The Other Side

My only post that has excited comment (except from my friends) was the one about Steve's anger-management problem. So here's the flip side. First, things always look worse in print. You grouse to your friends or something and someone makes a joke and it's not that bad. You write it down and it sounds much, much worse. Steve has read some of my stuff and, just as I would do (and I do this a lot), he skipped over all the nice things I said and ended up being hurt by the bad things.

So here's my confession: my temper is different from Steve's, but just as ungovernable. At the risk of sounding too much like a granola eater, we are both Pisces, and we are both subject to mood swings. We're also too sensitive to the other's moods. We both get frustrated. I am just somewhat more insecure than he is, so while he gets mad, I get whiny and needy and apologetic and he says, "Why are you always apologizing for everything?" "Sorry," I respond.

This is a vicious circle. Part of what frustrates me is Steve's shutting down; becoming emotionally unreachable, not telling me things. I go along, asking questions and trying to find out what's going on. Eventually, usually fueled with wine, I blow. And I am horrible when I blow. Tom says that there's another person inside me who comes out. I have a different voice and say whatever I can, true or not, to wound. I throw things. I am just not as strong as Steve, so I've never broken a door. So then Steve says the reason he does not tell me things he thinks I won't like is because of my "vitriol." And I say horrific,you-can't-take-them-back things when I do yell. This last time, I impugned the size of Steve's manhood. Any guys who are out there, here's a secret: that is an incredibly easy target for any man except, probably, a John Holmes. In fact, almost everyone fits in that "average" category, both men and women. For the record, Steve is somewhat to the right of center on the bell curve, at least in my experience, but he's still, I guess, close enough to the center for it to be a sore point. And here's a point on which he's a far better person than I: He may yell, or reprimand, about stupid stuff, but he has never made a personally hurtful comment to me, no matter how angry he's gotten. And there is plenty he could say---I am fat, for instance. And he has never made me feel less than sexy and desirable when I am with him. And since I desire him more than I've ever desired anyone, shame on me for saying something like that to him.

So, anyway, I thought it was sort of a commentary on male-female relationships that the two people who commented here were so different in their take on things. As a matter of fact, for a minute, I thought maybe eastcoastbilly was Steve, but he wasn't. I think, to a certain extent, this is the Era of the Woman. So our feelings and wishes are legitimized, and men, acting the way men act, are the "bad guys." Look at Everybody Loves Raymond, or most other sitcoms of that era. The woman is right and the man is wrong, even though they are playing entirely by the woman's rules. So the woman who comments doesn't see all the good things about Steve I've put in previous posts and sees something about his bad temper. The man homes in on the thing that's important to men---sex.

I will talk about the whole sex thing more in another post. Right now, I just want to say that Steve really is a good, generally considerate person, as am I. But we both bring a whole lifetime of baggage and failed relationships. If we were emotionally healthy people, we would probably not be where we are now. I yelled and screamed and did something Steve has never done to me---thank heavens---I pummeled him around the head and shoulders. I was so frustrated and hurt and mad before I blew. But the good thing is, I think, that we both care---even if it takes destructive forms sometimes. With Mark, I was sort of in a coma for years. I never got this upset because I'd just shut down. The only person I cared about was Tom. So I wouldn't trade my relationship with Steve for anything---overall, it's the best time I've ever had.