Failure of the Day: Marriage
Fighting with Chris. I can't help but remember my favorite high school teacher telling us that in a marriage, each party should be prepared to compromise 75 percent of the time. Suppose so. For us, though, I think we're each compromising about 45 percent of the time (even though it feels like 75 to each of us, I'm sure), and that last 10 percent is kicking our asses.
We'll make up, of course. We were SURE when we decided to get married and we were 35, which makes a difference. And so, the only thing that really changes when you get married under these circumstances is that fights are more serious and less dangerous. When you're just dating someone, you always have that "is this THE fight? The fight to end all fights?" thing floating in your head. Now that is not so much a concern, so we are freer to let our pissed-offness run freely. (With one exception: We don't raise our voices. Ever.)
And so now it's the odd saturday when he works, and Paul is coming over to keep me company while I launder. Later Chris will come home and we will work things through. I am less pissed than merely annoyed (it's been 15 hours since the Incident That Started It All). I am hopeful that the tension that began mounting when we moved back to San Francisco last month will begin to loosen its grip on both of us.
Fighting with Chris. I can't help but remember my favorite high school teacher telling us that in a marriage, each party should be prepared to compromise 75 percent of the time. Suppose so. For us, though, I think we're each compromising about 45 percent of the time (even though it feels like 75 to each of us, I'm sure), and that last 10 percent is kicking our asses.
We'll make up, of course. We were SURE when we decided to get married and we were 35, which makes a difference. And so, the only thing that really changes when you get married under these circumstances is that fights are more serious and less dangerous. When you're just dating someone, you always have that "is this THE fight? The fight to end all fights?" thing floating in your head. Now that is not so much a concern, so we are freer to let our pissed-offness run freely. (With one exception: We don't raise our voices. Ever.)
And so now it's the odd saturday when he works, and Paul is coming over to keep me company while I launder. Later Chris will come home and we will work things through. I am less pissed than merely annoyed (it's been 15 hours since the Incident That Started It All). I am hopeful that the tension that began mounting when we moved back to San Francisco last month will begin to loosen its grip on both of us.
posted by Nancy @ 9:51 AM
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