The Rock Squash

Well, I am in a poor mood. First, I have laryngitis and feel lousy. But more than that, I am angry and hurt by my wife. I think she has treated me quite unfairly and I dislike it enormously.

The situation is as follows and can be gleaned somewhat from the essay a few days ago as well.... I have been struggling with what to do about a national presentation I needed to give at a conference (this in effect is a publication of my work, and publishing my research work is important for my career, and my career is important for my family's livelihood). In the previous essay, I mentioned how I felt I was between a rock and a hard place. Well, no truer words were ever spoken. My wife was adamant about going to the conference with me (it was two days) and so I arranged it through very intensive, very energy draining work on my part (I had to arrange for care of an elderly parent... normally I perform the caregiving, but while at the conference I had to find another relative). The net effect is that through a very, very strenuous effort, I DID make it so my wife could go with me on this two day trip, I DID arrange care of the elderly parent, I DID arrange every thing for this trip... including preparing slides for the presentation and backup mechanisms as well. And I re-arranged my course load as well.

I would have thought this would be penance enough for all my sins, but of course not. The trip itself was very nice... we had a good time... and my talk was very well received.... in fact I was invited to give the talk at another national meeting in June and was asked to write my talk into an article for publication in an international journal of higher education. All very good things, correct? Yes. Or so I thought. We went home. There the trouble began.

After we arrived home, my wife started to develop her "mood". Even though I tend to not like using coarse words, when something like the "mood" feels so rude and coarse, I think those words are appropriate.... one of her "moods" is to be pissy about every damn thing, to show anger and disdain for everything that happens in our family, and to be rude and unpleasant about damn near every thing. As this is not a new thing, I have come to anticipate this crabbiness (other words could be substituted, but I dislike using them even if appropriate), although I dislike it enormously and become very sad and frustrated to my very core every time it happens. Yesterday, when I was feeling the worst from my laryngitis, she was acting out even more than before and I knew we were in for one of her stormcloud outbursts.

When my wife is in this "mood", the same exact pattern happens each and every time. 1) she is utterly pissed at me and at our life situation (which by the way I think is pretty damn decent), 2) she has to complain and describe how "a" or "b" was mean to her and how "a", "b", or "c" treated her like she was "stupid" or "unfit" or "uncaring" or something similar, 3) I try to gently explain how I see the situation differently from her and I believe that "a" or "b" or "c" was saying and meaning something very different. This leads to an argument where the first step is for my wife to holler/cry that I do not understand and that I do not treat her nicely and that no one "appreciates" her. I have to bite my tongue at this as I shower my wife with affection and care and when she is NOT IN HER MOOD she would agree that I am very affectionate and loving. My response to this is to try to reason with her and often it takes an hour or two of intense, very emotionally draining discussion and debate to get her to see the issue more clearly. Sometimes this happens in a few hours, sometimes in a few days. But most of the time she eventually returns to her senses and sees the situation more accurately. This almost always leads to 4) where she the sobs and cries nearly hysterically for at least an hour upwards to three or four where she is apologetic and feels she has "ruined" everything and that she does not know how she could have thought this or that about "a", "b", or "c" and that she wants me to forgive her. This eventually leads to 5) where she feels everything is resolved and in fact she usually says 6) "Oh, Honey, I feel so much better now, after getting that off my chest! I really do! It is so important for me to be able to talk these things out! I love you!"

By this time, my head is reeling and my mind spinning out of control because of the inundation of emotion from her and trying to deal with it, cope with it, fix it, and at the same time not become overwhelmed by it. Most of the time I lose... and I do feel like crap and overwhelmed because I do not understand the illogic of it all. Most of the time I would like to run away and go screaming through the streets or better yet get a fifth of scotch, but because I do not think it wise to drink when sad or upset about family, I do not do so. Instead, I typically go outside to an isolated area near the woods, and sit and think and smoke my pipe. Many times I cry, and I have big, salty tears stream into my moustache and beard. My tears are tears of frustration and anger and exhaustion. There is absolutely nothing more harsh and harder to deal with than her "mood", and there is absolutely no way for me to prevent it from occurring or to avoid the wrath of it.

The specifics this time... after all the enormous effort I went to, we had a wonderful time on our little "get-away" trip. Things were wonderful during the trip and during our return home. But then nearly from the moment we get home, the ugly "mood" rears its head. I tried to ignore it the first evening after my wife got utterly riled up about my asking a relative if she had any extra robotussin (she usually does and throws it away regularly to buy new) so I wouldn't have to make a special trip to buy some on the way home. For some reason this made my wife ballistic and she ranted on about how I should have "asked her first about the robotussin!" and that I "don't treat her right!" I could see the storm brewing and simply tried to let things slide in the foolish hope the "mood" might not continue. The second day I can tell the full gale-force winds of the "mood" are upon us and I steel myself for the impending storm. Last evening, as I sit, barely able to talk, it started.... 1) she is dissatisfied about near everything and states that the trip was "so good" that real day-to-day life seems so horribly sad in comparison, 2) she thinks my sister is saying negative things about her and how she does things, 3) I explain that my sister was not likely saying any such thing... first of all, my sister doesn't really give a care about any of the things my wife thinks she is being critical about, second, my sister has had enough hardships and issues of her own that the last thing she would do is criticize what happens in another family member's home. This leads to an argument where the first step is where my wife to hollers/cries that I do not understand her and that I do not "appreciate" her. I have to bite my tongue as best I can and do not try to swallow the bait. Eventually after about an hour and a half of talking, where I force myself to remain calm (which was especially hard this time because I felt so sick) and not respond to her rage and anger in kind, she begins to see how some of her thinking has been very unfair and illogical. She then starts 4) where she the sobs and cries nearly hysterically for roughly an hour where she is apologetic and feels she has "ruined" everything. This is followed by 5) & 6) where she feels everything is hunky-dorey now and she again comments on how she feels so much better.

Well, I feel quite angry about it, myself. First, I am angry at the number of hours I must spend dealing with her "mood". Second, I am getting very tired of her emotional outbursts that are built around illogic. Just because a person feels emotions does not mean she has the right to act out because of them. I am also angry that the supposed reason for the "mood" this time is because things were "so much better" on the trip than they are in real-life. That just makes me so frustrated and sad that I do not have any idea how to get beyond it. I also do not like that my hoisting all of her anger and rage upon myself to help her "deal" with it makes her feel so much better and yet makes me feel lousy as hell.

There... I have no idea if there is anything I can or should do about it. I think probably there is nothing to do about it other than what I normally do.... get away to the woods and smoke my pipe. But... it DOES HURT and it is NOT ENJOYABLE to live with.

PipeTobacco