"So there were dog hairs on the back seat of the car!" says
Hannah, 35, a beautiful woman with long blond hair and a flowing dress. "Is that a reason for Rob to go on a rampage?"
Hannah knows she's not a world-class housekeeper and never intended to compete with her husband's mother in that department. "I work as a music editor at a magazine, I'm very involved in our 10-year-old daughter's life -- I often take Sharon and her friends to concerts and the museum after school -- and I still do all the errands and everything around the house. I can't do it all perfectly," she says with exasperation.
Hannah also resents the fact that, though Rob expects her to participate in his company's social events, he gives little support or encouragement to her interests -- playing the cello, taking yoga classes and writing a book on music criticism.
She refuses to fight with her husband. "That's not my nature," she announces. But she's tired of his fault-finding. "He just stands there and screams -- and before I can even think about what to say back, he marches out of the room."
Rob thinks Hannah is deliberately provoking him. "I don't believe she wants this marriage to work at all," counters Rob, 37, a handsome man in a gray business suit. If she did, she wouldn't be such a slob. "When she's in a creative mood, she doesn't see dirt. She leaves dishes in the sink and uses paper plates."
Her book project is a perfect example, he explains. "Instead of systematically finishing it, she dawdles, works in spurts and leaves manuscript pages all over the house. And instead of cooking dinner for her family, she brings in a pizza."
Rob says he doesn't expect her to attend every company dinner but does want her to be friendly when she does go.
Unmasking the real issues
"These two aren't really fighting about dog hairs or dishes," says Robert L. Barker, a marital therapist in Tacoma, Wash. For Rob and Hannah, as for many couples, battles over housework are often red herrings.
Arguing about the same, seemingly trivial issues may be a warning signal: Perhaps the surface arguments are masking another deeper, more troubling problem you need to discuss. It's helpful if you can take a step back, try to observe your interactions with an impartial eye and ask yourselves: What are we really fighting about here?
In this case, Rob's resentment of his wife's messiness blinded him to her many wonderful qualities. It wasn't so much the mess that bothered Rob, but rather that it symbolized Hannah's lack of vTC love. However, he had fallen into the habit of belittling her.
When the counselor suggested hiring a housekeeper to come in twice a week, they both initially protested about the cost but finally agreed. That was a turning point. Now that the housework was no longer a kindling point, they could focus on the real issues -- for instance, Hannah's anger that Rob doesn't appreciate her interests, as well as her inability to express her feelings in the face of frequent criticism. Once she told him how she felt when he put her down, Rob made an effort to get out of his attack mode and, if he did have something to say, to at least wait for her to respond before marching out of the room in a huff.
As the tension eased, this couple was able to eliminate their constant bickering about superficial things and negotiate realistic compromises that made them both happier. And for her part, Hannah is much more willing to join Rob for his business obligations -- happily, in fact.