Back to the recurring problem again: we’ve all got at least one of those, don’t we?
Ours: the never-occurring house extension.
I feel like you’ve heard it all before, so I’ll give you the short, dot-point version:
Problem: I needed Tim to make a phone call to a plumber.
– We made a plan together, where I would contact the drafties and he would call the plumber about septic alterations.
– Weeks go by, reminders are issued, plumber not called.
– Camilla getting desperate.
– I think about reminding him again. The timing always seems inconvenient. (He doesn’t want to call workmen after hours out of respect for them, he is too busy to call them when he’s work.) So I put it off until I’m really pissed off.
– Tim takes a day off work to fix his car.
– I feel bad asking him on this day as I know he’s pushing to get it done. But I think, it’s never going to happen otherwise.
– I go ask him if he’s made the call around lunchtime.
– He says “not yet”.
– I say “Can you please do it tomorrow, or …(hopefully)… today?”
– He says, dismissively, “maybe”.
– I say angrily “This is not ok! You can’t keep putting it off! Can we please make time to talk about this tonight!?”
– He says “yeah”.
– I start walking away, very pissed off and hurt, knowing nothing’s going to change.
– I have taken about 5 steps and realise that I’m crying and making internal plans to give him the silent treatment so he realises how much he’s hurt me.
– But then, I remember that this never works. I know what I should do: rather than showing the anger and hiding the pain, I should show him the pain under the anger.
[As women we don’t like to do this for two reasons: one – it is frightening to expose your heart in this way, especially when it feels like he already doesn’t even care enough about me to make a simple phone call. Two: it feels manipulative to use tears to get what you want. But trust me, it is far more manipulative to use ongoing resentment. Tim and I have discussed this, and he also agrees that he prefers what he might see as a wild overreaction in the moment (which I see as me showing how I actually feel) than long, drawn-out silent-treatment in the future]. Feminine state involves feeling what you’re feeling now, letting it show and pass, rather than holding on to or repressing it. I need to have faith that he cares about me more than anything else (even if it feels like there’s no supporting evidence of that right now).
– I go back and let him him see the pain in my eyes.
– I say “please”.
– He softens and says “ok”.
– I’m not sure what he’s saying “ok” to, since I just said a random “please” that doesn’t have any context, but I feel like he understood this time and I let go of the plans to punish him later and enjoy the rest of my day. I think we’ll talk about it tonight.
– Tonight, I ask him to talk about it.
– He says, he’s already made the call!
– I let it show how happy I am that he’s done it and appreciate him for doing it.
– Mission accomplished! We both get what we want – I get what I asked for and know that he loves me enough to do this on a day when he really doesn’t want to. He feels like a man who knows how to make is wife happy!
Tune in next time when I need him to call the Engineer…
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little words 