Yesterday my husband and I got in a fight. Our first big fight in awhile. I was taking great pride in the fact that I lost count since our last big one. For awhile it was, 'yeah, we made it a week!"...then that graduated to "yeah, we made it a month"....so you can only imagine my job when I lost count! Not that my husband and I fought all the time, we didn't. But when we did fight, it would feel soooo bad afterwards. I would have such a strong distaste for my husband and I would feel so guilty that we had this beautiful child yet our own relationship was so tainted. Luckily I haven't had those feelings in awhile. But yesterday we fell back on our sword. The irony of it all is that we were on our way home from our aniversary weekend (of course, right?). We had gone away to Ojai Valley Inn and Spa (heaven!) for the weekend. We were gone Friday-Sunday. Our son was home with his nanny and we had no worries in the world. We had a glorious weekend of relaxing, pampering and non-parenting. Am I bad Mom because I LOVED that? Anyway! All weekend long we didn't have a single hiccup - well, I guess we had one, but we ended up laughing it off. Hoorah! So there we are driving home. I am half asleep, feeling a bit sick (I'm pregnant), when my husband asks the question that sets the whole thing off. "What are we doing about the roof?" Just out of nowhere I'm jolted out of my dream-like sleep. I immediately get irritated with him because this is a question and topic we've discussed many times before. The roof he's referring to is the roof in our sons room that leaks. I had gotten a bid on it and my roofer determined the leak was coming from the overhang. So here we were again, discussing the same thing we've discussed at least two times before. I'm giving my husband the same information I did before and he's doing exactly what he did before - debating me about the information. Yes, I was the messenger getting shot. In short, he didn't agree with the roofers diagnosis. I blew up. I blew up for a couple reasons. One, we've had this conversation before. Two, I 'm just the messenger. If you don't like the information I'm giving you, get another opinion. So of course when I blew up, he blew up and before you knew it we were back in familiar territory - yelling at each other and on the verge of throwing "nuclears" (things you say that you absolutely regret afterwards). Luckily after launching a couple nuclears we clearned the battlefield and just resorted to silent huffing and puffing and shaking of our heads. Finally, my husband dared to speak. And guess what we said? "Ok, I know I'm going to regret this, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm about to lob a bomb." I told him not to, practically begged him not to. I knew the mood I was in. But he did it anyway. I can't even remember what he said, but it wasn't that bad at all. I thought he was going to say something to utterly dessimate my character. I guess my husband's a better man than that. We ended up coming to some sort of resolution about the roof so when we pulled up to our house after our glorious aniversary weekend, and to reunite with our beautiful son, we weren't on the verge of divorce.
Later that afternoon I just happened to stumble up an article in O (Oprah) Magazine. The magazine has been on my nightstand for about a year, promising to be read, but never had been until now. Fate? The article I turned to was about marriage and relationhips and how we make the mistake of making "attunement" our goal. It went on to say that marriages and relationships have conflict and conflict (and anger) are healhty...that it's all a matter of how you deal with it and how you recover. Can you believe the timing of that? Here I feel as though if my husband and I fight, we are "less than" other couples who seem to be in complete harmony. When in reality, it's ok to fight. Who knew? I ripped out the article and of course, put it on my husband's bedside table. ; )
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