about "bitching"

Answering both Rosalie's post and Banty's post together, since they're
both contained in this one:

Banty wrote:
In article , Rosalie B. says...
wrote:

IMHO he should have been paying attention to what was going on so that
it did not get to the point where she was on her last nerve.

Possibly. But the way the OP was presenting this was not "Ack, I was
stressed out and said something I shouldn't and regret it now" It was
more like "How unreasonable of him to be annoyed at me! Jeez, you see
what I have to put up with!"


[...]
Your husband did not walk up to you and start jumping in with
unsolicited advice. You asked him what he thought and he told you.
Actually she didn't really ask him for a solution. She was really
asking for help and support.

That's not the way it came across at all. First of all she says
something needs to be done. Maybe she didn't mean that as asking for a
solution, but it's sure as hell the way it sounds to me, and I wouldn't
blame him for taking it that way. Then she tells him that she wants HIM
to deal with it. That's not asking for help and support - it's asking
for him to come up with a solution. And then she complains that he
won't brainstorm. Brainstorming isn't help and support, it's... guess
what? Looking for solutions.

He gave her a solution that HE could do,
but she couldn't. Just because the first solution is rejected does
not mean that the dialogue has to end there.

Of course it doesn't - that's the point! When he asked her what she
wanted to do, she told him that she wanted him to deal with it. That
isn't dialogue; it's cutting off dialogue. If someone said that to me
I'd hear it as "Sort it out for me - I don't want to talk about it
further." I'm guessing that that's probably how it sounded to him, too.

If you don’t want a solution, don’t ask for one. If you ask for one,
don’t complain because the one he comes up with isn’t good enough. Of
course, you don’t have to accept it if you don’t like it. But the way
that conversation sounded to me - whether you meant it that way at the
time or not - is that you came up to him, dumped the problem in his
lap, washed your hands of it, and then acted as though he was somehow
at fault for not being happy to take on the job of drawing up as long
a list of solutions as it takes to come up with whichever one meets
your approval.
That wasn't the way it sounded to me. It sounded to me as if she
tried to deal with something and he deliberately ignored all of it.
(He was interested in his toast.) And then we he was asked, he gave
it no thought whatsoever.

OK. This is what I'm really not getting he He can't come up with a
solution that suits her (although he does have one unsuitable solution).
She can't come up with a solution that suits her (or any other
suggestions, even ones that don't work out). Somehow, this gets
interpreted as *him* giving it no thought whatsoever and *her* being
hard-done-by. Huh??

The things that strike me about this whole conversation are - -

1. WHERE does all this nitty stuff about whose idea and not validating it
immediately means it was shot down and therefore of course the whole matter gets
dropped COME FROM??

Not me, so I have no idea why you raised this point (apparently) in
response to the post I made.


[...]
2. I've worked in both engineering and volunteer work mostly with men and guys
DO NOT work like this - not when they see a need to get things done. I see this
kind of problem way more in men than in women, but that doesn't mean this is how
guys work. Take two guys carrying a heavy piece of furniture though a door. If
one guy said "lets do it end up" and the other guy says "naw I got one of these
through a house like this by turning it sideways" and starts moving to get it
sideways, the first guy does NOT put his end down and walk away.

Which is already not an analogy to the conversation as given. That
would be more like:

First guy: "Let's do it end up."

Second guy: "I don't think I can do that."

First guy: "OK, so how do you think we should hold it?"

Second guy: "I don't know... I just think holding it end up would be too
awkward, and we'd probably drop it."

First guy (a bit miffed): "OK, so how do you think we SHOULD hold it?"

Second guy: "I don't KNOW! I want YOU to deal with it!"


So... how do guys generally respond to someone who's acting like the
second guy? I don't know, but I'm guessing that it's *not* invariably a
warm sympathetic "Well, if you feel that way, let me think of another
solution."


They might *at
most* argue about it a bit and roll their eyes about the other guy, but usually
the first guy goes along with the second guy's move to get the piece in
sideways.

Er, yes. Because, in the scenario you gave, the second guy gave a
suggestion instead of just expecting the first guy to come up with all
the ideas and deal with something that it's supposed to be *both* their
job to deal with.


If the second guy was wrong, he knows they'll be doing it end up.
But if he's not wrong, the furniture will get in and he mostly just wants to get
the damn thing moved through the door!

Too right. And if the second guy won't go with his suggestion OR come
up with one of his own but just acts like it's somehow entirely the
first guy's job to sort things out to the second guy's satisfaction,
then that isn't getting the furniture moved.



This isn't a guy thing, it's a pride thing.

I don't see where it's either.

If you're walking away from a
family problem

See, again - this is what I don't get! He comes up with one solution.
She comes up with no solutions, and tells him straight out she wants HIM
to deal with it. How is *he* the one who's walking away from the problem??

because wifey didn't say "dear" at the right spot in the
conversation and validate all your input,

I don't think that's the problem at all. I think the problem is that,
when the two of them were faced with a joint problem that neither of
them could think of a solution for, she didn't treat it as a shared
problem. She treated it as though it was HIS problem and he was somehow
at fault for not coming up with a solution she deemed suitable.


Now that said, folks should be aware of when they're stepping on each other a
lot and get each other frustrated by details of their interaction. But to write
it off as "she didn't follow these rules a. b. c., so he's justified in throwing
up his hands about it" is in itself pretty silly.

Which would be why I didn't say anything of the sort.


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell