Just A Little Spat

I firmly believe that I am absolutely right about everything all the time.

Chris and I got into a little bit of a disagreement. He was laying on the couch in the living room playing Angry Birds on his phone and heard me pouring water from the Brita water filter in the kitchen and yelled out to me: “You gonna fill that back up right?” It was not even half empty. Half full? “I just always have to remind you to do that.” “Oh, really?” I said sardonically. One: There was a pile of dishes in the sink. There was still a dirty pan on the stove from when he baked a pop can of Grand’s biscuits. Two: The 20-year-old, fake Christmas tree that we decided to dispose of, and I finally just took down myself on February 2nd after weeks of saying “lets take down the tree soon,” was still sitting in the box in the spare bedroom. After I specifically remember telling him last week “don’t put it in there, it will still be there next week.” Three: the Sunday papers from the last five weeks are still scattered all over the driveway.

Now, this is not my house. We do not live together yet so I don’t really have a say in when he cleans his house or picks up his newspapers.  But these are just three things that I have had to remind him to do over and over again. So, him telling me to fill back up the water filter made me a bit red in the face. The disagreement turned into a hashing out of other times that we both have had to remind each other to do things. I got to the point where I just started… kind of… making stuff up. Memories are vague, we have been together for a long time I’m sure they happened at some point….ha! He didn’t think it was as funny.  Because he didn’t believe that these were real instances, which, they maybe probably weren’t, but I wasn’t about to admit that. It was an exhausting 30 minutes, to say the least. And of course we are fine now because it was petty.  I brought him home some Entenmann’s and I let him watch Pirates of the Caribbean instead of forcing him to watch Pretty Little Liars.

But it really made be think about the fact that I do firmly believe that I am absolutely right about everything all the time.  Unless it’s about cars or boats or engines or math. That’s it. I get to be right about everything else.

This fact came up in our spat. Chris said: “You really honestly, believe that?” I said “Well… yes. Yes I do.” And he replied, dumbfounded: “Do you hear yourself saying that? You don’t think that you sound ridiculous saying that out-loud? Do you think people believe that you’re right? I mean, I believe that you believe that you are right all the time. But you’re not. You are not right all the time. And you never admit when you are wrong.” It was at this point in the disagreement we were both trying our hardest not to laugh because it was getting to be a bit out of hand and I say, purely in spite:  “No, I admit when I’m wrong, I just never happen to be wrong so I never have to admit it.” I thought that was particularly funny. As you can imagine, the expression on his face: Priceless.

This does not mean that I don’t make mistakes. I am human. I forget to turn lights off and close cabinet doors. I leave the milk on the counter until after I eat my cereal.  I’m also a terrible driver yet there is this pull inside of me that fuels my need to always be the passenger that tells the driver how to drive correctly.  “You’re following to closely.” “You need to get in the other lane.” “You need to turn there. Nope. Now you missed it. Now you need to turn around. Turn around right here. No, right here.”

But, I will admit when I’m wrong. If a catch a mistake I made at work, I will fix it and be the first to call myself out on it. If I feel I have hurt someone’s feelings because of a comment I’ve made or something I’ve done, I wholeheartedly apologize. I once said the word “fuck” in front of a new friend who was utterly offended by my choice in language and I felt so bad that I started to tear up and wrote her a long email practically begging for her forgiveness.  

However, I can do all but employ these ethics in my relationship. Because I am what one might call “stubborn.” I had to drive over to a friend’s house after our squabble and couldn’t help but be slapped in the face by the fact that my need to be right is actually more of this need to win. I just want him to tell me that I’m right, even if I’m not, which I now admit is wrong. I felt really guilty the rest of that day. To the point where my heart felt like it was sinking into my chest with that stabbing, aching pain. We may have laughed it off with kisses and I’m sorry’s and I love you’s before I left but he made valid points that really got to me.

I’ve never been in a relationship where I’ve had a voice and Chris lets me do and say as I please. He even let me post this information on the internet with a roll of his eyes and a bitter: “This blog. I’m going to hate this blog.” I admit: my excitement over the ability to have expression-of-self sometimes gets the best of me. There may always be Entenmann’s doughnuts and the ability to hand over the remote control but there might not always be someone to hand them to if I don’t learn how to pick my battles wisely. Lesson learned. But the dishes got done!

*I almost felt even more guilty posting this because it’s private. But, if you’re in a relationship, you can relate to this argument cause you too have gone through the same. It’s real life stuff. It’s what makes us stronger in our relationship and in ourselves.*