When it comes to fighting, many women – and I include myself here – are blessed with a special skill.
We have the ability to maintain the rage, but hide it away for just the right amount of time so it can be released with maximum force at precisely the right moment.
This, my friends, is truly a gift.
Confession: my mastery in this department has fallen away a bit in recent times. When I was younger and unmarried, I had a boyfriend who did and said some pretty rotten things, usually at large social gatherings. I’d keep a straight, often giddy, face and say nothing. Until we got home.
And then I would unleash hell.
Ahh, those were the days…
But in my husband I’ve met someone who is my equal in the silent fight. We rarely have a balls-out, screaming, call-the-cops argument. We just keep quiet when things are amiss – but we are both so in tune with one another, we know the minute something is wrong. Neither wants to be the one to break, so there are nights of going to bed and retreating to our own side. Or conversing only in clipped sentences: “Your son just shat his pants”; “The toilet is blocked”.
Often, I wonder if this is healthy. I have girlfriends who pretty much just lay it all on the table. If something bothers them, in front of all and sundry, they will just have it out. This of course makes the people they’ve invited over for a BBQ a little uncomfortable.
But it got me wondering; is this way, their way, of having an argument, a healthier alternative?
A conflicted mum: ‘I can’t understand why it’s all about our kids.’
My biggest moment of suppressed anger started on December 2, 2006. Why do I remember this date? Oh no reason really, maybe only because it was the day before I gave birth to our 3rd child. I was about 100 years pregnant and ready to pop. It was my actual due date. It also happened to be the night of our annual street party. So, feeling fine, we walked up the hill to the party, socialised and I left my husband to cook sausages and shoot the shit, and took the other two children home around 10pm.
Around 2am, I heard the scraping of a badly maneuvered BBQ onto the deck, and felt my husband flop down beside me into the bed. That’s when the smell of a thousand beers hit me. Ha, I thought to myself, he’ll be unwell in the morning.
Around 3am I felt a twinge. Now, no matter how many babies you have given birth to, you still never quite remember the feeling of going into labour until it actually happens again.It’s nature’s version of temporary amnesia because clearly, without it, we’d never go back for more. So I felt it, and tried to ignore it. I mean, my husband was blotto, passed out beside me.
I did my best and held out until about 5am. That’s when I had to rouse him. To his credit, he sprung out of bed, I rang my best friend and she came to look after our other two children. We were on our way to the hospital by 6:30am. My son was born just after 8am. My husband was, at this point, fading fast. Here is a picture of him, having a little lie down with our son about 20 minutes after he was born. Because he was, and I quote, “a little bit tired”.
I had just done most of my labour at home, in silence (because apparently I’m now a Scientologist), not wanting to bother my pissed, irresponsible husband and he was a ‘LITTLE BIT TIRED’???
Here’s the thing. I didn’t even realise I was annoyed about this, nor did I particularly want to be. It just kind of snuck up on me. About a week later, when it all sunk in and I realised I was that mother whose husband was basically flammable in the delivery suite, I realised I had been sitting on a teensy bit of repressed anger. It might have been when he was relaying the story about how tired he was and how the day seemed to “drag on forever”.
It was about 10pm that night when he copped it.
5 reasons to upgrade your iPhone to iOS9 (even though you might be nervous).
Needless to say, four weeks later, when he was resting a pack of frozen peas on his testicles from the vasectomy he’d breezily put his hand up for, my sympathy levels were thin on the ground.
But all this silent seething can’t be healthy, right? Then again, having constant, screaming arguments can’t be the best avenue either.
According to Psychologytoday.com, people argue in many ways. And these are the most destructive:
• Stonewalling: total withdrawal and refusal to discuss the issue. Partner feels unvalued and unheard.
• Criticism: Commenting negatively on the other’s behaviour, over and above the current problem. ‘You’re always so forgetful.’ Partner feels attacked and threatened.
• Contempt: Sneering, belligerence or sarcasm. ‘You think you’re so clever.’ Partner feels humiliated and belittled.
• Defensiveness: Aggressively defending and justifying self to partner. ‘You haven’t got a clue just how much I have to remember every day.’ Partner feels attacked and the argument escalates.
They also warn that silent fights are just as dangerous as aggressive ones.
“When we resort to silence, we create an internal monologue, typically ascribing onto others our projection of how we assume they would respond if we actually shared our thoughts with them.” In other words, we play out an entire script in which their role is predetermined and they haven’t even had a chance to learn their lines.
Magda Szubanski: ‘I had to make peace with what my father had done.’
“In doing so, we are locked into a state of stagnation, the communication stalls and the relationship has little chance to evolve. In such situations, it ordinarily withers. There’s certainly no opportunity for resolution, let alone growth.”
So our passive aggressive, silent conflicts are doing as much damage as the scream-fest other couples maintain.
The best thing we can do is somehow, some way, find a middle ground and respectfully air our grievances.
But just a heads up, it’s probably also a good idea to stay relatively sober around your partner’s due date. Just saying.
So, do you maintain the rage? Or do you let fly in situ? Or a little bit of both?
DEBRIEF DAILY