That’s what it sounds like to me. She gets so wrapped up in these inconsequential details and is so unforgiving of error–saying, “So did you think you could just slip this by me?” in response to your getting the closest things you could find to what was on the list…yeesh, that’s a little worrisome. If I ask my husband to get something and it needs to be exactly what I asked for, I make sure to let him know that rather than assuming he knows he oughtn’t to make any substitutions on pain of death. And if he does end up getting the wrong thing, I don’t assume that it’s some kind of deliberate slap at me, I consider that maybe I didn’t give him enough information to work with. It sounds like she needs to loosen up, not get so stressed about the details (who gives a crap if the kid’s t-shirt is a little faded?), learn that the world isn’t going to end if every tiny thing isn’t just so, and you’re not fucking stuff up deliberately just to make her life harder.
All that said, however, one thing that you might consider doing is to double check with her if you’re unsure–do you have a cell phone? Give her a quick ring and say, “Honey, they don’t have X, but Y is close; is that going to be OK?” and then you avoid the scene when you get home with OMG COMPLETELY THE WRONG THING.
Sorry - my remark about emasculating bitches was aimed at crappy television, not your wife or your situation. And you’re absolutely right - you’re not helping her any more than she’s helping you - you’re raising children together.
This thread reminded me of something my dad used to do.
When we were teenagers, we were not allowed to cry. You’d cut school or something, get caught and get in trouble. Then, whenever there was a confrontation, or you got punished or whatever it is that teenagers cry about (plenty, IIRC), he’d sneer with derision, “Yeah, go ahead, pour on the tears.” He seemed to take it as a personal affront that we chose to cry. As if we were trying to make him feel guilty for punishing us on purpose. Neither of us were in the habit of using tears to be manipulative, and both of us are genuinely emotionally sensitive. We cried because we were upset, not because we were trying to make dad even madder. He also thought he had the worst two teenagers that ever existed and we must have stayed up nights thinking of ways to aggravate him. The fact is, we were teenagers and didn’t think one whit about him, but that’s another thread.
So your wife reminds me of my dad. She seems to take it personally if you don’t follow her little control-freaky rules just exactly right… but she doesn’t give you the rulebook ahead of time. It looks to me like she’s the one being passive-aggressive. You didn’t get the wrong school supplies on purpose, just to make her have more work to do, but she seems to think you did. Why is that?
My suggestion is a little counselling to work on your communication. Seems like the two of you are having two completely different conversations at the same time.
And reading the rest of the thread, your wife needs to chill way out. Not to use a cliché or anything, but she needs to cool off on sweating the small stuff. My husband brought supper home the other day - it was great! He bought the wrong hamburger for me (I like Dairy Queen’s mushroom mozza burger, and he got a cheeseburger), and I ate it gratefully. Know why? Because he didn’t intentionally get me the wrong burger, and next time I’ll tell him what I want, instead of saying the usual, thinking he knows what that is. It’s called COMMUNICATION. I think you and your wife both need to look into brushing up these skills.
In answer to your question “Is it my pattern or is it hers?” My answer would be: It’s both.
And I think you would benefit from some couple’s counseling. It seems to me that you don’t communicate with each other very well. That said, I think it sounds like she has some control-freak issues, and you sound like you have some incompetence issues. I don’t mean that you are incompetent- I mean that you think you are incompetent, your wife thinks you are incompetent and your behavior doesn’t show you to be competent.
Like the dressing the kids issues, because of past problems with you not dressing the kids appropriately, you confirm that she has selected an appropriate outfit and then you proceed to dress the kid in a different (and inappropriate) outfit. Wife throws fit.
It’s hard for us to judge whether wife is too picky about what makes appropriate outfits, or whether you are too unobservant about what makes appropriate outfits. Either may be true- but I suspect both are.
At any rate, it wouldn’t surprise me if the two of you were drawn together by the fact that she can be decisive and you tend to let her make the decisions/enjoy having someone else make the decisions. But now you are faced with an situation where she’s tired of feeling like the only capable one- and you are tired of feeling inadequate.
It seems to me that meeting with a counselor might help you both understand why you each behave the way you do and help you (plural) come up with strategies to get out of this rut you have gotten into.
I agree with most of what’s been said here - your wife sweats the small stuff well too much, she’s a control freak but she doesn’t seem to want to let you know what the rules will be in advance. Is it so she can have an excuse to have an argument? Well that’s hard to see from two instances reported on a message board, and you’re really the only one who can see it or not.
I think you made an honest mistake, and she went too far with it. If she’s that het-up about having exactly matching outfits for the kids, and she had enough time to assemble them in the first place, why didn’t she set them on the kids’ beds or their dressers? Then the clothes would be out, you wouldn’t have a chance to make a mistake and then she wouldn’t have anything to worry about.
That thing with the paper, though. That boggled my mind. If I really need something, no negotiation, it can’t be swapped for anything else - I get it myself. I make the time. Which isn’t easy when you have to use public transport/a bicycle to get anywhere, and can’t just pop in the car and zoom out. But if I sent hubby out to get something, and what he found wasn’t exactly what I needed (but the best that he could find) then I’d let him know it wasn’t really what I needed and either get what I did need myself or use what he got. There’s no excuse for a meltdown in that situation.
The only other thing I can really think that you might have done is what Geobabe said: If you’re out, and you need to get her something but you can’t find it but you can find something similar, then call her on the cellphone and ask first. If she goes mental freak at your having to ask, then you know there’s a bigger problem than just the wrong paper…
It’s both.
Mom may feel like her opinion or authority is being squashed on and Dad isn’t observant enough.
Mom probably has control issues. Dad problem has attention span or detail-oriented issues.
Mom probably has further issues on the back burner simmering and blew a gasket over the least volatile. Dad has been in a happy little bubble thinking all was right with the world.
Flamebait Du Jour
I have a problem with women who easily cry. I’m not talking about Crying during a Death Scene or a Happy Scene in a movie. Or when your baby graduates from Kindergarten or you just crashed the car ior removed Grandma from Life Support the same day you buried your dog.
I’m talking about crying during an argument. Not just once but nearly every time. Maybe because I posess a cold, cold heart I do., but I have always viewed it as a manipulative tack to get the other person to feel like crap an apologize even when they were in the right. The guys I know just can’t stand to see a woman cry and have said how powerless it makes them feel. My innerbitch would rather have a man feel helpless after I just wrapped him up tight in a verbal argument. But, I’m that kinda gal Or think I am. Say what you feel and don’t just boooo hoooooo. Take it like a woman, not a little girl. GAH!
So you’re feeling like a hapless boob in your own home, she’s multitasking her fingers to the bone and resenting it, neither of you sound happy, this can’t be what either of you want. Get counseling, f’real. There sounds like a whole lot worth saving here, but the daily grind of abject misery can wear that out over time.
I think calling this woman a control freak or a bitch is out of line. Rightly or wrongly, when it comes down to it, the buck stops with her as far as household stuff goes. SAHM and working mother’s are both considered, in the larger community, to be “in charge” at home. When the kid shows up to school in brown plaid shorts and a grungy shirt with the wrong paper for his project, the teacher is going to think, “What an incompetent mother this kid must have. Not only does she not give a shit what the kid is wearing, but she can’t even manage to follow simple instructions.” These things are probably far more important to her than her husband because they’re a reflection on her and her self-worth far more than they are on her husband. Probably not the way it should be, but IMO, it’s the reality.
She needs to realize that just because her husband doesn’t find these things as important as she does, does not reflect on his love for his family or his respect for her. He needs to realize that she probably has a lot invested in what seem like trivial details to him and maybe make more of an effort to care about these things.
Yeah. Her reaction to the clothes was over the top, but understandable, but the paper–that’s just bitchy. She doesn’t seem to have much respect for you. I think this is more her problem than yours–you’re trying, and it’s never good enough, no matter what you do. If you do everything the way she wants it, that gets rid of the conflict, but then you’re living your life by her rules, and that’s not fair either. Your family is yours and hers, not just hers, so you should get to make some rules, too.
I have a problem with how you need to explain to her your reasons for everything you do. You and your wife sound like very different personality types, so you probably have different ways of doing things. She thinks because you don’t do things the way she would do them, that you’re doing it wrong, but it’s not wrong, it’s just different. I think this is big enough that you need counseling to help figure these things out.
I think you’ve made an important point here, C3. How much of our self-worth is wrapped up in what we do ? And for a full-time homemaker, being judged on your work is far less straightforward than in a paid, supervised, managed position. Having everything just so could be reflection of having skills and abilities that need to be used, and having an inadequate (yet of course challenging) outlet for them
That said, that doesn’t give her the right to take it out on you. Because that’s what she’s doing. She’s expecting you to read her mind. You know that you can’t, and maybe that’s one of the things that adds to the frustration. Why bother, if you’re only going to get taken to task for not knowing exactly what she wants anyhow?
There’s no “win” here. I agree with previous posters - some couples therapy would go a long way, as well as trying to rationally evaluate what the emotional investment in tasks is. For me, being able to see my behavior from a remove was critical in a) realizing when I was being bitchy, 2) understanding why, and 3) letting go ‘cause it ain’t that freakin’ important.
eep I ALWAYS cry at confrontations, and I hate that. I HATE confrontations because I can’t help crying, and I KNOW I shouldn’t cry, or get upset, but even when I’m not bothered, or I’m in the right, my tear ducts won’t listen. It’s downright embarassing, and I fucking hate it.
Please, don’t hit me Shirley.
Now then, Corner Case, I have to ask-is possible that Mrs. Case is obsessive compulsive? Because the controlling of the kid’s outfits (they’re probably old enough to tell you what they want to wear, or pick out their own clothes, I’d imagine), and the freaking out about the size of the paper suggests some kind of mental disorder.
Meh, I figure just getting pants and a shirt on the kids is a success. Matching outfits is the least of our worries. I have to go, a little girl just sprinted past me wearing a leopard skirt, no top and dress shoes. She forgot her backpack.
Whoa. This is a little scary…“slip this by me”? It’s construction paper, for Og’s sakes. Why is she giving you such a long lecture about it? Me, I would definitely turn around and say “Why are you attacking me over constructiion paper?” 'cause that’s what it sounds like. “Slip this by me” is accusing you of trying to sneak something past her.
