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Today has been a bad day

my two bits. . . .

I can relate to the OP on a number of items, but I think Surely and Moe have the better way forward.

Some things happen in life that can't be fixed. The practical answer is to adjust yourself.

"Forgiving" is sometimes a grandiose way of not really understanding or setting things on a good foundation going forward. It implies you're "right" and they're "wrong", which may or may not be the case. When I want wisdom for the ages, I study my cows. I have pushy "Boss" cows, I have cows that just avoid them all they can. The Bosses come looking for them to push them around some more, won't leave them alone. Some of the "Boss" cows are really fine animals, good mamas, and sometimes I even call them "Guard Cows" because they will watch out for all the calves. But sometimes I have to send a really obnoxious "Boss" to the butcher already. . . . and sometimes I have to send a really pathetic weakling to the butcher, too. It's not about the cows, really, it's about the calves. The kids.

Everybody has a positive value, value them for whatever that is. Everybody has their problems. . . .keep them in mind when dealing with them, take extra precautions if necessary to not get hurt. Expect people to do what people do, and adjust yourself to it. I grew up the "babe", my mother's youngest. Everybody pushed me around, nobody listened, or cared. I could tell ya'll a hundred stories like the OP. My wife grew up the oldest in her clan, she's the real "Boss" in her own mind, and habitually treats all her siblings, and me, like children who have got to be "told" everything. . . . the smaller and less important the matter is, the more of a habit it is to "Boss". Her mother, brothers and sisters don't need me to tell them what's going on. I rarely have to even act like I need their understanding. . . .

Yesterday we did a road trip to make a sale, to Boise. It was dark on the way home, we stopped in Burley for some supper. I said I wanted to drive, she said "No, I don't want to get home at 1 AM" She is an aggressive driver. On the way up, someone changed lanes unnecessarily right in front of us, leaving us oh maybe four feet of clearance as he cut in. I opined that that is an example of why not to be an aggressive driver, why you should give yourself as much space on the road as you can, instead of being "pushy" with everything in front of you. She got mad, told me to mind my own business etc etc. It's true that I meander quite a bit and probably am not as safe a driver as she is, even with my campaign for the wide open road, and I drive a little slower than most freeway traffic, which is in itself a danger. So anyway, I chose to let her drive, expecting her to just get tired and beg me to drive in an hour or so, and played "Candy Crush" on the ipad. I distinctly remember looking up to see the moonrise, and had a few moments of wondering why the moon was on the right side of the freeway while rising, and again a while later had the same idle question. . . .

Quite a bit later, I looked up and saw a town that hadn't been along the road on the way up. . . . and looked for a sign. yep. Pocatello. And I had to tell my wife to be sure and take the right hand fork at I-15 to go to Salt Lake. . . and even then it didn't register with her. . . . she had taken the wrong road home. . .. should've been I-84, not I-86. She got mad and blamed me for letting her go wrong. I said the only problem was her attitude.

we got home at 1:30 AM, I might have got us home about 1 AM with my slowpoke meanderings on the shorter road. The "bother" I experience with my "Boss" wife is offset by several orders of magnitude for the good she does me in consequence of her actual caring about everything the way she does, by her impatience with poor results. . . .by the good that comes from me realizing she's not going to put up with crap. . . .

The things we all argue about playing "King of the Hill" are pretty laughable, really. Not worth the bother of hating others or feeling all piously "right" one way or another. But I realize even my opinion here has the same defect in that it principally is a sort of mirage of back-patting sentiment. . . . gotta even take this crap to the practical level and just set myself a little lower than the angels, maybe about the same level as other mortals. . . but to actually "make progress" with other people, it needs to be the art of serving others better than myself. . .

The people in my life who have done me the most singular and outstanding acts of assistance have often been people who were somehow, sometime ago, the ones I knew as "enemies", who somehow had at that prior time been engaged in doing me in, in some symbolic manner. . . . they got over hating me because after a while they realized I wasn't the problem they thought. . . . largely because I realized what their priorities were, and addressed them, and served them somehow. . . .

Take people "as is" and love them for the good, and prudently deal with the bad. The bad might not last. Sometimes what you think is "bad" will have a positive turn, either by some unexpected consequence or in some turning for the better.

I say life is a gift from God, what we choose to make of it is our gift to God and/or others. Most of the battles I "won" had no positive long-term consequences, almost all of the issues where I put others first, did have positive long-term consequences. . . .

The Chinese view of life, with the mutually-enfolding "yin" and "yang" of it all, might be a sort of mysticism bordering on Christianity, but is right in its essential truth. . . every problem is in fact most importantly an opportunity. Your decision to deal with it positively and constructively can make it a turning point for the best.

In the OP, the artful way forward is to drop the subject, argumentatively speaking, and just do stuff that the wife needs, and do other stuff for the dad and sis that they need from you as well. The answer is not in the argument, but in the needs behind their arguments. And yah, you've got needs too, I know. . . . so do I. . . . but neither you nor I are going to "win" in other people's heads by putting our own needs first. . . .

So I've been too long gone from my bros and sisters. Dad and Mom are gone. Those left are all old folks now. . . Gotta make some calls. Later, gators. . . .
 
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The good news is, you made it through today. The better news is, tomorrow is an opportunity for something better.

Keep your chin up. As Princess Elsa sings in her ballad that I've heard one million times:

It’s funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can’t get to me at all

Let it goooooooooo!

;)
 
Lots of good posts in this thread. Thanks everybody it made my day better to read it all.
 
The good news is, you made it through today. The better news is, tomorrow is an opportunity for something better.

Keep your chin up. As Princess Elsa sings in her ballad that I've heard one million times:

It’s funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can’t get to me at all

Let it goooooooooo!

;)

LOL.. wait.. what??!!! A million times???
 
This topic is pretty close to home for me. I haven't been on speaking terms with either of my brothers for about five years. I haven't even seen my older brother in about three years. Over much the same as your situation. They both decided one day to take out all their own troubles on my wife, berating her in a spot where I wasn't around. To me, that speaks to their character, not my wife's. my older brother spent five minutes yelling at my wife, telling her that she is the main reason behind every problem our family has, blah blah blah. The irony there is that nobody in my extended family really has anything to do with him either. None of our cousins really like him (by their own admission). When everybody heard about what happened and the things he said, they all laughed at the irony as he is the elitist prick who views himself so far above everybody else. A couple years ago, my mom said the only thing she wanted for Mothers Day was to have all four of her kids and all of her grand kids in the same room at the same time. Guess who refused to show up? Yep, my awesome older brother.
Like I said, when someone acts like that, they're usually transferring from themselves to someone else.

My wifes sister just told her that she refused to accept me and my older two girls as part of the family. My wife promptly told her where to stick it, how to stick and how long to keep it stuck there. She's a keeper.
 
My wifes sister just told her that she refused to accept me and my older two girls as part of the family. My wife promptly told her where to stick it, how to stick and how long to keep it stuck there. She's a keeper .

Sounds like you got yourself an awesome one.
 
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