Fights,  Marriage Confessions

Hooray for Me!

I try to keep my blog posts about my marriage neutral so that readers can’t point blame.  But I can’t help it tonight.  I’m pointing blame directly at my husband.  Because he was a jackass tonight and because I think I should get a medal for not doing any of the following:

1)  Kicking him in the shins

2)  Stuffing my lemon chicken up his…

3)  Leaving him with the kids while I walked out and went shopping at Target

But I didn’t do any of those things.  Instead, I am writing this blog post.  And I already feel better.

Tonight I came home from work really late, so I hurried and got dinner in the oven because I was baking chicken and I knew it would need a while and the kids were hungry.  I made lemon chicken.  AND IT WAS DELICIOUS, IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING.

So, Chris comes home about 20 minutes after I get home with the kids.  From the minute he walked in the door, he was critical.  He was just in one of those moods.  Everything I said was not the right answer and was immediately contradicted or corrected.  Need some examples?  Let me give you a few:

Exhibit A:  Bean has homework tonight.  He has to complete a worksheet about how many of various body parts are in our house.  This will require him to count all of our eyes, noses, toes, etc..  So I casually throw out there as I’m laying the table for dinner and Chris is sorting through the mail, “Bean needs to complete that worksheet during dinner so that he can see everyone at one time and count all the body parts up.”  To which Chris responds, “He shouldn’t have homework at the table.  He can do it at bedtime.”

Exhibit B:  I emptied the dishwasher while I was waiting for dinner to bake.  Chris was standing there – still checking the mail 15 minutes later, for the record – and so I say conversationally, “I goofed up and bought the generic dish detergent this time and it’s leaving our dishes so cloudy.”  To which Chris responds, “It’s not the detergent.  It’s that we ran out of JetDry.”

Exhibit C:  Dinner wasn’t baking as quickly as it should have, and so I checked the oven temperature and it had dropped almost 50 degrees.  This was the second time in a week it has done that, so I mention, “This oven isn’t keeping it’s heat lately.  I wonder if we need to call for service?”  To which Chris responds, “You just have it on the wrong setting.”  (I didn’t.)

None of these are big things.  In fact, I’m sure conversations like this happen a hundred times a day.  But these were just a few of the long string of comments I got from Chris one right after the other tonight, and I was getting really tired of it.

So, after an hour of this, he says something else critical and I laughingly say, “Why don’t you boss me around a little bit more tonight?”

And he throws his hands in the air and says, “I’m not hungry,” and storms out of the kitchen.  I followed him into the living room to see what was going on and he says, “You overreact about everything!”

That’s when I got mad.  I had held my tongue all evening.  I made one comment, and it was just a lighthearted joke.  Yet, he can STORM OUT, and I’M the one who overreacts?

So, then I told him he was like being married to a high school girl.

(Yeah, so…  My bad on that one.  I always tend to take things just a bit too far.)

It was dinnertime, so we sucked it up to sit down at the table with the kids for dinner.  Which was a nightmare because neither of my kids are eating dinner lately.  After about half an hour of Chris saying nothing to them and me hassling them all through the meal, Chris finally says, “Katie, the food is so bitter because of the lemon.  It’s not fair to force them to eat that.”

I’m going to give you a minute to think about that comment and ponder what possible responses I should have had.

(instrumental break)

My response?  I slammed my fork down, left the kitchen, and sat down to write this blog post.  In fact, as I type, I hear Chris trying to get the kids to eat while trying to clean the kitchen all by himself.  And you know what?  I don’t feel bad at all.

Sometimes marriage is about being fair.  It’s good to respect the differences between you and your spouse.  And marriage is about supporting each other even when you’ve had bad days.  And I suppose it’s also about unconditional love and all that stuff, too.  Blah, blah, blah.

But sometimes I think marriage is about celebrating the fact that you didn’t kill your spouse that day.

And if that’s the case, then hooray for me!

Photo 73

55 Comments

  • Stephanie @ Our Marriage Adventure

    I feel this way too some days. Its kind of why I love the saying that “Sometimes my knight in shining armor is an idiot in tin foil.” We still love them but dang we’d like to bop them with a blow up hammer too!

    • HeatherM

      “Sometimes my knight in shining armor is an idiot in tin foil.” LOVE THIS.
      I love that you blog about this stuff… It’s so great to know mine is not the only marriage with days like this.
      One of our ongoing issues is that my husband is a VERY picky eater- and yet he won’t cook- and he needs to stay out of the drive-thrus for both financial and nutritional reasons. I can’t tell you how how many times I have cooked a truly delicious meal and he just picks at it and then says “meh, this just doesn’t do it for me.” If he were a kid I could send him to bed hungry, but he’s not physically a kid anymore so I can’t. I have a big thing about not insulting the chef EVER unless you want to do all the cooking. My MIL may not have ingrained that into her child, but I can guarantee I will instill that into our kids when we have them.

  • Trish D

    Your evening sounds like mine! I just told Doug that he should be relieved that I have enough sense not to listen to the voices in my head that keep telling me to smack the **** out of him 🙂 I laughed…he failed to see the humor.

  • Sarah @makingitmyhome.blogspot.com

    Wow…what an honest, real life post. We have all been in situations like that. Sometimes as the one who should win a medal for not killing their spouse and sometimes as, well, came home from work on the wrong side of the bed. Congrats on not killing your spouse today!

  • Lindsay

    This is fantastic. I saw a quote once that said “In 50 years, my wife and I have never had an argument that made us contemplate divorce. Murder? Yes. But never divorce.” I printed it out and put it up because sometimes the victory is in NOT punching my fiancé. Seriously.

    • Melissa

      Ha! My husband and I discussed that on our honeymoon. He mentioned that sometimes he knows he goes too far and said, “If I ever push you to the point that you want to leave me, you have to let me know.” I said, “Sweetie, don’t worry about it. If I get to the point that I don’t want to be married to you anymore, you’ll be dead.”

  • Jessica

    It’s nice to know I’m not that only one that deals with a cranky husband after a long day. I hear ya girl. Keep on smiling and I’m impressed you held your tongue. 🙂

  • Sandy

    My response would have been…Exibit A) I agree with Chris on this one (sorta), no homework during dinner…BUT, not during bedtime either. Maybe in the tub? Exhibit B) Remind Chris to stop for Jet Dry tomorrow! Exhibit C) I would have asked when he converted the oven from Fahrenheit to Celsius! As for his criticism over dinner…in our house, if someone criticizes another’s way of doing a household chore (which making dinner certainly is), the person doing the criticizing has to take on that chore for a week. That usually fixes the husband, I mean problem =o)

  • Rhea

    Gotta say, I love that you put that picture up.

    I hate days like that. Especially when it’s me acting like that and Aaron points it out. (Cause of course I never feel like it’s true.)

  • Mindee@ourfrontdoor

    Hmmmmm. Ok, I sound like the old fuddy-duddy here, but . . . reading this made me really uncomfortable. Kind of like when I hear another couple fighting in a restaurant. Or when Jon and Kate Gosselin used to go at it on their show. Part of me was like – this is real life. The other part was saying, “Maybe, but should they really talk to each other like that in front of millions of people? In a format their kids can watch over and over?”

    You know I think you’re terrific and you have a great blog. Your honesty and frankness are one of the reasons you have such a loyal audience. But . . . it seems like you’ve crossed one of your one lines here.

    • Christy

      It’s a blog about marriage and arguing/fights are a part of marriage. Other readers can give Katie advice on how to handle it or just commiserate with her because marriage is hard. I’m very surprised that you felt like she crossed a line here. I have been in much worse fights with my husband and would have mentioned wanting to kick things other than shins. Life gets stressful and we work through it once we calm down.

    • E

      Not sure this rises to the level of Jon & Kate Gosselin. Or really even fighting. This was just a peak into normal moods that go on in any healthy, family relationship. Since I’m assuming they don’t ALWAYS talk to each other like this, it’s just amusing. I think you might need to lighten up a bit.

    • sdr

      Agreed…reading this post just made me feel icky afterwards. Yes, everyone has these moments, and Katie, I know you frequently blog about them, but usually it’s from the vantage point of a little time and perspective which somehow gives it a different vibe. What I do know is that if I wrote this about my husband–no matter how true it might be in the moment–his feelings would be terribly hurt.

  • Janet

    Oh, my word. Yes, yes girlfriend. Murder as a management tool never works, in a marriage or in the work place. I’ve been tempted many times in both! I usually can wait and have a good laugh after venting with my girl friends. Then we pick it up and go on.

  • Amy

    We were on family vacation a couple weeks ago and my husband brought to my attention a little fridge magnet he saw in a gift shop. It perfectly describes any healthy marriage: “I love you more and more each day . . . except yesterday, when you really irritated me.”

    Cheers to you and Chris – keepin’ it real!

  • Suzanne

    That certainly deserved a swift kick to the shin. When my hubby and I have these kinds of days…I normally do the same…I have to get to my own space or I will explode and it ain’t pretty. So good for you for not killing him 🙂

  • April

    Thank you for this post. You helped me see tonight that the grass isn’t always greener and that this is what real marriages look like from time to time. I needed this more than you will ever know. Thank you so much for being real!

  • shell

    THIS. Please have more real blog posts, just like this. This is what I like to read – the real conversations!

    thank you for being real.

    • Laura

      Ditto – love that you’re keeping it real, and it’s awesome to hear we’re not the only couple who has conversations like these, but somehow I feel that maybe there is another side to the story that would be nice to hear. Just out of curiosity: does Chris read your posts before you hit “Publish”? In my more intense blogging days, that became one of our household rules… :o)

      Love you Katie, and I hope all fires have cooled down now and you and Chris get a chance to laugh over this!

  • Kattrina

    Haha – I am usually the one in the bad mood so I can totally see both sides of it. Sometimes after a long day I work I come home and it’s like my husband can do nothing right. I hear myself being super critical and ridiculous and yet I can’t stop myself. He’ll finally call me out and I’ll apologize, but really, I hear myself the entire time but can’t stop being so short and rude. It usually happens after a few nights of little sleep and long days at work. Now I try to take the dog on a walk before I start snapping and when I get back, I feel much better.

  • Melissa

    Um, I love this post. I think you handled it with humor and removing yourself from the situation is far better than sticking around to escalate it!

    Also, my Chris does this where he comes home in a funky mood and then criticizes everything thats happening. He doesn’t get to eat those nights. If you don’t appreciate the work that went into dinner, you have to fix your own. House Rule #2.

  • Peggy

    “Laugh. Fight. Stay married.” is who you are. I love this post and some of the comments have me in tears from laughing (and out loud at work). My husband and I are pretty good now about letting the other know if we are grumpy, irritated or whatever – a good sign to steer clear 🙂

  • Katie

    I think this post is awesome. You are human. You have a right to be upset. And you handled it waaayyy better than a lot of people. Including myself. So yeah for you!!!

  • Aileen

    OMG, yes, this. I can so relate, except I would not have handled it as well! Especially these past few weeks (maybe it’s the heat?) Major kudos to you, Katie!

  • Nikki

    I SO needed to read this. I am by far the grumpy one in our marriage, but today my Husband has taken that job over, and I don’t like it one bit. I got snapped at for buying the wrong mouth wash. Next time he can take our 7 month old with him and see what he screws up. Ahhh! Wow, I feel better!

  • rachel

    Love this. I sometimes thing people don’t have a realistic view on marriage. It is not all rainbows and sunshine all the time! Some days are easy, some you want to smother your spouse with a pillow.

  • nora cash

    I think it is very heathy for children to see that even good marriages have disagreements. Keep up the good work. We all have days like that with our loving husbands.

  • Angie

    I just wanted to say that I appreciate blog posts like this, because it is real. We don’t always get along with our spouses and sometimes it is good to vent. Lots of blogs I read lately have been sanitised slowly over time and to be honest, it gets boring after a while (I wonder if it’s because of negative commenters?).

  • Cat

    🙂 So… I have a bad habit of being the critical one. But just knowing we aren’t the only ones to have these fights makes me feel a teensy bit better!

  • momiss

    Bahahahaha! Yes! You DO deserve a medal, and for the record I am sure you will be very glad you did not kill your spouse in a few days or maybe a week. Or so. But your happy time will come around again.
    The lemon chicken sounds wonderful, too. I must confess that when my kids were that small I often fixed chicken strips and steamed veggies they could put cheese sauce over. I am not proud of that but I must testify that it kept me from killing people about twice a week.
    Let me be the voice in your head at these times. Hear me say “Katie, don’t worry! It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
    Truth!

  • Cassie

    Situations like this are hard! It sounds like you both had long hard days. When something like this is happening I calmly tell my husband how he is talking to me hurts my feelings because I feel like he is being critical. Or I might say that it seems like he had a long day lets make time to talk about it.

    Hopefully after you wrote this post and both were able to calm down you were able to talk things through. I feel like situations like this that are not talked through can create built up tension in the relationships which causes more harm later.

    Some days are easy to love our spouse and some days are harder! 🙂

  • Amanda

    So glad I am not the only one who deals with this! My husband has those hyper critical days where I am not sure if I want to punch him in the nose or curl up in a ball and cry. Props to you for not doing eithr 🙂

  • Jen @ Ginger Guide

    What? You mean your marriage isn’t perfect? I’m shocked…..or not. I understand some people don’t like to read this stuff but if I want roses and rainbows I’ll go read a romance novel. You’re a real person with a real marriage and you have real problems.

    When Mike gets passive aggressive or critical I tell him it’s like being married to a high school girl too and boy does he hate that but it’s just the way he’s acting. I’ve also told him to feel free to make his own dinner bc maybe if he’s eating he’ll stop being so whiny. Because I’m mature like that, obviously.

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