Duty, love, and attitude

[Crazy Eddie]

My understanding of humanity in general, and my wife in particular, continues growing.

The other day, a home maintenance issue came up. I had spent some time trying to fix it, with her helpful cooperation. But I had reached the end of my knowledge, and was just about to say that I had no choice but to call the repair guy, when she blew up at me before I'd had a chance to say or do any such thing.

With a vicious tone that I hadn't heard in quite a while, she told me that I'd better get off my ass and call the repair guy.

Now this time I was able to keep my wits about me, and use previous experience and new knowledge to guide me. Previous experience showed that complying with her orders would do me no good at all, and neither would any argument I could possibly offer... in both cases, she would fume for hours, angrily refuse to answer any questions or cooperate in any way, and generally act as if every move I made was unbelievably stupid and/or hurtful and furiously announce my incompetence to anyone within earshot.

So it was time to try something different. I calmly sat down at the kitchen table near her and started reading a book. It was a pretty good book, and I really got into it. I told her (not that I expected her to believe me or respond with anything but contempt, and I was right in that expectation) that I was just about to call the repair guy, but I couldn't do it now that she'd told me to in such a disrespectful way.

After about half an hour of silence, I decided I could freely take care of business without suffering the penalty associated with following her orders. I looked for the phone and couldn't find it, so I found my cellphone, called the repair guy from the bedroom, and left a message.

By the time he called back, she had come in and started softening! She admitted that she HID THE PHONE FROM ME when she saw that I was about to start looking for it, and said she wasn't going to answer it when it rang, because she was going to "get me back". (For what?) When it rang, she gave it to me and I answered it and she cooperated fully and cheerfully, and was once again my partner rather than my prosecutor.

So what set her off? According to alpha man theory as I understand it, I lost a lot of points by (a) being unable to fix the problem myself and (b) being unhappy about calling the repair guy and spending the money... money simply isn't a problem for the ideal alpha man; he can get a better job (that doesn't require more hours, mind you) or take better care of the finances. So I let her down. But at least I didn't let her walk all over me, which won me some points and got her back on board a lot quicker than usual.

I still find myself wishing that she could just cooperate with me when things go wrong without sniffing for the slightest hint of frustration or fear on my part and viciously pouncing on it and derailing any possible response for a while. But it seems I might as well wish for a lottery victory while I'm at it.