Day 9 - New Content attempt

Species of fights?

There is a species of fight in which a person does not know who to “be” in front of other people, and thus ends up pissing off their partner in some extreme way.

I will try to explain it, but might explain it badly.

So let’s suppose that you are having people over for dinner. One of the husbands gets drunk and starts talking about how great the sex is with his wife back home. Your own wife tells him that this is not okay and asks him to apologize for talking this way.

Depending on what kind of guy you are, and what you think of yourself, you might either be indifferent, proud, or very sad about this. This depends on how you see yourself, how you see who you married, and how you see as your social posture towards the world outside of your dynamic.

The situation above is intentionally ambiguous.

If you thought that you married a feisty wife who stands up for people, then you might be proud of her. Her actions reflect well on you, your choices for marriage, your values.

If you thought that you married someone who is sex-positive and very chill, then you might be very sad. Her actions actually do not represent your values. You are find with this other guy talking up having good sex with your wife. You think people should brag. Maybe even you brag in this way yourself, and wish your own wife bragged about you this way too. That she is chiding this man, you are thinking maybe she does not talk you up this way when you are with other people.

I think a stunning number of fights can probably be reduced to something like this. A question or confusion or conflict between who you are, and who you want to be, as represented by something that the person you have chosen is doing.

Other conflicts can be directly about resources and energy management. Does your partner vacuum the house like they promised they would do when they said that you are okay with you guys having a cat so long as your carpets were vacuumed often? No you can’t just hire a cleaner unless he gets a raise because you can’t actually afford that. He promised that he himself would vacuum the carpets if you agreed to the cat. If now you have to vacuum the carpets to meet your own comfort standards, that is extra energy you are spending that you had already said you were not okay with spending, and you resent your partner for deciding something is more important than preventing this resentment by preventing this situation.

But then even sometimes conflicts that seem as straightforward as that end up being that stunning number of fights category. How did I manage to marry somebody who doesn’t respect me enough to vacuum, when vacuuming would help me be the stunning hot wife I want to be?

And so even that fight which seems clearly about resources, again turns into a fight about respect, and respect for a person’s desired way to be hot.