Reply to my wife's thin skin

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't buy it either.

You probably felt you were gentle but you were being condescending and argumentative.  You probably harped on and on about driving mistakes and she exploded and responded I'm never driving them again.

In the end, if she is a bad driver she shouldn't be driving the kids around.  Great if she never drives them again  
[/quote]

OP here. She was a bad driver because she hadn't driven in 10 years, and hadn't driven in the USA. Now she is much improved. It would make life easier for her if she drove now, but she seems hell-bent on playing the role of the martyr.

When I raised the driving issue initially, I began by explaining that I am uncomfortable driving in any new country. It takes me a while to acclimate, and it isn't wise to go through the acclimation process with kids in the car. I explained this using ME as the example. I then generalized, and said that I would hope that she would want some solo practice before driving with the kids.

I don't think I was condescending. Rather, I was careful and polite, because I knew, from experience, that I was walking on eggshells.  And sure enough, those shells cracked. I'm not sure how to magically walk across those shells without breaking them. A two-ounce mouse could crack them.

[/quote]

So if she drove alone and had an accident and died, that would be fine with you, as long as the kids were okay? She is expendable? It seems that you don’t care about her much at all. The reaction may have been different if you had suggested that she get more practice with a driving instructor because you would hate for anything to happen to her or the kids.

Your way of suggesting that more options be looked at for different situations seems phony and condescending, like you think she can’t see through your careful, polite wording to know that you simply don’t like a lot of the things she likes. Those things are in sum an expression of who she is.

It may go better if you simply admit that you don’t like something. You don’t suggest that a range of options be considered for every decision, right? You say it only when you yourself have a quick, instinctive reaction that you don’t like something. You try to mask it by saying that options need to be considered, thinking needs to take place that hasn’t taken place, etc. How do you decide when to raise the need for more deliberation? It’s when you instantly disagree. You don’t spend hours to decide that you disagree. Just say that you disagree. Maybe express regret that you aren’t more similar. There isn’t a right or wrong for many of these decisions, and more thought isn’t going to change what someone feels.[/quote]

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