One more thought: She puts special thought into everything. She’s supposed to. In the head space she is in right now, not putting special thought would be careless, it would be being a bad mother. So saying “I didn’t think you’d thought about it” is just as much an accusation as “I thought you made a wrong choice.”
And to reiterate my point, this does not have to a you’re right/I’m wrong resolution. Being more sensitive to her headspace right now does not imply you were doing anything wrong.
Sounds like you have your own control issues. So much that you couldn’t accept that your wife/partner/friend said that they had their own issues under control. Is the dog not hers as well? You felt that you had to step in.
Your wife’s not in the wrong here, you are. :o
This may be the key to a lot of what’s going on.
She could very well be beating herself up every day over everything from giving her child bad genes to not knowing the best way to apply a blanket in a stroller. She may think there is a whole universe full of Right Answers out there for this disease, and she might feel guilty because all the Right Answers aren’t already in her head.
On the other hand, I’m more willing to accept that we are doing the best we can every day and I can sleep at night knowing that we’re doing a good job so far.
I was wrong in that I should have taken various measures before exercising control, but if those measures failed, I still would step in and take control in this situation. Failure to go along with everything your spouse does is not a “control issue.”
Yeah, **not agreeing **is not a control issue, but walking out an **overriding her decision **on how she is caring for the dog is.
See, the problem is, that we can sit here on teh intarwebs all day and chat about what we think Mr. and Mrs. Bearflag are or aren’t doing, filtered through Mr. B’s perceptions of what’s going on. And we can give all kinds of advice on how Mr. B should do things differently.
But chances are good that we’re not getting a very accurate picture of what’s actually happening. And we’re only speculating about Mrs. B’s side of the story and what she is/isn’t doing/thinking/feeling/etc.
Y’all obviously have some very different communication modes, which is extremely common. You can learn to work with that, but it takes both of you working together to do so.
I can tell you from personal experience that you (Mr. B) unilaterally deciding to change how y’all’s interactions occur will probably be … less than optimal. Even if Mrs. B doesn’t like the current interactions, familiarity is comforting.
And not doing so could quite probably, in this situation, result in a dead or severely injured dog.
Having “control issues” means an excessive need to control situations and/or others’ behavior. It’s a pattern of behaviour, not a one-time event.
Stepping in to take control of a particular dangerous situation is not, necessarily, “a control issue”.
In this particular situation, Bearflag70 did not trust his wife’s judgement about this particular thing. He probably could have handled it better, but the fact of the matter is, he was correct in that judgement (based on the information we have here).
That doesn’t reflect on anything but this particular situation.
We don’t know if the dog was truly in danger. The owner overseeing the dog did not think so.
Would you go and stake the dog of a neighbor that had their dog in the front yard and you were concerned they might not be as attentive as they should be? I doubt it. The only reason the OP felt that he had the right to do that is because the other person is his wife. Still disrespectful.
What you have here is a team problem, and a team problem calls for a team solution and not a big discussion of who was right or wrong in the situation. Most likely there are elements of rightness and wrongness on both sides. It really isn’t important. Bearflag70 I think you are showing a commendable empathy towards your wife’s point of view. You’re both under a lot of stress. Do you have access to respite care? (for you also, not just your wife, because I think you are correct in that you cannot be the best caregiver you can be if you never have a break).
Disclaimer in that the book is a little bit Jesus-y and the website has this grating soft-focus style, but there’s good material in the heart of The Five Love Languages. If you can bear it, I suggest you take a look. I am sensing your wife may be starving for “Word of Affirmation” - you specifically telling her she is doing well with Getty. You’re thinking, “that’s nuts, of course I think she’s doing an amazing job! I couldn’t do this without her! She must know that!” Just try affirming her skills, knowledge, and effort by specifically saying so. (BTW this is not about lying or sucking up - it’s about honest appreciation, the things you think but might not say).
When people are really getting love in the way they need it and not the way you are most comfortable giving it the petty stuff starts to slide off their back like it should.
At the same time you should think about what you might need as well. It’s a two way street.
Have you tried telling her what a good job she does with the child? If Manda JO is right, then your wife is worried over her child raising skills, and hates it when salt get poured into that wound.
If that’s the case, then it might be better for you to focus on addressing her child raising fears, rather then to avoid questioning most of her decisions.
I would even try to complement her whenever you think she does something right. The key is to be sincere. Don’t make up complements or she’ll think you’re being patronizing.
ETA: Scoped by Hello Again, once again.
If you knew anything about dogs, then you would know that the dog was truly in danger. As has been discussed by numerous folks in this thread.
I wouldn’t do that to a neighbor’s dog, because it is not my dog. The OP took action because it was their dog. One has nothing to do with the other.
Was it an optimal handling of the situation? No.
But neither was it an attempt to establish control simply for the sake of doing so.
I know quite a bit about dogs, and no, I can’t know that the dog was truly in danger, despite the warnings of a bunch of people that weren’t there.
The owner that was responsible for the dog at the time, felt comfortable about the situation, despite repeated questions and warning from her husband. So, I’ll trust her.
I know you posted this last night while you were frustrated and that the thread has moved on, but I wanted to point out how bitchy this comes across. I understand that you’re here to vent to us, but I’ll wager that this kind of pettiness (seriously? “blanket committee?”) comes across in your tone of voice, if not your actual words. That puts your wife on the defensive immediately and makes her feel backed into a corner, no matter what the situation, and sets the stage for the kind of little pointless fights that are, as you say, very draining.
This is probably true. Also, how much time has your wife had off?
Even if she has been able to schedule this, an unexpected afternoon to go shopping by herself, or whatever, might be a good idea. It would also give you a chance to do things the way you want to for a while, and reassure yourself that you are capable of handing things by yourself.
And also also ( 
), have you and your wife been able to get off to be together? I know finding a baby sitter would be difficult, but it would be a really good thing if you could set this up. Get away, and talk about anything other than the baby’s problems.
Regards,
Shodan
Yeah, how much time off does your wife have? We have a special-needs kid too, although he doesn’t need anything like the level of care that Getty requires, and I’m his primary caregiver, and getting out of the house for even an hour a week is incredibly important for my sanity.
I also want to reiterate
[QUOTE=Manda JO]
If that is the case, having you move the blanket is basically like saying that she’s such a lousy mothers she can’t even do this most basic fucking thing–tell when the baby is hot (even though in reality that is not easy or obvious, it feels like it should be) and that just reinforces her worry that she really can’t do this. Since taking care of the baby is all she does these days, it’s like attacking her very reason for existence. She’s no longer helping support the family, she’s no longer any good as a wife because the baby’s needs always come first, she’s no longer any good as a friend because all she can talk or think about is her child and her child’s special needs (not to mention she has no time), she’s no longer particularly interesting as a person or attractive, she’s sucks at pretty much every single thing, because the baby has to come first. And then, apparently, the one person who’s opinion she can even begin to care about anymore turns out to think she can’t even handle the basics there.
[/QUOTE]
I have lots of days like that, where my husband’s questions or disagreements make me feel like a total failure because I can’t control the uncontrollable, and I’m pretty laid-back.
We are both equally responsible for the dog at all times. It is our dog.
Okay, I know we only have a few examples and one person’s point of view to go on here. But it sounds to me that your wife’s way of dealing with the traumatic situation of Getty’s illness and the stress of being the full-time caretaker, is by obsessing about her control of every aspect of every situation, and viewing some (all?) of your attempts at co-parenting and input into dog-baby etc situations as imposing on her control and judgement, being critical, undermining etc. Not that you are perfect and I have no idea how much you might be contributing to this, but that’s the main dynamic I am getting. I am very familiar with it from my own parents, actually.
This is totally normal (hell, normal for almost any mom, but most common in any situation where the child is special needs) but also very much not healthy for either of you.
I think you both need to approach healing this dynamic with positivity and love. Continue to discuss it and to try to implement the right communication for each of you. I agree with PPs that ‘I’ statements are very helpful.
Is there any counseling service it would be possible to take advantage of? I know time and money are very tight for you, but when my family was in a somewhat similar position (my dad was severely brain-damaged and mostly paralyzed, had to be cared for at home because we had no money for assistant facilities/care, and my mom and I and to a small degree my little sisters, were working full-time/going to school and sharing care-taking duties) we were able to benefit from a nearly free service that provided family and individual counselor home visits. I can’t express how helpful it was to all of us, I really think it saved our family.
We don’t have much option for respite where we can get out together because the slightest wrong move can cause Getty’s death in seconds. We have rescued her from sudden near death about 5 times now. So it’s hard for us to ask anyone to come in and assume that kind of responsibility while also allowing us to relax if we are both out together. It can happen now and then but wouldn’t want to do that too regularly.
To steal a line from George Orwell, apparently you are more equal than her, as your decisions regarding the dog trump hers.
How would you feel, if when you were walking the dog, she came up behind you and said, “you’re doing it all wrong”, and she took the leash from you and started walking the dog in a different manner?