Passive/Aggressive? or Stupid? or Thoughtless? or...?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve screwed up again. I’ve been yelled at by my wife and she’s even in tears about how I seem to be acting. I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong and change it, and I would like some objective opinions.

She’s not a Doper, so let’s just focus on me. I feel strange talking to other people about my marriage relationship. It feels like cheating on her since she can’t respond, and technically it’s “none of your business.” But I need to get out of my own head. I’ve tried promising, I’ve tried putting a note in my wallet that says “Don’t Assume”, but I still screw up. I love her and respect her and if I’m being disrespectful having this thread, just let me know now. I am egotistical and think I’m always right; and I do want everyone to like me so I defer; and I really think about what she says, but am I just being passive/aggressive underneath? or stupid? or thoughtless? or …?
We’re getting the kids ready for school. She’s making breakfast and says, "Can you go up and get {middle child=MC} dressed and get “older child’s=OC} outfit?” I said, “Sure. Are they hanging out?” She said “Yes, I put them out for you.” I ask because I’m worried, like some previous times, about getting a pants and shirt that don’t go together.

I go up and OC’s outfit is out and I get it. I go to MC’s room and usher him to the bathroom. I go back and see no outfit on the closet door so I open it. On the right, hanging on the shelving is a shirt on a hanger (nearest the door; white light cotton shirt, red striping) and next to it some shorts on a hanger (furthest from the door; plaid brown shorts). I take them both to the bathroom. I clean up MC and pull on the shorts. I get the shirt. It’s got a matching pair of light-cotton-with-red-stripes shorts under it. Okay, I think, “Oops she grabbed an outfit and not just a shirt. I’m not going to break up a set again.” So I hurry to his closet and pick out a new shirt. I go back and put that one on him and we go downstairs.

After breakfast she notices the outfit on him.[ul][li]“Why is he wearing that?”[]Me: “I got the pants and shirt from the closet and when I put on the pants I noticed the shirt already had pants.”[]I wish I could remember everything word for word, but I don’t. I’ll have to relate the important points.[]“So you pass up the outfit I put out and put him in that?”[]Me: “I got the pants and shirt and then found that the shirt already had pants, so I got another shirt.”[]“I had a had an outfit for him in the front of the closet that you had to pass to get those pants.”[]Me: “I saw some pants and a shirt and I got them. I noticed the shirt had pants when I was about to put it on him.”[]“We had this discussion the other day. I said that I couldn’t find the shirt that went with those {plaid} pants. You knew that! But still you passed up a perfectly good outfit, that I set in front so you wouldn’t miss it or have to think about it, to get those {brown plaid} pants, which don’t go with that shirt {white T-shirt with primary color print on it}. Why?”[]Me: “I put on the pants and then didn’t want to break up the outfit so I got another shirt. I remember talking about the missing shirt, but it didn’t occur to me it was to go with those {plaid} pants, so I got another shirt. I thought it was cute.”[]"It is cute, but it’s a faded playshirt and it doesn’t even match. Do you really think I’m so stupid as to hang out a shirt without pants for you? Why do you always do this passive/agressive sht? I setup something, you think it’s stupid so you just decide to do something else and let me fix it? If you want to dress the kids, that’s fine. You can take over the job, but learn how to coordinate clothes. If you won’t then just say so, that’s fine; but don’t pull this that’s-stupid-so-I’ll-just-show-you stuff. It hurts me. You’re not that stupid so I’ve got wonder why you’re doing this. All you’re doing is making me not like you and lose respect for you."[/ul]And on… I try to explain I just had a different viewpoint and I wasn’t trying to subconsciously say she’s stupid and undermine her. I’m crying and looking at what I can fix. But then, I did think that she had grabbed a shirt not realizing that it had pants; I did think that if OC is wearing a dinosaur shirt and army shorts that MC could wear a brown plaid and T-shirt with a cute primary color picture; and I did think that the light cotton shirts/shorts outfit was too like pajamas.[/li]
Man, this seems to make her sound like some nitpicking b*tch, and she’s said that that’s what I think, but I don’t. She went to the trouble to have an outfit setup and I completely missed it and wasted all her work. Now I’m wasting more time because we have to have this argument and I have to get the right outfit and put him in it. This would be nitpicky, but I seem to screw up once a week with something. I did screw up, “why didn’t I just put the outfit on him?” but … am I passive/aggressive? or stupid? or thoughtless? or …? I’ve got other examples if that would help, because one example is a pretty small base to make a judgement.

2

I don’t know what to say other than the almost exact same thing has happened to me too. Variations on that scenario happen frequently on other child care and housekeeping tasks. This is going to sound sexist but I don’t mean it to be at all. The traditional roles of housekeeping and childcare has belonged to women. They still tend to lord over these tasks although gender roles and responsibilities have become more and more mixed. You changing the outfit imposed on something that she saw as her domain and power. Watching sitcoms for any length of time will show you variations on this theme time and time again.

I have never figured out a good solution.

3

No, you’re being human.

From what you’ve said here, I think both you and your wife need to step back and take a deeeeeep breath. Sending the kids to school with clothes on is the objective; whether they match or not and who picks them out is secondary. The fact that the two of you fought over such a simple issue indicates that there’s probably something else going on - not necessarily a Big Bad thing, but something that you probably ought to talk out. Maybe she’s having a bad time at work, maybe she’s upset about something else, I don’t know what it is, but if this happened in my household, I’d know that the kid’s clothes fight was a symptom, not the root of the problem.

For you - buck up and figure out how to match clothes. It’s not rocket science. You dress yourself, don’t you?

For both of you - buck up and realize that sending the kids to school in mismatched clothing is hardly an issue that should even touch the radar. These are the kinds of problems you WANT to have in your life, as opposed to real problems (cancer, drugs, war, etc.)

For your wife - realize that Corner Case didn’t switch the kid’s clothing to make a statement. He really didn’t understand the clothes you set out. Give him some kid-dressing lessons and let him pick out the damn clothes on the days that he dresses them, and just giggle to yourself at how cute your kids look when their dressed like munchkins in the Wizard of Oz on the days he doesn’t get it right.

Now both of you, go over in that corner, say your sorry to each other, and give each other a hug.

4

You made a simple mistake. She’s blowing it waaaaaaay out of proportion. Sadly, that can be part of marriage. I am not the easiest wife to get along with, I’m sure, but outfits for our son is one area where I bite my tongue and she should too.

5

Do not, under any circumstances, get your ideas about male/female dynamics from television. Men are not idiot men-children, and women are not emasculating bitches who are always right even when they’re not.

I don’t understand the whole clothes issue, but I also have a feeling that’s not really important. I also think she’s kinda missing the point - you are helping her with the kids. Is it really important that you dressed the kids in the outfits she wanted? Maybe when you dress the kids, you pick the outfits and she keeps her mouth shut, and you give her the same courtesy.

My question for you - are you guys fighting like this in front of the kids? Cause, you know, don’t.

6

Well, frankly – and I’m judging here only from what you’ve said about this particular incident, which has been presented to us only from your perspective – I would say you weren’t the one who screwed up. As far as I can tell, you didn’t make her cry – she chose to throw a full-blown bitch-fit over nothing.

For what it’s worth, I am a 44 year old mother of two (now grown and nearly grown) children. I was a housewife for all of my kid’s growing up years and I am still married, happily, to their father. IMO (and, again, I’m basing this only on what you’ve said about this one incident) your wife needs to stop taking her behavior hints from Father-Is-Stupid sitcoms such as Everybody Loves Raymond. I agree 100% with Shagnasty – too many women require their husbands to participate at least 50/50 in household and child-rearing tasks, but insist on retaining 100% of the say in how those tasks are performed. It ain’t right. If this scenario truly took place just as you described (and is indicative of other such scenarios in the past), then your wife is treating you like a sit-com mother treats her husband: as if you are not an equal partner in your home, but just another one of the kids who needs to be micromanged by ‘Mommy’ or you’ll dick everything up.

If I were you, I’d call her on it. Say, “Look, I’m sorry your feelings are hurt, but so are mine. I very much want to co-parent our children and co-manage our home, but you make it incredibly difficult for me to do so with all your micromanaging. I am a fully competent adult and I don’t need to be told how to dress my own child. I don’t appreciate being treated like an idiot over every small decision. If there are jobs you absolutely can’t give up control over, that’s fine – you do those things and I promise not to say a single word about how you do them. I’ll take over some of the jobs you aren’t so picky about and I would really appreciate it if you would give me the respect of allowing me to do those jobs without treating me like I’m a half-witted Kindergardener in your care instead of your husband, partner and equal.”

7

whoa

there is a whole lot of anger in your household

what happened this morning was basically nothing. so what if the kid wasn’t wearing her particular choice of outfit for that day.

the reactions and emotions you have described are disproportionate to the situation.

your outfit matching skills are not really the issue. neither is her so called “wasted work” in choosing outfits.

you need to find out what the issue really is and work on that instead of dissecting what happened today.

as an aside, i’m female and from what you have said, your wife sounds really anal.

she also seems to have inserted an awful lot of intent on your part when it sounds like you simply didn’t see the one she selected.

how is what happened in any way, shape or form “screwing up”?

sending them to school in their underoos is screwing up. sending them to school in plaid pants and a tee shirt isn’t.

as long as the kids were dressed appropriately for the activity and the weather, who cares if you “broke up an outfit”.

8

I think if you were being passive-aggressive, you’d know it.

Hope you work things out soon- it sucks never knowing when you’re doing some little thing wrong and having a huge blowup hit you out of the clear blue sky.

9

My first thought on this? Your wife sees this incident as an example of a larger issue. I particularly notice she says you always do this to her, meaning she thinks you have a larger pattern of being passive agressive with her. This is the underlying problem, not that you dressed the kid in the wrong outfit.

Arguments in a marriage always come with history. If you take one argument out of context they will always look stupid and petty (and most are.) If you really want to talk to your wife about this, I suggest saying something like “I honestly was not trying to hurt you when I dressed kid. I just made the wrong assumption. I understand that you feel like I have other motives when I do things like this and I want to find out why. Have I done other things in the past that made you feel like I was trying to undermine you?”

She may give XYZ examples. Listen and see if she has a point, don’t try to justify each of those examples or get defensive, just try to see where she is coming from. This is key: if she already perceives you as being passive agressive, she is seeing all of your actions through a filter and putting intentions on them where there may be none. Is her filter coming from nothing or does she have reason to believe you could have other intentions?

Usually people fight in a marriage about the same issues over and over, even if the fights seem different. I have fights with my husband when I see him doing things I perceive as irresponsible. If I was telling someone about just one incident, it would look like no big deal. “Who cares if he forgot to call the Dr.? He just forgot, he’s human.” True, it is the underlying pattern that matters. He has his own issues with me, and we both know what each other’s pet peeves are. Knowing what you are really fighting about helps because it makes the other person’s anger more understandable. We are not fighting about what kid is wearing, we are fighting about your attitude towards me or whatever. Try to find out what that is and you will be closer, I have a feeling it is not really about the clothes.

10

It really, really sounds like there’s something other than how the kids are dressed lurking under your wife’s responses to you.

If she’s really all that bent out of shape about what your kids are wearing, she probably needs to get a grip. But it really sounds more like it was just the final straw, so to speak.

You might choose a quiet moment when your kids aren’t around and say “Pardon me, Wife. It seems there’s been a lot of stress lately - such as (insert examples here similar to the clothing incident). Is there something bothering you I should know about?”

11

I’m not married or anything, but it seems to me like you repeated yourself an awful lot. Not that you were in the wrong, but constantly repeating “I got the pants and the shirt and then saw the shirt already had pants” to anything your wife says (when it didn’t rectify the situation the first time) is not going to fix anything. Granted she repeated herself some too, but you can’t control her behavior, only yours.

12

Your wife’s reaction is way out of proportion to what happened. Next time you’ll know to check under the shirt to see if there’s a pair of shorts lurking there, but that’s not going to solve the underlying problems. If your wife is that upset about something so small, there’s something deeper that’s bothering her. Mornings at your house don’t sound like a lot of fun, and it’s probably stressful for the kids, too.

I can understand her being upset that she had already picked out an outfit, but you chose something else for reasons that she thought were disrespectful to her. But that doesn’t make it okay for her to say the things she said. I’m guessing that maybe sometimes you don’t remember things that are important to her, and that can be really annoying. Clothes obviously aren’t as important to you as they are to her, and she has lots of complicated fashion rules, and you’ll probably never learn all of them, so you need to find some middle ground where you try to learn what her rules are for okay outfits, and she gives up a little bit of control and learns to live with mismatched clothes. Too bad they don’t make Garanimals anymore.

I think brown plaid pants with that t-shirt sounds just fine, but if I had kids, I’d probably let them wear fairy wings and hard hats to school if they wanted to, so maybe I’m not the best person to be giving on advice on how to dress your kids for school.

13

It sounds like your wife is the one who is passive aggressive. She could have avoided the whole issue by saying “get the striped tshirt and shorts.” The End. (On the other hand, it seemed obvious as I was reading that you should have put that outfit on anyway.)

It also sounds like she has some control issues as well. Your kids sound young enough that it really doesn’t matter what the hell they wear. If she’s freaking out about stuff like this I’d dread thinking about what she’ll freak out about when the kids are older. Sounds like she needs to get a grip.

But, perhaps this one example is not enough to really gauge what the problem actually is. Can you give other examples of what has caused her to react this way?

14

If the kids are young enough that you’re still dressing them, they’re young enough that it doesn’t matter much whether or not their clothes match. If you have any say in future clothes-buying expeditions, move towards buying a wardrobe where it doesn’t matter what colors the individual parts are… if the kids wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, it really doesn’t matter whether or not the ensemble compliments the kids’ eyes…

Accusing you of being passive-aggressive is a wonderfully two-edged weapon–she could have used it even if you went with the clothes she set out, by saying that you went ahead and put the kids into a dumb-looking outfit just to make her look bad…

15

You are wise indeed, Velma. I don’t think his wife is a bitch or passive-aggressive or anything other than frustrated.

For example, if someone heard me getting annoyed at my husband for forgetting the milk, the automatic assumption is that I’m a horrid she-beast, right? Well, consider that every time my husband goes to the store, he asks me what we need. I tell him the items and plead with him to please make a list (or I will make the list and try to hand it to him). Every time he insists that he doesn’t need a list. Maybe I would need a list if I were going to the store, but he does not. Inevitably, he will return home missing at least one item. It’s not an isolated incident - it’s a pattern.

So yeah, I don’t think this has anything to do with clothes.

16

The issue isn’t about clothes. It’s about … well if I knew for sure I wouldn’t be confused. She’s a person constantly on the move, organized, a calendar full of things all planned out. It’s about doing what you say you’re going to do. Not putting it off. Following through with something to completion. As she said, “I don’t want to be a nagging bitch, but if you don’t finish what you start, what am I supposed to do?”

She said something similar to me, and it’s true. I thought the outfit matched well and looked cute. It was his “I’m a big brother” shirt. But I could see after she mentioned it that maybe it was too faded. A judgement call.

That’s a big monster that I think I’ve created. I like to drive and she likes to navigate. I’m at the gas pump ready to leave. I ask, “Which way do I go at the intersection?” punctuating this with pointing left and then forward, symbolizing the intersection. She understands this, but says, “Get going and I’ll tell you.” But, I said, “I just want to know which way to go at the intersection and then I’ll know which way to leave.” - and here’s the important part - “Look, you complain if I don’t tell you when to turn and then you think I’m a micromanaging bitch if I navigate. What am I supposed to do?” The reason was that if I left the gas station on the left, I would go onto the street into the left turn lane and if I left ahead, I would have to turn right and U-turn. She asks me how I can drive anywhere. This is important too - When I’m alone, I pay more attention to where I am. When I’m with her I defer to her. And how is it I don’t get lost? Sometimes I do, and I turn around and figure it out.

No. Too often I think that this is in the back of my mind. I’m not helping, I’m their father. I’m also not helping her. It’s a partnership and sometimes I don’t realize that. I hated that Oprah show with all the great adulation about stay-at-home-dads. What about all the stay-at-home-moms that never get a show? I work all day at an office, she works all day at home (and playgroups, and shopping for the family, etc.). I feel like I’m not doing enough when she cooks and cleans and washes and mows when the kids are napping, so I sweep and mop (when needed) and go to the store when she hasn’t already. I feel good when I can “help”.

The other day I went to Walmart. We needed “12x18 manilla (50ct)” and “12x18 construction paper (assorted)”. So I scoured the aisles and could only find “12x18 drawing paper (50ct)” and "9x12 construction paper (assorted), and that was hard to find. Nothing else was close. I felt I had found the best possible.[ul][li]“So did you think you could just slip this by me?”[]Me: “No. You were busy so I just laid it on the table.”[]“I write down exactly what’s needed on our list and you think you know more than the teacher who wrote the list?”[]Me: “No. I just couldn’t find them and got the best I could.”[]“Don’t you think I saw those there too? The teacher needs exactly what’s on the list. What if every parent just decided to get whatever they felt like? Then when they wanted to do crafts they would have all these different sizes and types of papers. And you know what what? They might ask around to see if any other teacher needed them but probably they’d just end up taking it home because it wasn’t able to be used with all the rest of the stuff. Do you think I’m stupid for just blindly getting what the teacher wants? Or do you think the teacher is stupid or doesn’t know what’s available in the stores.”[]Me: “No, I just couldn’t find it and I know you looked before, so I thought I’d get the best I could find.”[]“If you couldn’t find it, I wouldn’t have thought any less of you if you’d just some home and said ‘I couldn’t find it’. Don’t you remember I said I couldn’t find it and that they said it should be coming in soon?”[]Me: “No.”[]“So now I’ll have to make another trip back to Walmart and stand in line with the kids to return this and then get what you were supposed to get in the first place. You do this all the time. You think you’re helping and all you do is create more work for me. If you don’t want to do it, just say so, but don’t take on something and then not finish it and think, ‘oh, she’ll fix it’.”[/ul][/li][quote=Anne Neville]
it sucks never knowing when you’re doing some little thing wrong and having a huge blowup hit you out of the clear blue sky.
[/quote]
Yeah.

And I’m trying to find if it’s mine or hers. It seems to me to be more of out-of-sight-out-of-mind. She probably remarked that Walmart didn’t have the school supplies and that she would just have to go back and get them when they came in even if it took until after school started but I didn’t remember it. So I did something else.

I can’t remember if I really repeated myself this much or not. I think, however, that I try to reiterate my statement until it get’s acknowledged and sometimes that doesn’t happen. It’s along the lines of “I’m not going to address something that’s stupid.”

In hindsight, me too. It seems bloody obvious.

No, she’s never complained if I did something she asked and it didn’t work. What’s surprising is that another mom at a party shaid that my wife says great things about me to the other moms.

I think it’s more this. I’m just trying to find out what I can do better. If I’m passive/agressive or subconsciously messing things up, or just simply forgetting stuff thinking “Oh, she’ll take care of it.” I want to know. But I’m Not thinking she’s stupid and I’m not trying to make problems for her.

17

You obviously are a caring and thoughtful person. I have no doubt you and your wife can figure out the root of this issue. Maybe she’s frustrated, or tired or overwhelmed. I don’t think you’re doing anything deliberately to annoy her. Hopefully you and your wife can have some calm conversation and determine what triggers these arguments and how they might be avoided (or at least reduced). I wish you both luck.

18

Honestly, that is what happens to me a lot when I am stressed about a lot of little things, or perhaps something my husband did that made me feel bad/unacknowledged/taken for granted, but let slide. I get all worked up over the stupid little things. It sounds like you need to say, “Sorry, I did not mean to make you upset, I made a mistake. Is there something else that is bothering you? I’m worried that you are so upset over this.”

Yikes, ok reading your second post, she sounds like everything has to be “just so” or she gets accusatory. Perhaps she needs to work on compromising?

19

How old are the kids?

20

My husband and I have a (or had?) a similar issue in our marriage. I’ll tell you what the thing was for me. He has a job with a lot of responsibility. He gets commendations and accolades for what a good job he does. His bosses think he’s great. People who work for him think he’s great. At a previous job, he was handling a multi-million dollar budget with ease.

Than, he comes home and can’t manage to wash a few dishes without me having to re-do them because they still have food all over them when he’s done. I give him a list of stuff to pick up at the grocery store and unless I’m specific (down to brand-name, color of the package, where it’s located in the store), he’ll get some weird-ass thing that he should know is not right. He can’t be incompetent - look at what he’s responsible for at work. He’s fantastic at that, yet he dresses our son and puts his pants on backwards? He’s not stupid. He must be doing it on purpose! Who knows. I stopped worrying about it.

I remembered what my mother always said: “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” So, I do. He goes to work and empties the trash. That’s it. I have things in the house the way I like them. He can focus his energies on work, which he loves and is really good at. We are both doing the things we’re good at and it works for us. I don’t know what a solution is for you, but for us, we decided we don’t share tasks. I do some, he does others, and we don’t complain about what goes on in the other’s “realm.”

I can definitely understand your wife’s frustration, though.