Saturday, February 10, 2007

"Strawmen"

So, I've been thinking about the last post--and I think I have an insight.

I always want somebody to take responsibility for those things that I truly would like to be my responsibility... so I set someone or something as a "strawman" to be mad at about why such and such is not being done, or why I can't do so and so--instead of figuring out for myself why I am not doing it in the first place.
It seemed to make sense as to how that related to marriage at the time I was thinking about it yesterday, and now it seems to be sort of muddled.
I guess the basic idea is that if I take on all of the housework as my responsibility, then if something truly is not possible to do, then I should work around it, and not whine to myself and others...(sigh) it seemed so much more clear earlier.

I will let this bounce around in my brain for a while and hopefully either come up with the clarity I was feeling, or come to a new insight.

2 comments:

ZM said...

Hmm. Like the time I was sick of doing the dishes, so I left them. And left them. I was sure that at some point the Man would come into the kitchen, see all of the dishes and gasp, GETTING THE POINT.

Then, not only would he do dishes, he'd understand that I needed more help and would retrofit himself into someone who could do that.

Needless to say, I held out for three agonizing days (I hate clutter, hate it hate it hate it) - and he never even noticed.

Aaargh. But that was nine years ago...nowadays, he does the dishes and I do all of the cooking. And tonight (heh) we're going to have a talk about that.

F said...

Exactly!
Except, I'm not sure why I'm trying to prove that I'm too busy to get housework done by not doing it...which sometimes happens...who suffers? All of us. Wheras if I actually do whatever I can, he does start to help. I'm not sure if it's that our relationship has been around longer, or if we trust each other more, but the positive one of us does definetly does spur the other spouse to do other positive things!