Ok ....she calmly told me that I had left the fan on in the guest room overnight.
....I hate how I will do things like leave the lights on all the time. I more hate how this is a pet peeve of hers. Sometimes I feel like our lives are just a list of pet peeves to be broken.
The worst part is her insistence on somehow punishing me for those pet peeves, whether it's yelling or becoming less emotionally available.
...To be honest I have been slipping on sOme stuff around the house, and she hasnt blown up. Which is really good.
...One of the things she wanted for me to change was for me to not be so absent minded. Now I know this sounds ridiculous but it is a real problem for me. My parents and even my coworkers have complained about it in the past.
...It's something I want to work on M or not. Hate doing things like losing my keys, or leaving doors unlocked, or leaving the milk out, or not changing the toilet paper roll....
First, unless the price of electricity (or air conditioning) is sky high where you live or she is an environmental green-freak committed to doing everything to save the planet, leaving the fan on all night is in the grand scheme of things...NO BIG DEAL.
The following is unsolicited free advice and probably worth what it will cost you. It may not work for you, but it is offered as something that might help. It is also probably way to long and detailed, but hey it was theraputic to confess to some of these things.
It might be a big deal to your wife if money is extremely tight and other things will be sacrifced because of the energy cost wasted on the fan. It might be a big deal if someone is incredibly concerned about their carbon footprint and the environment.
However, more likely is that it is a "control" thing that she learned from her parents. It was the way the mom and dad interacted with each other and their kids. Her image of what family life should be was imprinted on her and you are now the one she is teaching how a family is to behave.
Punishing for violating a pet peeve is childish, but it happens. I now it happens because I have had to deal with that basic issue in my family because of my upbringing.
My wife and kids use to leave certain bathroom fans and lights on all the time and it drove me nuts. My initial solution was to yell at them, it didn't work. My ultimate solution was to go to the hardware store and buy 15 to 30 minute rotary spring switch timers that I wired into the wall switchboxes where the on/off switch had been. My dad use to raise hell when I was a kid (because we had NO money) when lights were left on or fans were left running. It was what I learned when I grew up, I couldn't change the feeling (Conditioned response), but I could stop the yelling.
If the fan or lights are a big issue at your new residence, ask her if your putting in timed switches would solve the problem from her perspective? There are even motion sensor light switches that detect if people are in the room and shut off when folks have left. There are also clock timers that you can plug into wall outlets and then plug portable appliances into (I have some that we plug Christmas Tree lights into each year.) This type of thing is a problem that technology can solve and remove it from an area of conflict between the two of you.
The problem that technology can't solve is the one of pet peeves and needing to have her views dominate things. A marriage is about compromise. Often the people with the least power, need to feel like they have control. This may be your wife's situation (or not).
In the weekend workshop that my wife and I went to with Dr. Gottman, his wife and staff on marraige, they had a very good session on defining what was "really" important to you and how to negotiate for it. A couple of lessons that I learned are (1) that some things are just irrational needs and any attempt at rationally discussing them is doomed to failure from the beginning, (2) if I expect to rationally negotiate my wife out of a long held position, I need to understand and be able to articulate her reasons as well or better than she does.
Let me repeat that last one a moment. I need to really listen to why my wife is for or against something. I have to listen and understand her until I can argue her reasons as well or better than she can. Then and only then will I be able to provide rational arguments as to why something else may be as good or equivalent. This means we need to have discussed something a lot, without me having tried to change her mind, but just listened and validated to make sure I understood her position. That makes her feel that her views are important and not something to be buldozed over.
Let me digress further at this point for a moment. Different cultures and ethnic backgrounds handle conflict, negotiations and finding the right answer differently. You might want to consider your wife and your background in this as well. For example, the way engineers "design" a solution in the USA and in Japan is very different. In the USA about 20% of the time is spent on defining the design problem. Most of the design time is spent on brainstorming alternate solutions, collecting data, fleshing out the one or two most promising alternate solutions and choosing the "best" solution. In Japan about 90% of the time is spent on discussing and defining the problem. The problem is discussed in such detail that there is only one solution that can meet all of the problem criteria. The two systems are not really compatable or suitable to compromise.
For the irrational things, it comes down to either a power struggle, an exchange, compromise or a bribe, if you want to change things.
Let's say her "stated concern at the moment" is that the electricity costs money or damages the planet. Then work with her on relamping your house with CFC's that use less electricity and do some plumbing insulation to save more energy or plant a CO2 eating tree. Then suggest that some of the energy saved can go to an occasional light left on. Or put things on timers.
If it is not about money or some rational reason, tell her that for everytime you leave a light on, you will take her out for ice cream or something important to her that isn't something you normally do. Tell her that you will wash the dishes the next day. What ever it takes to make the point of argument go away.
Again, differnt approaches may work better for you and your wife, but hopefully, I have given you a few ideas on possible approaches that you can try or modify for your circumstances. I don't have all the anwers, but I have some approaches that work for me that I have collected over 39 years of marriage.
I use to forget where I put my keys, wallet, or cell phone or forget to take one of them in the morning. Since my cell phone needs to be charged each night. I put them all together in the same place each night when I plug in my cell phone immediately after getting home. If I take one, I take them all, always. That way I can't start my car in the morning without having looked at my wallet and cell phone and picked them up as well. As had been suggested rituals and organization help.
If your wife has really "strict" pet peeve list and you don't want to or cann't change it, you might want to sit down with her and develop a couple of "check lists" that you can make copies of. A going to be check list, (back door locked, kitchen window closed & locked, front door locked, dishwasher turned on, TV off, milk put away, etc.) and a going to work check list or just got home check list.
Ultimately if you and your wife go to counseling, you can bring these things up at that point and hopefully the counselor will help you work something out. Telling her that you feel awful about what happened recently and would like to try to have the two of you work out a solution with a marriage counselor could be a good attempt at getting that started.
Again, you might not need such things, but you were the one who said you wanted to work on this. I have rambled too much already.
Good luck, as usual focus on good times and visualize a happy future. Keep working on you GAL and DB'ing.
>43 years of marriage--My wife and I are now closer than we have been in decades. I believe that my SSM is over.
