spokeshave

He let loose a long barrage of angry words. I quickly realized I'd hit a nerve.
I listened calmly, pleased with myself that I wasn't getting all spooled up by his emotions.
I knew if I could stay analytically focused, I might learn something.

And then, there it was, clear as day. Somewhere mid-rant, the words "You think I'm not smart!"

Immediately all was sharp and clear. I was almost giddy. I was seeing us suddenly from a whole new perspective. A host of past arguments and emotional exchanges made sense; and simultaneously, I could see how smartly my susceptibility to his projections dovetailed with those words. I couldn't help but smile, it was everything I could do to not jump up and do the happy dance shouting "YES! YES! I got it, I got it this time! Woo Woo!"

That was a week ago and I am still in shock, still amazed at how I could never see this aspect before.

We'd been honing in on the dates for a summer trip. I had just mentioned a weekend class that I'm very interested in taking and that I needed to recheck the dates. If there was indeed no conflict with our travel, then I thought I should register soon.

"I'm worried the class might be full already."
"Ha! I doubt that's gonna be their most popular class."
"You don't know fuck about it!"
And that's when he blasted off on the uncharacteristically loud and long rant.

I'd meant he has no specific knowledge about the tool, or my new hobby; and therefore his speculation on the class' relative popularity was groundless. My remark was crudely worded and that surely added fuel to his ire.
However the fact remains, he was the one who had globalized my comment and taken it for a long ride.
And that was the telling bit for me.

Shaking his fist, slapping the table, "Don't try and tell me you weren't angry, I saw it on your face!"
I made no attempt to deny anything. I was riveted, listening to him go on and on and on and on....
I have no doubt that he'd seen emotion flash across my face, although I can't specifically say I remember anger in that split second. I certainly had been hurt by his scornful comment, and my mouth had gone off like a reflexive knee-jerk.

I don't like negative humor, never have. And that fact is something that we've been around many times. I think couching a put-down in what is supposed to be humor is cowardly. And btw that is not to say, I am not guilty of doing the same from time to time. What irks me is that most all of his humor is negative. Thinly disguised put-downs and unnecessary disaster scenarios are his specialty. When I'm being attacked or disagreed with, I prefer something more direct, something that can be pushed back against and engaged with. Ah but that's the point, isn't it? He needs to be blameless, he's covertly blowing off steam, he must get that negative emotion out. The structure is such that just in case you happen to react harshly, he has the option to say, I was just joking...... or .....relax, you're making too big of a deal about this..... it was just a joke... thereby throwing responsibility for any negativity and subsequent unpleasantness back on me.

I saw nothing funny in this. I was hurt. I felt he was belittling the class and by association me and my interest in it and the hobby overall and all of the other people like me who were signing up for the class. (Haha yep! I'm not above a little globalizing either :)

I think my hurt was magnified because of an earlier situation. As he was dissing the class and ridiculing my fear of it being full, I was emotionally tapping into my recollections of his attitude and profound lack of interest the week before when I'd carried this particular new tool up into the living room. At that time I couldn't figure out why things had gone so weird. Now I know. He'd just kept repeating the word "spokeshave" over and over with various awkward inflections. I guess it was his idea of funny. I was disappointed that he had no curiousity about why I had it. He only seemed to want to make fun of the word. I'd wanted to share, to explain the derivation of the word, the history of the tool and what all can be done with it, and how excited I was about my new project. But I knew instinctually (no, actually through years of experience) that if I persisted and shared, then my words and enthusiasm would fall flat. I knew he would flip it around somehow. He would ask how much it'd cost or he'd insinuate that I would likely never finish carving my own canoe paddle... and I knew that I would go away feeling bad. Instead that night I silently walked out of the room. I by god was determined to not let him negatively influence my paddle plans.

Maybe he is statistically correct. Maybe this is the least popular woodworking class ever, and maybe the average person couldn't care less about such a class. However that's not what his rant was about. He was not angry because we disagreed over whether the class would be sold out or not. He was angry that I'd called him on the fact that he could not know whether the class was popular or not. I'd pointed out the flaw in his logic, the fact that he lacked any knowledge of this hobby/tool/class and therefore could not judge it.

"You think I'm not smart" revealed a core issue, one to which I'd been blind for decades, and one to which he is still, and maybe forever more, blind.

I see now, the necessity of his putting down my desires to learn, the importance of squelching my enthusiasm. It is not a coincidence that over the years of our long marriage I've done fewer and fewer extracirricular activites; or that I've accumulated more and more incomplete projects.

He must devalue the things that I want to learn. If the subject has value, and he is ignornant on it, while I am mastering it, well then by comparision that makes him "not smart". If he can devalue the subject, or if he can profess no interest in it and/or no need for it, well then there is no shame in his not possessing that knowledge.

If he can politely, or better yet, humorously discourage my aquisition of knowledge and skills, then he can keep me arrested with failures, overwhelmed by guilt etc. And all the while it becomes obvious that he's not the problem, he's not the failure, he's not the less than smart one.

Of course in this way correspondingly, my needs to be ineffective, to struggle, and to hurt are preserved, while I endure....... until now :) until I quit playing the game.

Oh god yes! I was right! I am so smart! :D (oh that was mean, huh?)
From the day we met, I knew, we were made for each other! Yeah, operative word, "were". His tirade is proof... like I needed more evidence **roll eyes**

I read a book last summer on guilt and shame. I learned alot. And I give it credit for this break through in my ability to see husband's "not smart" for what it is.

Most people have trouble discerning between the two emotions; and most, understand guilt more easily than shame. There's good reason for that. Both individually and collectively we tend to be drawn in to guilt and push away from shame. And here's why. The primary difference between the two is one of perspective.
If you view a situation as, "I did this isolated bad thing", then the bad thing is likely small enough that it might can be fixed. You feel the guilt of having done it and say "sorry", or you pay restitution, or at the very least you can swear you'll never do it again. And so you are motivated by the guilt to move toward the fixing, towards constructive solutions, and towards growth and strength. Guilt is considered good for society in many ways, as it tends to keep the peace.
However, if your thinking follows the pattern of "I am bad because I did (or am) this thing", then what needs to be fixed is you and that is likely an overwhelming job. And that brings shame. The motivation in a shameful situation is to move away from it because it can't be fixed. The natural reaction is to try to make shame go away, to deny it, to ignore it, to repress it, to blame it on someone else. Shame lashes out in anger to destroy or to intimidate so we are not reminded of our inadequacies. Shame fuels family and societal violence.

My husband's family values intelligence. His father is a smart man, an emotional imbecile and tyrant, but an academically smart one. I'd say husband held his ground as a child, pleasing his father and competing with siblings by relying on his smarts. Subsequently he hung his self-worth, his very survival on looking smart. He was accepted by father, valued in the family and beyond, all because he was smart. Therefore this is possibly THE, core issue for him. If he is not smart, then he is nothing at all, he has no value.

For husband, I believe not being smart activates shame in a big way. In another person raised under different circumstances, not being smart might primarily activate guilt and hence spur that person on to studying more and trying harder. Our guilt-proneness and shame-proneness varies by the situation's make-up and our histories. An exceptionally stable pairing can occur when one's guilt is balanced by one's partner's shame, and vice versa. I wonder how many of those smiling elderly couples bragging on their 50 years together are locked in this dynamic.

Last week I walked away. This week I slammed it back on him. He was not able to discharge the shame in either situation. So no wonder the rant. And no wonder throughout our relationship he has devalued or ignored the new things that I take such pleasure in learning.

I'm growing more confident in my abilities and my feelings of self-worth. Each time I stand firm and reflect back his put downs, he feels the weight. If I don't absorb them, they've got no where to go except out into the atmosphere in the form of long angry rants or down into quieter passive-aggressive behaviors. It all makes perfect sense.

In the time since his rant, I've been walking myself back through conversations from our past and finding this "you think I'm not smart" dynamic at work all over the place. So so many examples have come up in my emotional memory. They would be difficult to describe here because I am not always able to quote those sorts of happenings verbatim. Something in the emotionality of the memories seems to block my words. I noticed this phenomenon years ago after arguments with my mom. And it is definitely at play here too. However I have vividly recalled the feelings and know the weight of them intimately. My pain lived on each time through the actions and inactions on my part that resulted from his words. I've been bothered by these past encounters and holding on to them for years and years. Finally understanding the dynamics helps immensely.

This psychology stuff is fascinatingly twisted. When I figure out something like this even when it is terribly unflattering or sad and disappointing, I still can not help but feel good, and relieved, and proud, and hopeful. My future, my happiness and health, and essentially the whole of my life hinge on mastering the maze. Each bit of progress is something to celebrate. YAY! **sigh**