April 4, 2003

Laundry

Earlier this week, Calvin and I fought.

I'd actually written an entry about it - more a summary of some of the statements made by one or the other of us, rather than a bitch fest of fault and blame. I decided not to post it, because when I re-read it, it seemed at once to be too harsh and too childish when taken out of context. That, and Calvin doesn't like our laundry aired for public consumption.

I didn't gain the therapy from writing it as I usually do when something disturbing is on my mind. I know that's because I was just reiterating what was said, rather than delving into how I felt, or what I was going to do about it. At that point, I couldn't. We'd gone for pretty much two whole days without saying much to each other - just letting ourselves circulate around one another in the functionality of our lives. I was numb and my feelings were adrift.

You know how when I usually talk about arguing with Calvin, I describe sitting at my desk and trying to make myself stick to my guns and *not* call him? Well, we'd argued Tuesday night, and all through that evening and throughout the entire next day I found it to be too easy to avoid talking to him. Complete overload - I didn't want to deal with trying to make myself understood, or trying to understand him.

Red fucking flag.

I have a hard time functioning when Calvin and I are out of sorts. Throws me off balance. I felt anger and disappointment stuck in my throat so hard I actually thought I was coming down with something. Thursday morning I called Calvin up and said, "What do you say we sit down and have a discussion tonight?" Then he said that he felt aggravated and disappointed, and didn't know what to say or how to address it.

Both of us, stuck on either side of this, and neither knowing how to approach it.

I decided to tackle this in a new way. See, Calvin and I aren't particularly good at arguing with each other. He gets up a full head of steam and plunges forward, tossing in not-niceties here and there, and using his boy-logic. I start out trying to be calm and reasonable, get frustrated because he won't stop talking so I can interject, say stupid nonsensical things, and end up crying before it's all said and done. He thinks we've made agreements where I've just nodded dumbly in an effort to end the argument. I'm horrid at remembering details and forget the points I want to make mid-argument. He invalidates my feelings, I invalidate his feelings.

Really. We're not good at it. To be sure, we don't get much practice.

During a respite between meetings, I sat at a table on the patio at AcronymCo, soaking up the sun and sipping my tea. I brought a notebook and started listing all the issues that were making me unhappy - and there were more of them than what started the original argument in the first place. It didn't take me long to realize that it wasn't the topic of our argument at all that was the real issue.

I knew that once we sat down to talk, the aforementioned argument tactics we usually use would tank the whole intent of our discussion in a matter of minutes. We needed an opportunity to clearly see and define the REAL issues at stake - not the petty arguments caused by the underlying issues. We needed a way to make sure that both of us had the opportunity to be heard and understood. We needed to make sure that the upshot of this conversation was a return to the happy state we normally enjoy.

We needed... Ground Rules.

As soon as I thought of it, I knew Calvin would be derisive. Understandably so; as a former AcronymCo employee himself, he's familiar with this particularly ineffective tool that we're encouraged to establish as part of our "Effective Meeting" structure. But I knew that if we couldn't agree on communication styles up front, it wasn't even worth it to try to have a discussion at all. And that just wasn't an option. There was fixin' to be done.

My own eyes were rolling as I did it, but knowing our argumentative faults as I do, I came up with some things I hoped he would agree to before starting in:

No yelling.
No talking over each other.
For each statement made, allow the other the opportunity to respond.
Be respectful.
Be honest, and be open to other's viewpoints.
Be open to suggestions/don't make demands.
No feeling is invalid, no issue is "stupid".

I brought the notebook home with me, and after dinner was taken care of and Friends duly watched, I asked Calvin if he wanted to start our discussion. We went into the bedroom and shut the door. I took out the notebook.

"You've got to be kidding," Calvin said.

Head down, plunge forward.

I told him why I'd brought the notebook, and why I thought we needed to establish some conversational tools. After I read off the Ground Rules I'd thought of, he actually agreed to them. We began our discussion, and as he spoke I wrote. He was able to tolerate that, though I believe the word "geek" was used several times. "Deep down you're glad I do stuff like this!" I countered. I just wanted to make sure I really understood what he was saying to me, and I wanted to make sure I didn't suffer from my usual argument-induced amnesia. I swear, it must be a defense mechanism or something. Conversational details during arguments leak out of my brain almost as fast as they're spoken.

He thought it was totally weird. I don't think anyone has every REALLY tried to understand him that much before. I don't think either one of us have ever tried to address such difficult topics of conversation in a sane and thought out manner before. This stuff is usually argued over, but I took notes, for God's sake.

We had a really difficult conversation. A lot was said, a lot of specifics were hashed out which I won't go over here. I told him he needed to be nicer, he said I used to be a lot more giving. He figures he's done changing, and he's afraid that whatever changes I may still experience ("I changed a lot between 25 and 35") will cause me to grow apart from him. I explained that personal growth doesn't represent a threat to him or our relationship. He feels like he compromises multiple times a day, I feel like he never compromises at all. He sighed a lot, I cried a lot.

He expressed his disappointment in the realization that our relationship wasn't as euphoric as he thought it was going to be. When I asked him to explain, he said that he really thought that we would never have an argument. Ever. Never disagree at all. Even though he knew logically that that was practically impossible ("Yeah," I said bitchily. "Nobody could get along with you 100% of the time."), he was still disappointed that the "new shiny" has worn off of our relationship, and that "reality" has set in.

Which was, at the root of things, the upshot of my feelings, too.

In the end, it seems a clearing of the air was what we really needed. I think once we realized that we can allow ourselves to *not* expect perfection, and still have a wonderfully successful relationship, it got easier to put those imperfections in perspective.

We're better, and we're talking, and we're looking forward to a good weekend. He knows I love and need him, I know he feels the same. We have a new found understanding of and respect for one another's feelings.

I think our relationship has turned a positive corner.

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©Laura Charon 2000 - 2003.