Fighting fair. Not a spouse’s favorite saying when they are currently in the middle of “Who’s Gonna Win This Time” with their dreaded enemy of the moment.
Face it, any married human female whose spine isn’t yellow jello, wants to come out of the latest skirmish with a feeling of “Huh! Oh, yeah, I just showed him! He’s gonna learn sooner or later that he can’t walk all over me, even if he’s does have three doctoral degrees and bulging muscles that make him look like a balloon gone berserk.”
And the Intelligent Balloon? There is no way on this green earth that he’s going to allow himself to feel “less than,” by having to acknowledge defeat by that simple slip of a weakling, “who half the time can’t even open a new jar of peanut butter without my help.”
Not a thought will enter either of their little minds about “I need to be careful what I say and how I say it. The last thing I need to do is wound the sensitive ego of my spouse.” Nope, when the battle lines are drawn, that sharp sword known as the tongue suddenly comes into play and eager hot words start spewing. Absolutely no holds barred.
Have you ever noticed that when you get into an argument with your loved one that your ‘sword’ becomes noticeably looser and a lot sharper? The brain kicks into high gear, and every idiotic action and every hurt you’ve ever suffered at their hands suddenly is instantly accessible from your memory bank. To be retrieved at the perfect moment, locked and loaded and ready for bear.
Want a ‘for instance?’ You find yourself smack in the middle of fighting to the death to win the argument of “I know good and well that it was your turn to ______ (fill in the blank) but it’s just like the last time, when you said “I forgot.” Well, you always ‘forget!’ When are you gonna grow up?!”
Like I said, locked and loaded and ready for bear. And even if you do have a vague sense of “I think I might halfway remember something about learning a lesson from our last battle, that I was going to handle things a little differently the next time.” The next time never happens. The age-old I Wanna Win! kicks in, and your good intentions slide quickly down the drain to Never-Never Land.
If you don’t recognize and laugh at yourself when you read this column, then you are one of two things: You are not human. Or you are not married. Marriage is not easy, it is the joining of two strong-minded, self-centered people. Who are then supposed to coexist peacefully in the same household. And the only way that can ever happen – the peaceful part – is to strong arm into a dark corner that part of yourself that insists on winning the argument every time. And if both of you will do that, your marriage stands a fighting chance. No pun intended.
