How to speak your voice: part 1
The vast majority of people come to this site for marriage advice. During the past few weeks, however, I’ve been blogging about anything but marriage. I’ve done this, mostly, because I’ve had some things to say about happiness, and also because happiness and marriage are massively interlinked.
That said, I’ve mostly done it because my husband has been a doll lately, and I’m somewhat cognizant of the fact that most people don’t want to read about my husband being a doll.
Thankfully for the success of this blog, he wasn’t a doll over the weekend.
Some background for those of you who are new here: Every marriage has a flash point issue. Ours is this: my husband is a colossal slacker. It’s a genetic disease. Really. It is. He did a extremely effective job of hiding this from me until after I agreed to marry him, though.
During our early marriage, his slackerness was just a minor annoyance. Then, in 2001, he lost his job. He remained unemployed until 2004, when I became pregnant and suggested he might get a job so I could take some time off once the baby arrived. He interpreted, “please get a job” this way: “Please open a business that requires you to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week for no pay.”
Things got pretty bad after that, especially whenever, after a day of me writing book chapters with a fussy baby attached or one boobie or another, I would ask him to take over for a while and he would respond, “I really would like to ride my bike.”
We’ve since worked things out. Somehow, he has transformed from a “Takes Advantage of His Hard Working Wife” slacker into a doting father and husband who knows that, “I need help” has only one answer and it’s this: “I’ll be right there! And you are looking so skinny today. Have you lost weight?”
Somehow, over the past few days, though, something has caused him to regress. I’m not sure what exactly did it, except that, perhaps, Mercury is in Retrograde.
Anyway, his fall from Doting Husband Grace started Friday night, when he informed me that he would be at work for most of the day Saturday. This annoyed me because we’d agreed long ago that he would no longer work weekends. Yet he seems to still be working them. I wasn’t quite sure when or how that happened, but I made a mental note to discuss the matter, yet again.
It must be said that I was also annoyed because I had plans to take our daughter to visit her grandparents on Sunday, which meant that I would get no time to myself all weekend. Yet, he would get the entire day off on Sunday.
It just didn’t seem fair, you know?
On Saturday night, he asked me, “When are you leaving tomorrow?”
I said, “I don’t know. Maybe around 11.”
He said, “Can I leave for a bike ride around 10?”
Now, you must understand that I hate his bike (all 13 of them) with a vengeance that most women reserve for “the other woman.” The thoughts that ran through my mind are as follows and I quote: “No you can’t [expletive deleted for the benefit of those of you who are offended by such things] ride your bike at [expletive deleted again] 10. You have all [numerous expletive deleted] day to ride your [expletive deleted] bike. Why do you have to [expletive deleted] ride your bike during the few hours that could possibly be my time, the time I need to do something for me, like go for a run or walk or—God forbid—sleep in?!”
I said: “I’d like to go for a run in the morning. I haven’t had any time to myself all weekend. Can’t your ride wait til after 11?”
He said: “How about 10:30?”
I thought: “I wish you would just drop dead already.”
I said: “No, sweetie, you have all day. What’s wrong with 11?”
He made one of those I’m Six Years Old and I Have a Mean Mommy faces, the precise type of face that would have caused me—years ago—to feel sorry for him and give in.
I thought: “Oh come on. That crap stopped working on me long ago. You are the luckiest man in the world to be married to me and you know it. And if you don’t know it, you are welcome to go live on your own for a while and see how you like it.”
That was that.
Flash forward to Sunday morning. On my way out the door, I asked, “Hey, can you please go to the grocery store today. I can’t do it because I’ll be at my parents’ all day, and we’re out of shampoo, conditioner, and hand soap, among other things. There’s a list on the fridge.”
He said something to the effect of, “I’m not sure I’ll have time.”
I don’t even want to go into what I thought at that point. Let’s just leave that between God and me. I said: “It’s 11 a.m. You have all day to yourself. The only thing on your to-do list is a bike ride. I think you can fit it in.”
As I drove to Delaware, I felt smug. I congratulated myself for speaking my voice in a very, calm way.
Still, I had that feeling. Perhaps you’ve had it before. It’s the feeling that says, “My husband is about to screw up in a big way, and I’m about to regret ever marrying him.”
I hate that feeling. It is ALWAYS a harbinger of a bad husband to come.
Ten hours or so later, I was back. I couldn’t help myself. I peeked in the fridge. I didn’t see anything new inside, but my husband, at times, has been known to not understand that when I say, “Can you go to the grocery store?” I mean, “Can you go there and buy enough food for us to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner for at least four days.” Sometimes, he thinks it means, “Buy what’s on her list, and then stop at the beer store on the way home.”
I think I forgot to tell you that the snowstorm of the century was supposed to hit that evening. That’s an important detail.
I asked: “Did you go to the store?”
He said: “No, I didn’t have time. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
I said: “You had 10 hours to yourself. You didn’t have time? What* did you do while we were gone?”
* Note: I felt especially proud of myself for not saying the phrase “in the hell” after the word “what.”
Him: “I rode my bike for 6 hours.”
Me: “But what did you did at night? You still had the evening.”
Him: “I went to the Brew Works. They had dollar beers. I was trying to save us money.”
And just like that, I thought: “I knew it! I knew it! This was all a cruel trick. You’ve just been pretending to be a better father and husband. You are still a useless slacker whose only purpose in life is to take advantage of your hard working wife. You have not changed at all! I should have kicked your sorry rear end to the curb long ago!”
I said: “Okay Frank the Tank*, we’re getting 10 inches tonight. I cannot take a day off from work tomorrow. If preschool is canceled, I need you to take the day off and deal with that—and you need to take her to the store with you.”
* Note: to understand why I called him Frank the Tank, you need to watch the movie Old School.
He said: “I will. I will! I will do it all tomorrow. I’ll clean the house. I’ll get to the store. I’ll take care of Kaarina. No worries! I’ll get it all done.”
I thought: “I’ve heard that before,” and then I closed my eyes and started plotting all of the ways he could possibly drop dead.
This morning, I got out of bed at 7:30. He kept sleeping.
Because I am generally still a morning person despite two years of massive sleep deprivation, I usually get up first. Usually, I am a loving wife and I close the bedroom door so the noise my daughter and I invariably make does not wake him.
This morning I did not close the door. I also got quite creative with my noise making.
He got up about 20 minutes later.
He started making pancakes and asked if I wanted any. I said, “No, if I eat pancakes in the morning, it makes me tired all day long.”
He said, “Oh, I didn’t know that.”
I thought, “Of course you didn’t because you apparently don’t care about me at all. That’s quite evident. Why would you even notice that I eat eggs every single day for breakfast? I only eat pancakes or oatmeal or cold cereal or any other option when we’re out of eggs!”
Thankfully, for him, eggs were not one of the items on my grocery list. We still had a dozen.
I noticed him taking clean dishes out of the dishwasher and putting them away. My husband is the type of person who puts dirty things into devices that turn dirty things into clean things, but he is not the type of person who—generally—removes clean things from such devices and puts them back where they belong. Putting things away has been my job for so long that my husband never looks for things when he needs them. Instead he asks my questions like , “Where’s the mustard?” If I’m feeling kind, I find it for him. If not, I say something sarcastic, such as, “Where do you think a normal human being might store mustard?”
I could go on, but I’m really off topic here, aren’t I? The point is this: him unloading the dishwasher and putting clean dishes away meant just one thing. He was pleading for clemency.
I wasn’t in a forgiving mood, though. I stood there with my arms crossed over my chest. I watched him. I thought, “We’ll have to talk about yesterday’s bike ride and beer night, but we won’t do it now because, if we do it now, our daughter might learn a whole bunch of new words that I don’t want her to learn. No, we’ll do it later, when I can talk about it calmly.”
Then I went to my computer to write this blog. As I was writing “Frank the Tank,” he asked me if I could tell him the location of my car keys.
I said: “No, you’ll have to find them yourself. I’m busy.”
Then I felt a little guilty. I almost got up to help.
But I didn’t.
I did, however, promise myself that we would stay married. I promised to confront him about my anger, but I would do it later, when I wasn’t feeling so angry. I thought that I might even apologize for not helping with the “let’s find mommy’s keys” mission. I held out hope that we would come to a common understanding, that he would promise to turn back into the loving husband that I know and love. He would ban Frank the Tank from his genetic code, and he would never, ever again for the rest of his living days blow off going to the grocery store when asked.
And then I would allow myself to love him all over again.
Do you have advice for me that you think will make tonight’s confrontation go more smoothly? Am I being too hard on my husband, or should I whip his rear even harder and longer? Leave a comment.
Tomorrow: How to become someone who speaks her voice-but keeps the expletives to herself.
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March 2nd, 2009 at 11:14 am
The book Boundaries (Cloud & Townsend) or Boundaries in Marriage are really great books that can help craft responses to situations such as these.
He needs to take ownership of the issues and not “just to please” you. He has to do it because he wants to. The only way for that to happen is for him to feel the logical consequences of his actions. You will have to bite the bullet (and your tongue!) and deal with some inconveniences while he gets the message. He might have to get into the shower only to find there is *no* shampoo.
I do think, however, that asking him to do something on your way out the door might not have been entirely fair. True, he may not have had anything to do. But for someone with his tendencies, the more notice that can be given the better. It seems as though it was a “test” of some sort. You said you felt “smug”, you had a bad feeling & you checked up on him (peeked in the fridge) when you got home. It’s not entirely fair. When you had the initial discussion about the bike ride, that would have been the time for an, “oh, by the way, could you…” If he had said no, then he goes without. Yes, there was a snowstorm. Did you have basic necessities? If so, let him fall flat & feel the consequences.
I can see how frustrating this behavior could be over many years. But resorting to sarcasm and being snippy aren’t going to help in the long-run. Short-term, he unloaded the dishwasher, but it seems it was out of penance because he realized you were ticked off.
I hope things change for you both! Best wishes!
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Oh my, I think our husbands may be related! If you do find a good way of dealing with him, without the whole wishing to kill him thing, would you please share? I find that I need that myself.
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Maybe you should show him this blog. You explained all your feelings well here and that might give him a minute to digest it.
That is some self-centered behavior. I think there was a book by a Sea World trainer about partner training as killer whale training? You reward the good behaviors and ignore the bad. Personally I don’t think you should have to “train” another adult human being, but it’s something to think about.
If you can get a change overnight, you ought to write a book on how to do it; your complaints are legitimate and common among American men. Good luck!
March 2nd, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Mom Blogs – Blogs for Moms…
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March 2nd, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Hmm, another great book is “Two fleas, no dog” by Craig Hill – one you could both benefit from… and Fireproof Your Marriage – well it might open his eyes to how much he expects from you with no gratitude in return even.
It does sound like he was at least trying… and as if you, in your ‘tired of the slackard attitude’, were not rewarding his attempts. Guys esp. thrive on attaboys – thank yous- if we can learn to give them, even when part of us doesn’t feel like it… then they’ll improve by leaps and bounds.
You are spot on when you say you are going to way until the anger subsides. Probably would also help to swallow the sarcasm, and be a self sacrificial… one more time. (Actually we end up doing it ‘one more time’ over and over.)
I’ll tell you what has worked best for me is to put it on paper, and not be there when he reads it. He has the opportunity to process it without my emotions… and I have the opportunity to write it – and try to remove my emotions as much as possible. Hopefully at the end of the day, this will be an experience that draws you closer together – helps you understand one another more. My hubby and I have been married for almost 24 years and we are still learning how to communicate best with one another.
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:58 pm
I gotta tell ya, Alisa – I know it isn’t easy to speak your voice. Especially if you have been raised to believe that your voice meant nothing – that your opinions and feelings didn’t matter. You enter adulthood believing all that shit. And then you get married and the myth continues – you create what you know. I continued to believe that I wasn’t worthy – basically that my voice didn’t matter. I believe that my body was trying to tell me for years that I needed to change this behavior in myself, but I kept repressing it. I am now doing better with hearing my own voice, and speaking it. Good for you for being in the now and recognizing when you need to speak up, to set your own boundaries. Most men are wired differently than us gals, and I think they have an easier time speaking their voice – it’s like they are gender entitled, if you know what I mean! Thanks for your honesty, and your vulnerablity.
March 3rd, 2009 at 4:44 pm
[...] you started the series here, you were probably pretty confused. Go to How to Speak Your Voice Part 1 to read from the [...]
April 9th, 2009 at 9:17 am
[...] very recently, I would have told you that Speaking Your Voice would solve 90 percent of your marital issues. I assumed 10 percent of the time, it might be better [...]
December 19th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
I usually do not do commenting. but thanks for this great post and looking forward to more.
March 13th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Hey, excellent article! I will bookmark this one! Cheers