The other week my wife came up to me and said, “I was reading your new book,” and not in the “And I couldn’t want you more after reading your brilliance” kind of way. It was actually hard to read her (unlike my book, which is definitely not academic (aka boring)). She then added, “The first year our oldest was born, did I really treat you like my emotional punching bag?” So she was definitely not in the “And I couldn’t want you more” category. To be honest, I have a terrible memory for what I say and write because my brain follows Elsa’s advice, “Let it go…” Why? Because I say some pretty dumb things, so it’s best I let it be gone. It definitely sounded like something I would’ve written and in the moment thought “this isn’t at risk of getting me in trouble,” until it’s presented back to me and then I’m like “Oh shoot, did I write that? I can see how that could be hurtful now that you’ve mentioned something. Oopsies. How are you at obeying Elsa?”
In that moment I didn’t know how to react. Do I apologize? Do I run away and change my name if I want to stay alive? After pausing, my wife continued, “I’m sorry.” What? That was not what I was expecting. Apologies are not her go-to, you know like a normal woman. (Does that count as one of those dumb things I say?). My wife was genuinely concerned about that experience, but she was also confused and a little hurt, hence my unableness to read her. (I’m better at making up words like “unableness” than reading people.) She remembered the first year of our eldest’s life from a very different perspective (as you’d expect). To summarize her sharing, she felt like I had abandoned her because I was rarely there for her and the baby and anytime I was, in her memory, I was writing and doing my own thing. She even pointed to a picture on the wall when our daughter was at least eight months where I was holding her my wife claimed was the first time I was holding her by my own choice. It really is amazing how two people can have very different perspectives of the same situation, especially husbands and wives, which is a fact I have to continually remind myself listening as a therapist: “Either this person has a biased memory (and the other person has a very different story) or this person married a serious jerk. If they married a jerk, were they blind to the jerkiness in some way or did something happen to make the partner a jerk?” This is the same kind of thinking every good listener should be considering when listening to a friend share a story about their spouse. It’s incredibly easy to jump on board the “That person is a jerk” bandwagon and that might help validate the person’s feelings, but sometimes that reinforces the person complaining’s own bad behavior that is fueling what the “bad” partner is doing. Ultimately, if someone is being a jerk, we’ve done or doing something wrong, which might be our attitude or being around someone who is too tired or hungry to be their nicer selves. The basic translation of that is if my partner is angry at me, I’m doing something wrong I should change in the future (or I’m misreading the situation, and they’re not angry at me and angry at something else).
In this situation, my wife did pretty good not to ramble or go on a tangent of criticism while I was good at letting her share and then summarizing it for her into a sentence when she was done: “So that first year you felt I had abandoned you,” which helped her feel understood Over the last few years I’ve been really working on listening to my wife’s stories and not nitpicking what she’d say and correct her on relevant details she’d have wrong… you know, like a guy. Why is that? Men tend to remember the facts while women tend to remember the situation from how it felt. Basing a story on how it felt can create quite the dramatic scenarios. I’m not saying all women are dramatic and guys aren’t, but there is a pattern where that’s often the case. When a woman is better at remembering the facts and not the emotion, she’s awesome. When a guy remembers the emotion and not the facts, he’s the worst. It’s funny how being different than the stereotype doesn’t make both sides awesome; just the one.
Because men are more fact based, one of their greatest challenges for listening to their wives share a story is holding back from correcting them. It took me a long time to figure this one out and even longer to do it. Women are great at remembering details like what colour someone’s shoes were or how nice the napkins looked, but they tend to be terrible for getting the actual facts of the story wrong while guys are the opposite: (guy) “What sane person cares about the shoes and napkins? Oh, right; sorry. I say dumb things.” I might remember the facts, but I look like more of a jerk by correcting my wife rather than letting her share the story about me doing something jerkish. What’s frustrating is if I don’t correct her after she’s done the story I look like I’m agreeing with what she shared and thereby look like a jerk. If I say something like “That’s not how I remember it,” I can still look rude: (other person) “You’re just saying that because you don’t want to look bad.” No matter what I do, it’s likely a lose situation. The best thing a guy can hope for is the people listening don’t jump on the “your husband’s a jerk bandwagon,” or we can give some type of lighthearted joke to lighten the moment.
From my experience as a therapist, it’s normal for couples to find the first born the hardest. I’ve been with my wife over 17 years, and the first year our eldest was born was by far our worst. My wife had our third baby five months ago and she’s way better now as a mom of a baby than with the first one. She gets a fraction of the sleep she had with the first, but she seems to have more energy. She gets a fraction of my help with the baby because I’m busy with the older two and she couldn’t care less. Because the middle daughter doesn’t start school until the fall, she’s been at home with my wife, so it’s much more challenging to get out to stores or to get things done than with the first one, yet my wife is waaaaaayyyyy happier. As a dad, I changed a lot of diapers with the first one. I even got poop exploded on once while trying to change her around the four month mark, so it was still a melted, yellow crayon look. With the second, I changed a few diapers, but I was mostly playing with the first born. With the third, I don’t even know what changing a diaper is (it’s pretty sweet). Why? Because my wife’s so in love with the baby phase she’s simply enjoying the experience and not putting unnecessary pressure on herself to be perfect. It’s incredible how much better it is now with a third than it was with the first.
You want to know how much easier going my wife is? The other day I was watching my daughter while trying to get clothes for my four year old. I rarely watch the baby and this five minutes with her was the longest I’ve ever been in charge of her. I put my baby on the bed about a foot from the end, turned to the dresser and then only a few seconds later I turned back to see the baby hanging waist down off the bed. Before I could say, “Oh, no!” she did a front roll onto the carpet floor. It was not a great moment (as you can guess). My wife heard the thud and the baby crying after and if you can believe it, she didn’t put me in the hospital. When I confessed what happened, my wife was fine. If that happened with my first? I would not be here to write this lesson. Third time is definitely a charm.
So back to the original story. My wife and her sister have this crazy ability to relive the moment when they start to tell a story no matter how old it is. That means my wife started to get heated like we were back six years ago, but she was thankfully very good to let me interrupt her. She was also very good to listen after I asked if I could point out a few important details she forgot. (It’s always good to ask permission before correcting someone). For instance, at that time I worked in an office and not at home, which meant leaving the house around 11:30am and then not getting home until 9:40pm. I work more now, but it feels different because I work from home and I’m around. Even better, if I have a no-show I can spend that time with the family unlike when I was in the office. I also pointed out that I do the same amount of writing as I did back then with my weekly lessons and book writing. It felt like I was always writing back then, however, because instead of a handful of weddings like I have this year, I had around 35, which means about five hours of writing a wedding and then the time to travel and perform it. That was a lot of time, but it helped fill in the financial gaps – it was work and not me having fun. My wife had a hard time accepting this different information, but she was good to not get defensive. As the more fact based person, I gave my wife some facts to consider when she was in the mindset to listen (that’s an important note), but it’ll be up to her to decide how she wants to continue remembering that situation. She can either feel resentment toward me for not being home more even though I had no choice or she can see how that first year was very difficult for both of us. Even though I claimed my wife used me as her emotional punching bag, I don’t see myself as the good one and her as the bad. I see her as being someone like me who was struggling to handle the major life change of having a baby on top of healing from a traumatic c-section surgery, having readjusting hormones, and not fitting into her clothes the same. Apparently having a living creature be created and taken out of you can be hard on a woman. I fully believe my wife and I did the best we could with what we had. It wasn’t easy, but this is all we can ask of each other. There is no bitterness in my heart from that time. It’s just the fact it was the hardest year of our relationship. Hopefully see it as the same, but that’s out of my control (unlike the thermostat).
This week may you consider how you remember the story and use it to better yourself rather than give reason for bitterness to grow.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)