Follow-up Post...Finally

It's interesting to see the dominant/passive roles in play. Each relationship has them. I think it boils down to how much drama, fighting, assertiveness, or whatever one is willing to put up with. I don't like drama. I don't like the emotional play of arguments. Therefore, I find myself avoiding the whole thing. I find myself giving in to end the fight. Doesn't matter, if I am wrong. I just want it to be over. After almost 15 years of marriage, suddenly becoming assertive might have unintended consequences. While I am not afraid of those consequences per se, I do want to try to maintain some status quo until the kids leave home.

An example of this came about last night. We had just bought "Rock Band" for PS2. By the way, it is truly a fun game. Anyway, it needs at least 3 USB connections, but PS2 only has 2. Real smart, huh? I grab my USB hub from my laptop and plug in the connections. Son #1 (14 years old) did most of the connecting and setting up. He had some help from Daughter (11 years old) and Son#2 (9 years old). All 5 of us played it that night. Last night, Sybil had 3 girls spend the night with Daughter. They wanted to play the game. Sybil called be because she didn't know how to get it up and running. She figured it out, and they played. I am leaving work and picking up pizza for the sleepover. As I am coming home, Sybil calls me quite irate. It seems these rambunctious girls somehow yanked on the chords and destroyed the hub. Now, the funny things is this: it was my fault. I'm the one that plugged in the hub the night before. It doesn't matter that I wasn't even home when it got destroyed. It doesn't matter that Sybil thought the arrangement of the chords might be a problem and something should be done about it. It only matters because I was the one handling the hub. So I came home to Sybil yelling at me. I could have had a knock-down-drag-out-fight with Sybil about whose fault it is, but I caved. Why? I did not want a huge conflagration during the sleep over. The end result was I went out to Staples and bought another hub. Just now I think I understand why Sybil was so angry: she wanted to play the game and couldn't. After installing a new hub, she could not stop playing.

This is the typical scenario in my house. Sybil concentrates on finding fault, instead of chalking it up to stuff happens and fixing it. Something happened; someone's head must roll. Since I do tend to avoid the icky emotional stuff, I struggle to confront issues. Sybil has no qualms about this, so she tends to win.

More coming...