick the Mad Grammarian insanely parsing my words and completely ignoring the real point of things. Drives me batty and eventually gets my dander up because I'm so frustrated with his stonewalling that I start hissing and go all razor tongued. This in turn freaks him out even more and…well, you can see how what should be a simple 10 minute back and forth turns into an epic battle that takes half the night to resolve. But resolve things we do. Slowly it's dawning on Mick that a successful relationship doesn't mean there's never any problems or fights, a successful relationship means those wrangles and upsets are hashed out until we're both satisfied we've been heard and understood. Progress and a deeper understanding and clarifying what our relationship is are what we want. It's vital we come out of a fight with a clearer picture of what we are to each other and what we can expect to happen in the future. This is what makes a great marriage, not some dopey pie-in-the-sky idealized endless lovefest with zero hassles and nothing but tweety birds and fluffy bunnies. Only way that could happen is with double frontal lobotomies and a Thorazine drip for two. Here in the real world two people who love each other understand it's impossible for both of us to be on the same page about every single thing every single minute of the day for the whole rest of our lives. Real life successful couples agree that when we stumble on one of those relationship monsters we talk about it. Talk, fight if necessary, but drag the thing into the light and either tame it and make it work or we throw its ugly ass out with the trash. Lord knows I understand how hard it is to fight constructively. How difficult it is to use your 'I' words and keep a level tone when what you really want to do is shriek like a harpy and open your beloved's skull with a bat. But you really can stay on this side of bloodshed if the will is there. If you keep your intensions clear in your mind about what it is you hoped to get out of the discussion and remembering you wouldn't bother to fight with someone you didn't believe in. You have a future with this person so be as kind and as fair as possible. The momentary satisfaction of nuking someone's self-esteem is eventually deadly. Just like radioactive fallout, the lingering poison of too mean a remark will kill. Some low blows never heal. I don't think I'm soooo wise, you know. I think a lot of my 'bravery' in fighting the clean fight comes from being well armed. I'm confident I could get my way so I'm not desperate to prove myself. I feel like a black belt who knows she can kill her opponent with one punch. I can opt not to go there because I am assured I could end it anytime I want with one swift cut of my tongue. I am strong in the Force. This nets me nothing in the long run though. Sure, I could 'win' that way, but it would definitely be a case of prevailing in one battle but losing the war. What would I be doing to our relationship if I kept taking Mick out with accurate, but needlessly cruel remarks? What exactly would I be winning if I made my man feel like shit? Eventually I'd kill my marriage and is that what I truly want? So I try very hard to keep my temper and my lethal weapon tongue in check and stay focused on both of us coming out of a fight feeling like winners. It is exhausting though. I'm going back to bed now.
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