Marriage Tip # 2: "IF YOU GET HISTORICAL, YOU'LL GET HYSTERICAL"

(Marriage Tip #1: Shocking the Rat can be seen in an earlier post)

One of the funniest human quirks that keep marriages frozen in frustrating turmoil is a communication faux pas that everyone uses to their disadvantage. It’s what I call “historical recall.” By this I don’t mean dragging past sins up when arguing, like “don’t talk to me about disrespecting you when you committed the affair (ten years ago) on me and disrespected me, God, and our vows.” This type of historical recall is for another marriage tip, not today’s.

Let me set up a scenario that will help showcase the historical tip I’m addressing today, this one goes like this: A couple comes home from a party and the wife, Blanch, will say “I can’t stand the way you treated me at the party, you always do the same thing, you never change, you disgust me,” then the Blanches husband Billy will say “What are you talking about, don’t talk about me, you never, ever show me respect, ever.” Then the Blanch will say “Are you out of your tree, I wash your socks, pick up you disgusting underwear, and put up with you idiot video games you play all the time, I show you respect by not stomping on your childishly, time wasting, Nintendo games.”Then Billy says “I don’t always play Nintendo games, I play them once in a blue moon, and don’t talk to me about wasting my time, what about you, and your mindless, money wasting, weekly, time sucking Bunko nights, what a waste of time, all you do is eat, gossip, and loss my hard earned money to a bunch of your time wasting women friends.”

The night goes on, and on, as does the meandering, random rock throwing, usually until the fighting escalates into screaming, tears, leading Blanch, Billy, or both, to saunter off unleashing their final communication weapon, “You’re as good as dead” silence. One night becomes many, and many nights like this can lead to a final night straw.

Did you notice anything that was very familiar, but damaging about their conversation?

Oh, and by the way, if you think I made this scenario up, and embellished it you wrong, only Blanch and Billy were made up, I’ve seen this exact type of interaction between spouses a hundred times in counseling, and many much worse, if it wasn’t so painfully damaging, it would be hilarious.

Let me explain what happened to Blanch and Billy. When Blanch tried to tell Billy that he hurt her feelings at the party she used two automatic argument triggers, history and definitiveness. Billy responded with them as well.

Definitiveness: Always and never.

History: Bringing up any event, or day, that wasn’t related to the night’s situation.

We are all children trying to escape finger pointing, when a spouse points out a hurtful thing we do, we automatically travel back into our childish modes of escaping blame, as well as camouflaging our faults. We grantee our spouses argumentation when we use “Always and Never.” Since nobody, “always or never” does anything, we actually give them bullets to fire back at us, and so on, and so on.

The same goes with history, when we move away from the night’s offense, we assure a night of mass confusion and arguing. The circle of unlife continues until the crime reapers of the last straws come.

Here’s what should take place when grownups discuss a problem by staying on point, and using stay on point words.

Blanch should have said “Billy, tonight you hurt my feelings, and embarrassed me in front of our friends when you said my ears are like a Volkswagen parked on the street with its doors open, I’m really upset, my face got flushed, my heart started beating like I was a rabbit being chased by a dog, and I wanted to hide from all the saucer like eyes of our friends.” Billy then should, and could have said, “Your right Blanch, I’m sorry, I did it to make people laugh, making people laugh always validates me, but I did it at your expense, I’m very sorry, please forgive me, I promise not to do that ever again, what can I do to make this up to you?”

More dialogue will take place, but if you avoid definiteness, history and escapism's you’ll stand a great chance of making a legacy of good history for your children, friends and selves.

When arguing, act grown up, use big people words, stay on point, acknowledge the wrong, dedicate yourself to honoring your mate by listening, and don’t use definitive words, or history that produces hysteria. Trust me, this tip always works.