Popcorn Problem: how could this have been handled better?

[Anonymous]

Reading posts like these always remind me to thank my spouse for being awesome.

[Anonymous]

A popcorn thread based on popcorn.

:thumbsup:

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seasoned wife and mother here.

Young mothers tend to be control freaks - not a bad thing per se, but attending to the needs of a young brood tends to bring that out in some people.

The advice that I will give a lot of you probably will not register for a few years, but here goes. If you want to have a good relationship with your DH and just a peaceful marriage, a lot of you need to learn to delegate properly. My marriage is not perfect but this is a skill that I learned after a few years. DH is pretty active with household stuff anyways, but if I ask him (not tell) him to do something, I do not tell him HOW to get the task done and if the task is done within reason, I do not critique it. Now if he really screws it up (which is rare) I mention it to him, but not in a negative confrontational posture. One example is that my DH uses the dishwasher and I prefer to hand-wash. Thus, I know that if I need him to cover the dishes, he is going to do it his way. And if I want it done MY way, I should be prepared to do it myself. I am just not sure it is constructive for a person or a marriage to micromanage to that degree.

Many of you are in the "pre-martyr" stage where you insist your DH is an idiot and that is why you have to do everything.

I grew up as the child in the kind of relationship OP has. My Mom says exactly the kind of hostile things OP's DW said about failure to clean up. My Dad is like OP. I am now the mother of 2 kids with a now exDH like OP is now. While I agree with you, PP, in some ways about how the female acts in this dynamic, I really think men have to take responsibility. I have lost a lot of respect for my Dad, whom I love dearly. His expectation that it is the role of someone else in the house to either live in a pigsty or clean up after him is really disrespectful. My Dad's inability to take responsibility for himself at this level, sent a very damaging message to me about what I can expect men in my life to do. Because of that, I married someone who is not capable or does not wish to be capable of handling the personal/administrative side of life. I divorced him, in part, because having an adult child was not how I thought I should live the rest of my life (and for many, many other even stronger reasons, but the "man child" part alone was enough). I am raising my son to be able to take care of himself and his household.

My Mom played a reactive role in this, and the hostility she developed as a result is saddening. While it's true that my Mom developed the "martyr" pose, by PP's definition, with my father's complete lack of ability to do even the most basic tasks, she was left to take on the whole of the domestic sphere of their life. That is a gross unfairness and was the cause of the growth of my Mom's bitterness. He has profited immensely from her unpaid work and time.

Interestingly enough, my parents had a slightly different dynamic. My father was perfectly willing to help at first. However, my mother would criticize him simply because he did things a different way. Eventually the constant criticism caused him to not even try anymore. Of course, my mother seized on that to claim that he never did anything and that she had to do it all. When they divorced, my father proved more than capable of running a household. When I first married, I was my mother. Constanly insisting that things be my way in the household realm. We were always bickering. Where I started to evolve is that I was in the hospital for a few weeks and DH was in charge. Lo and behold, the trains STILL ran on time. And I was causing myself so much stress about HOW things were getting done and not that they were getting done. But I agree wiith you, you do have to have a partner sho is somewhat willing and competent.

You are lucky. When I have been away from home, my now exDH routinely dumped the kids off on other family members with one or another excuse. This happened on several occasions. I am no longer able to travel overnight unless I make arrangements for a family member or sitter to care for the kids. This has torpedoed my professional career as well as my marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I am sure this is not the first time you have blown off a chore. Or felt sorry for yourself after you did it. Or asked someone else to feel sorry for you when you did it. If you value your relationship, you will think hard about why she said this. I am sure it did not come from no where. Nice try, though, picking something innocuous to make your point.

Hello to OP's wife!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not about the popcorn. You guys are in a bad place if you're fighting about this. Objectively, I agree with her that you didn't clean up the popcorn, but her vehement reaction saying she "hates" you shows there are other issues.

+1. I cannot imagine saying "this is why I hate you" to my DH for any reason (or him saying that to me), especially one as trivial as this. Definitely some underlying resentment going on there! Please talk to her about it ASAP and find out what's going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a DW, and I would have done what you did with the popcorn.

Your problem seems to be that you haven't married a very nice person. Possibly could be why you asked the internet instead of asking her directly how to handle this better. I have a definite vibe that she would have escalated her tirade if you had done that.

Saying "this is why I HATE you" is not normal, and extremely hurtful. Saying that in front of your kids is reprehensible. Treating their father like that in front of them damages their sense of security in your bond, their view of you, and their view of marriage. I repeat, she is not a nice or safe person. There may be other factors at play besides the popcorn incident, otherwise that definitely escalated quickly. I would reccommend counseling for the two of you, since I have no idea what else to suggest for a person that would even think of doing this in front of their children.

Even more troubling is the amount of female posters that think this sort of behavior is all right, or is in anyway justifying it. It is not okay to treat anyone like this, especially the person you took vows with.

+1. Couldn't have said this better.

[Anonymous]

"No wire hangers, ever!!!!!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it weren't for the fact that we didn't have a popcorn incident, I'd wonder if this were my husband posting. For me, it's that whenever I ask him for help for something around the house, he takes the laziest, most half-ass route to get himself just barely within some definition of having done what I asked him to do, but the reality is that I end up having to redo whatever I ask him to do because it's causing more problems than he solved. It's incredibly frustrating to feel like you have one more child, rather than a partner.

Sweeping popcorn off the steps and into the grass/mulch is exactly the kind of thing he would do to save himself the effort of getting a dustpan and putting the popcorn into the trash. Then I would end up out there cleaning it up properly so we didn't attract insects/rodent (or look like "those neighbors" with trash all over their lawn), and he'd wonder why I wasn't in the mood for sex that evening. The only difference is that I don't so thoroughly loathe him that I would say something like that in front of the kids.

You are me.

LoL.

"No I'm not fucking you tonight, YOU DIDN'T PICK UP THE POPCORN CORRECTLY!!!! You stupid motherfucker!"

[Anonymous]

"I don't want to have sex because you didn't pick up the popcorn correctly."

When I get some variant of that, I always roll my eyes because I can't possibly be fucking up popcorn cleaning 29 nights a month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You definitely took the lazy way out of getting the job done. If I was feeling loving and charitable, I'd give you the benefit of the doubt that you were taught these things by your parents, and I'd nicely point out the potential problems with attracting animals and ask you to try to get as much in the garage as you can manage. If I was tired of feeling like you were my third child whom I couldn't rely upon to share the work load, then I'd tell you in an irritated voice that what you did wasn't cleaning up. And if I felt like my husband didn't care about my well-being and was starting to consider divorce, I'd tell you that this is why I hated you.

What could you have done differently (other than putting the popcorn in the garbage)? I wouldn't have engaged on the popcorn issue, I would have instead recognized and given her empathy for her strong feelings ("It sounds like you're feeling frustrated and angry. I'm sorry about that. Can we talk later when the kids are in bed?").

Wow. PP. You are nuts. Signed, DW.

[Anonymous]

You all have much bigger problems than popcorn in your mulch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You all have much bigger problems than popcorn in your mulch.

Awesome!! Just laughed out loud. Good way to end a stressful day.

[Anonymous]

"The advice that I will give a lot of you probably will not register for a few years, but here goes. If you want to have a good relationship with your DH and just a peaceful marriage, a lot of you need to learn to delegate properly. My marriage is not perfect but this is a skill that I learned after a few years. DH is pretty active with household stuff anyways, but if I ask him (not tell) him to do something, I do not tell him HOW to get the task done and if the task is done within reason, I do not critique it. Now if he really screws it up (which is rare) I mention it to him, but not in a negative confrontational posture. One example is that my DH uses the dishwasher and I prefer to hand-wash. Thus, I know that if I need him to cover the dishes, he is going to do it his way. And if I want it done MY way, I should be prepared to do it myself. I am just not sure it is constructive for a person or a marriage to micromanage to that degree."

OK. But wouldn't you agree that shoving the popcorn off to the side instead of picking up falls into the "screw up" category, and that you would nicely mention that you wouldn't have handled it that way?

[Anonymous]

"You definitely took the lazy way out of getting the job done. If I was feeling loving and charitable, I'd give you the benefit of the doubt that you were taught these things by your parents, and I'd nicely point out the potential problems with attracting animals and ask you to try to get as much in the garage as you can manage. If I was tired of feeling like you were my third child whom I couldn't rely upon to share the work load, then I'd tell you in an irritated voice that what you did wasn't cleaning up. And if I felt like my husband didn't care about my well-being and was starting to consider divorce, I'd tell you that this is why I hated you.

What could you have done differently (other than putting the popcorn in the garbage)? I wouldn't have engaged on the popcorn issue, I would have instead recognized and given her empathy for her strong feelings ("It sounds like you're feeling frustrated and angry. I'm sorry about that. Can we talk later when the kids are in bed?").

Wow. PP. You are nuts. Signed, DW"

Why am I "nuts?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"You definitely took the lazy way out of getting the job done. If I was feeling loving and charitable, I'd give you the benefit of the doubt that you were taught these things by your parents, and I'd nicely point out the potential problems with attracting animals and ask you to try to get as much in the garage as you can manage. If I was tired of feeling like you were my third child whom I couldn't rely upon to share the work load, then I'd tell you in an irritated voice that what you did wasn't cleaning up. And if I felt like my husband didn't care about my well-being and was starting to consider divorce, I'd tell you that this is why I hated you.

What could you have done differently (other than putting the popcorn in the garbage)? I wouldn't have engaged on the popcorn issue, I would have instead recognized and given her empathy for her strong feelings ("It sounds like you're feeling frustrated and angry. I'm sorry about that. Can we talk later when the kids are in bed?").

Wow. PP. You are nuts. Signed, DW"

Why am I "nuts?"

Not that PP. Nuts was inappropriate. They should have used the word "condescending". I'm 100% certain you're not perfect and equally certain that there are things you do (or don't do) that aggravate your husband. Hopefully, he doesn't speak to you or treat you in the manner you outlined above.