One of the things that makes me a mediocre mom is my mediocre spouse skills. A lot of people envy Richard's and my marriage. I know they do because they tell me. So I thought I'd clarify a few things:
1. Richard and I do have a good marriage, but it's not an easy marriage. We work hard and yet still fight about the same things we did before we were even engaged 10 years ago!
2. Our marriage may seem ideal to some because we try to not publicly humilate each other. (i.e. Air our dirty laundry in public). This isn't because we want to be fake, but because we want to respect each other. Our closest friends will tell you we're pretty authentic people and that our marriage is far from perfect!
So while Richard does a lot to contribute to our mediocre marriage, I'll stick with mostly my own faults in this post. Last night Richard and I had it out - again. After I got settled down and was thinking and talking more clearly, I pointed out to him that our marriage tends to run in a cycle.
A cycle that usually starts with me going psycho. Something happens and I finally lose it. I'm not going to say I don't have justifiable reasons for feeling stressed, overwhelmed, neglected, shut-out, alone, etc. I think most moms, and in particular stay-at-homes, will attest to these feelings. I adore my children, but I'm an educated, intelligent, attractive, and interesting person and that part of me longs for an outlet beyond negotiating bargaining agreements over the current object of debate. This morning it was a Dr. Seuss book. Eventually, all those feelings boil over.
And, I lose it. I don't just a little bit lose it either. I a lot lose it. Somehow, in my years of studying psychology and working with people, I managed to never learn how to give myself a time-out to collect my thoughts and present them in a reasonable manner. I drop words a sailor would be proud of and in general make an idiot out of myself.
I'll also say in almost 8 years of marriage Richard has yet to figure out how to say, "Kendra, go calm down and then we'll sort this out." Instead, he chalks my actions up to pregnancy or post-pregnancy or PMS hormones and psychotic tendencies, and usually turns the heat up instead of down by making me feel dismissed. The expression "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" is probably the of the most accurate cliche expressions we have. On our good fight days, I'm able to bring it down and express why I'm not just crazy, but on our worst, one of us usually leaves that house in fit of rage.
Usually, we eventually talk things out, work through our frustrations and come up with a reasonable plan. If you've been keeping track, that's phase three of the cycle. Phase 4 is a couple of really great days, maybe even weeks! Phase 5 is the plan falling by the wayside and my feelings of bitterness, resentment, jealousy, anger, and so on turn the heat back up.
Sigh. I guess if I wasn't so mediocre we could land on phase 4 a lot longer and skip parts of phase 1 and phase 2 altogether. I also wish I could say my mediocre marriage skills didn't attribute to my mediocre motherhood skills, but they do. I don't line up a babysitter when I feel phase 5 coming to an abrupt meeting with phase 1. I don't calmy suggest to Richard that he should join me in our bedroom with the "talking stick" suggested in our pre-marriage counseling. Nope, instead we duke it out the old-fashioned way, and on good fight days, the kids don't end up crying too.
[I just proofread this and it made me sad. I thought about adding an ending that would make it more cheery, but it's an ugly truth and there's no point in putting frosting on it. Maybe I'll focus on working on solution for this, and in a few months do a Grit_Spit_DuctTape post].
Shocking ;)
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