So Jim (my partner) and I got in a fight. Jim is a slow burn type of guy - it takes alot to get him angry, but when you get him angry, he's positively ruthless.

So we got into it tonight, and I realized something. He's ruthless, as long as he doesn't have to commit to anything. The minute you go "Oh, is that really what you think?", he backs off immediatly.

I'm not sure what's bothering me more - the things he says when he's mad, or the fact that he just won't man up and commit to having said it. What a passive agressive way to fight with somebody, holy schnikes!

And the commitment to the point thing never occured to me tonight. There's not even any point in mentioning it to him. Besides, I'm still a little too pissed to bother having a conversation with him. Haha...

So, advice if you got it (and before we go down that trail, I'm not being abused, and I have no intentions of leaving him, so you can save it if either of those were your proposed argument), commiseration if you got that, otherwise, thanks for the a-ha moment, everybody!

Maybe I'm not understanding the situation properly or maybe I'm just being naive, but this seems like a good thing. I mean there are loads of people who build up resentment, get mad, and say spiteful horrible things that they mean with every atom of their body. It seems like your guy gets mad and runs his mouth but doesn't actually mean a word of it, it's all posturing. It sounds annoying and possibly a bit disingenuous but perhaps it's better than the alternative?

I've noticed when a kid is sick you're more likely to 'get into it'. Tensions are kind of high already because you're both worried about the little person and then just the wrong thing gets said/done and next thing you know words are being exchanged.

Once my husband and I figured out that pattern we started being a lot more careful with each other when our son would get sick.

I have the same with Danny. He RARELY gets mad, but oh MY when he goes it's horrific. Perhaps you can analyze it a bit to figure out the pattern and the reasoning behind it. Do the two of you talk later when things are calm to understand what the cause is? For my Dan he's all about tone. He is VERY sensitive about someone's tone when speaking and I get SO irritated with having to be be careful 100% of the time. Give me a break, I'm human and sometimes I NEED to let my hair down/psychically vomit and the DUDE needs to not take it personally. That is precisely why I so desperately need a girlfriend to talk to because there are some things we NEED to say and it's not best to say to our men.

Theresa wrote:

commiseration if you got that:P

Yes I do, but I must issue a small disclaimer before I start.

I usually don't enter into the fray on venting about husbands, but, at the moment, mine is off drinking and gambling and not here for Thanksgiving. So, this rare moment is sure to pass and it may be a while before I'm mad enough to type like this. So, take everything I say with a grain of salt. (Make that a giant salt lick..deer season starts on Monday.)

and

Panic, please avert your eyes. The harsh words that are sure to follow are spoken in the heat of the moment in response to a request from another woman to commiserate. It's a Mars-Venus thing. Period. It doesn't mean we hate men, or that we hate you. We love you. We love our men. That's why we put up with their crazy ways.
(I bet men feel the same way about certain infuriating aspects of a double xx instead of an xy)

so...moving on

I married my boy child husband when I was 20 years old. The things that attracted me to him at the time, were the very things I found most irritating when things took an occasional ugly turn, like your recent fight with Jim.

When I was 20, I though it was great that he did whatever he wanted to no matter what his mother thought. His battle cry? "If it feels good, do it." Now that we're much older and presumably wiser, I'm often amazed when he seems to be operating from the 22 year old impulse ridden brain of his. If I say, "Do you think that's a good idea?" he hears, "That's the worst idea I ever heard" to which, his narcissistic 22 year old brain responds, "Let's do it NOW". When I was 20, I admired his confidence. Now, I am often amazed at his selfcenteredness.(Is that a word?) His ability to put his meal schedule and his neurotic adherence to exercising the dog ahead of so many other things is maddening.

This latest...there is a bit more to my point of view. Our sick daughter just had surgery last Saturday. It's been a painful recovery at home for her and physically exhausting for me as I am "Nurse Nancy" in all her medical needs. (In his defense, medical stuff totally freaks him out. He can't even watch ER on television.) Given the fact that she is still recovering, it seemed unthinkable to me to go on this little jaunt with him.

His point of view is totally different. He thinks that because of the stress of this latest health thing "getting away from it all" would be therapeutic. He thinks that since she's miserable anyway, we should leave her home and arrange for her to have Thanksgiving dinner with one of my married children's in-laws. This seems like a perfectly reasonable arrangement to him, I am on exactly the opposite side on this believing that a holiday is a holiday and she is only 17. The other kids weren't farmed out on Thanksgiving. I fed 20 people for many years so we could all be together. Sometimes I included the families of the older kids "significant others" and was happy when they accepted the invitation. He thinks this is crazy acting.

And all the talking in the world, all the explaining, and implementing communication skills, isn't going to change the way either of us think or feel on some issues. Mars/Venus.

To return to the issue at hand, commitment and Jim, I think this too is a Mars/Venus thing. Men seem to be programed to avoid commitment. To keep all options open for as long as possible, to constantly unconsciously be formulating a Plan B, C, and D. Do I dig in and fight,or do I run? Or maybe I should just not say anything and she'll think I'm a statue and stop expecting me to answer. Primitive but understandable given the way men (ok, I don't know all men...)view food, naps, and sex.

In this primitive light, everything else is understandable. In the brush, men had to impregnate as many different women as possible in order to insure the survival of his gene pool. Women, on the other hand, needed to be selective in their choice of a mate because they would carry the child and care for it. A man who was willing to commit to her and just a few children was more what a woman needed to insure that her gene pool would prosper. This basic difference in "commitment instinct"...for lack of a better "wrong word" is still operating in our gender difficulties.

I can't speak for your situation, but in my marriage, there are just times when you have to move on. He's not going to change the way he behaves and I'm not going to change the way I feel about it. I do reserve the right to be silent and uninterested in engaging in any positions outlined in the kama sutra until I remember just what I find so charming about him.

Realistically, we both know this is usually about a week. In making the choice to take this trip over Thanksgiving he also forfeits the pleasure of talking about his little vacation because he knows it is a tender subject and although he is an adolescent acting narcissist he isn't cruel. So, I guess we both loose something.

These Celestial Navigations can be so difficult.

Hope you are feeling better.

Keep On Dancing*

I know this is 30something, but I just wanted to ask, do you think this could stretch to other areas of his life? Like you guys not having married yet - certainly there's nothing wrong with that and a lot of folks do it nowadays, and you're living together and have a kid so he is "committed." But could his reluctance (if you want to put it like that) have something to do with this dislike of making this "official"? Does he have that sort of a passive personality? Because it seems that would make sense.