(no subject)

[my_window_seat]

Huh. 

I've been reading theferrett's journal for a few months now, and this is the first post that made me really sad.  And not in the good, bittersweet kind of way. 

Because it sounds to me, not like a recounting of a healthy interaction in a well-balanced relationship, but a deathknell signaling an inevitable and what will also probably be a very painful end. 

If I had a roommate, much less a spouse, who wrote this entry - which strikes me as being filled with passive-aggressive self-justification - I'd be looking into getting a new roommate/good relationship counselor and/or divorce lawyer, because the way this reads to me, the writer is really unhappy in the housing situation/marriage and is actively looking for a way out that not only doesn't make them the bad guy, but elevates them to some kind of martyred superhero status just for putting dishes in a fucking dishwasher.

I really hope I'm completely over-personalizing and reading it incorrectly, because even though I'm single and likely to remain so forever -

I always want to see other people making it work.
Because otherwise the world feels a little greyer and a little hopeless.

:: crosses fingers ::

Please be wrong please please please please...

Comments

[qweerdo.livejournal.com]

All I know about theferrett is his role in the open source boob project (http://www.google.com/search?q=open+source+boob+project&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a).

[my-window-seat.livejournal.com]

And look at how well that worked...

[qweerdo.livejournal.com]

yup. :)

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he's kind of a failure as a person.

Here's the key phrase

[disgruntledgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yet thankfully, my wife's damn smart. She recognized that what she had was not a collection of tightly-logical, inviolable logic, but rather a preference for a given way of doing things that is actually a judgment call. And by saying, "Look, this silly thing irritates me for reasons that may or may not be defensible," it takes the focus off of whether her feelings are justifiable and puts the focus on how I want to make her feel. Which is, of course, awesome at all times.

-------

He knows he's nit picky. She knows she's illogical.
He's happy she's found a way to get the point across without leaving him an opening for an arguement. Many people in our circles tend to Devil's Advocate all the time - they can't help it.

Which he points out here:
...But when your partner starts picking holes in your theory (and generally they're pretty legitimate holes created by differing levels of tolerance, such as Gini's "mess" being my "that's just the way a kitchen looks sometimes"), then you have to defend your theory, and they're backed into defending theirs, and wham. Argument. A conflict that usually drifts quickly into, "I'm right. Acknowledge how right I am."

He's actually talking about himself in the "I'm right".


I don't know much about the Ferret - but this is ok.
This entry is about nit picky and how sometimes people lose sight that it's not the trigger but the emotion that's the reason.

Heinlein once wrote that basic manners between husband and wife are very important. This is along those lines.

Re: Here's the key phrase

[my-window-seat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, just before I went to sleep last night I re-read that entry, and it hit me that I wasn't in a headspace where could see it without my own baggage.

Which is why I like having a journal - I get a chance to process this stuff in print rather than in person, *and* I can sometimes get feedback from other people with cooler heads than mine. :)

Re: Here's the key phrase

[theferrett.livejournal.com]

And honestly, you can check to see in five years or so, but I am deeply in love with Gini and have no intention of leaving.

The point of the essay is not to self-justify, but to abandon justification. (Which I may have failed at in conveying.) Having read not one, but two pop psychology books on brain functioning while waiting for planes yesterday, they both will tell you that humans don't instinctively come to rational decisions; they decide emotionally, and then use that rationality to make up solid reasons for why their gut is correct.

Hence, why logic is often a pretty crappy tool in an argument. You wind up thinking that you are completely justified, and getting upset when your partner dissects your argument with equal logic, when the real core is the emotion underneath you feel - which may be not logical at all.

Being honest about that can help. A lot.