Compatibility: Fighting

Men and women fight differently.  Sven and I, of course, as the perfect married couple, never fight.  We do, however, disagree, argue, snipe, snark, discuss, mull, and wrestle.

After a morning spent in the following sort of dialogue:

Sven: Where are Princess' shoes?
Deb: Ask Princess.
Princess: They're in the toilet. (Giggles)
Sven: Would you just find her shoes?
Deb: Is your leg broken?
Sven: Is yours?
Deb: Is yours?
Sven: Is yours?
Dexy: I hungry.

I leave for work feeling guilty about my negativity toward my loving, hard-working man.  I go to work in a blue mood.  Around lunchtime, I send him a text message saying something like "I love you, I'm sorry I was so nasty to you this morning."  I get no response.

In typical female fashion, now I begin to worry.  Maybe he's really mad.  Maybe he is just tired of all of this.  Maybe he's thinking about how I never cook anymore, or how I've been dressing my children out of clean laundry baskets instead of putting their clothes away.  I begin to fret.

After two hours of fretting, I send the text message again.  He calls me back.  We have the following conversation:

Sven: So what are you sorry for?
Deb: For being so nasty and snipy this morning.
Sven: Oh.  Well, I was pretty snipy myself.
Deb: You were, but I felt bad about it.
Sven: I had forgotten all about it, actually.
Deb: Oh.
Sven: But I accept your apology.
Deb: Thank you.

This is the difference: when men get mad and blow of steam, they feel better.  When women do it, they feel worse.  I came to this conclusion by having an extremely scientific conversation with my partner teacher, Georgia, and my student teacher Eurydice.  Of course there are the exceptions: the enlightened men who never ignore their wives even when they say something eight times and then ask, "Did you say something about needing me to pick up the kids today?" even when you've been reminding them every day for eight days but hey, they didn't actually NEED the information until today so it doesn't count.  Needless to say, those enlightened men will not look at their wives at that point and say, "Why didn't you TELL me?"  But I really believe those men are the exception.

Feel free to disagree with me.  I will text you later to apologize.