Working through disagreements and making up after a fight is something lots of couples struggle with at some point during their relationship. But one mom’s worries have kicked into high gear after she found a secret list her husband has been keeping of EVERY single fight they’ve had over the last year. So she’s turned to Slate’s “Dear Prudence” advice column for help.
In her letter, she explains that her husband is a “very smart, very calm man” and that she’s the stay-at-home mom of a toddler. She says she feels like her efforts are often unseen and this led to a recent fight with her husband and when he left for a meeting afterwards, she found the list on his computer. It details all the times he feels she “bullied” him into things and “times when he felt like he was in the right.” She was alarmed, especially since she says she regularly checks in with him to ask if they’re okay. “He says we’re fine,” she writes, “but … there’s a list!” So now she’s not sure how to proceed.
Since she was snooping when she found it, she doesn’t know if she should bring it up at all and if she does come clean, she asks if she should talk about each item on the list. She admits she’s so thrown off by it and asks if this is “divorce territory,” but columnist Jenée Desmond-Harris assures her it probably isn’t. After acknowledging that finding the list must have been hard, Desmond-Harris tells the letter writer her husband’s list might just be his outlet, his way of dealing with his feelings. “We now know what his response has been … to write things down,” she explains.
- “That’s not bad! He didn’t cheat, he didn’t talk horribly about you behind your back.” She tells the wife she doesn’t have to confess to seeing the list, but she may need to initiate a conversation and let him know it’s okay to be open when something is bothering him.
Source: Slate