I really hate getting in fights with someone who totally sees things in black and white like my husband does. If I came home later than I said I was going to come home, I didn't just take longer than I expected or lose track of time; I was LYING when I said when I was coming home. If I didn't do something that I said I was going to do, I didn't just forget or not get around to it yet; I was DELIBRATLY trying to hurt his feelings. And so on and so forth.

All this means that rather than him being able to tell me how hurt or upset he was, and me apologizing for being inconsiderate or forgetful, and him maybe forgiving me, and us making up and getting along, we have a big long fight about what I meant. And I absolutely hate it when people try to tell me what my motivations are and how I'm feeling and why I do things. How can you win or even conclude an argument like that? It's so stupid, because I, for the most part, know what my motivations are and if I deliberately lied just as well as I know the sky is blue. What on earth am I supposed to say when someone insists that it's orange?

A good example is this argument we had about the knob in the shower that makes the water go through the showerhead rather than into the tub. I always turn the knob on, and then turn on the water and usually don't even bother to turn it off after I'm done. Christian turns the water on and then gets in the tub and turns the knob, or else he sprays himself before he's ready. Early in our marriage he asked me to turn it off after I had my shower. Well, I've been not turning the knob off for at least 20 years; it's kind of hard to change that habit just like that. So I forgot a bunch of times, and Christian got sprayed, and almost every time we got into this huge fight about it where he accused me of not turning the knob off ON PURPOSE because of course I remembered every single time that he wanted it turned off and just decided that I didn't want to do it. Finally, about the time that I started consistently remembering to turn it off, he actually conceded that maybe it is a bit difficult to change a habit and maybe I wasn't doing it just to piss him off.

Of course I admit that this is made a bit more difficult by the fact that I do lie, and often for really stupid reasons when I know I'm not going to get away with it and there's really not a reason to do it. This is a habit I've had since childhood. In fact, there's a story my dad likes to tell about when I was 3 and my brother was 1. We were coloring on the walls with crayons, and there was a little bit of scribbling in green at Brett's level, and "Janel" written across the wall at my level, and I tried to tell him that Brett had done it all. So yeah, I lie. It's a problem, and I'm trying to work on it. I lie, but I also forget things and lose track of time and all that other stuff that fallible people tend to do. I wish he could realize that sometimes.