I define it as the «problem of informing her of things”.
It doesn’t matter what it is, but if the information I give is mostly about me I am met with obstacles, challenges, protests, problems or downright dumb arguments.
I have noticed from the very beginning. Even before my daughter, I sensed this notion of “being against”. I noticed it first at football. There were not support, but slight talk-back or the sense of feeling an emotion of objection coming from her. And so, without actually having a reason, I let one football practise disappear from my schedule. There was something about the attitude that bothered me, and with a new relationship I let my intuition guide me.
But this is a pattern. I have huge problems informing of things because it never ends well.
When I was 35 years old, I was heavily reading up on airline miles, bonus features and business class flying. I decided, at 35, that if I did things the right way I would most likely be able to fly business class over the Atlantic – minimum one way. And so I started my painstakingly slow job at collecting miles. I told her about this from time to time, but her attitude was prejudice and often in the area of not understanding why. I understood that respecting other peoples interests and hobbies was not her strong side – but her dark side of personality traits was ONLY if they deviated from her previous experiences with male figures (father, ex boyfriends and so on). If she couldn’t put my interest or hobby inside that previous box of experience, she immediately brushed it off as (in lack of a better word) dumb. The arguments about my bonus miles chase came right and left, and with her lack of understanding of the subject – the arguments were downright dumb and full of prejudice. For the most part I have collected miles through a grocery story programe. You may convert the money you save into miles. I told her, and instead of saying “wow, that is so cool”, she offered several other ways of using this money rather than converting it to miles with what I felt was a undertone of disrespect.
In March, just before covid-19, I told her again about my plan from five years ago. I told her I needed to spend my miles on an airline ticket before June. I dreaded telling her for days on end. I knew how it would end. It would end in a fight. No one wants fights to happen, and I dreaded her prejudice arguments and dumb response which shows a complete lack of respect. And so I told her, and the fight went down and after several arguments and trying to convince me otherwise, it ended with “so, just leave – do what you want (meaning: I don’t care what you do, but I do care and I don’t like it). I bought the ticket in June, but I haven’t told her yet. Anyway, covid-19 will most likely set back these plans anyway. However, the ticket is for a May flight, and being away for four days with that sort of attitude and helplessness and having two children at home, I see no other possibility to either move the date or cancel it all together. I never thought someone was not able to take care of kids alone for a few days (I know I would support, back up and help out if the tables were turned, but this is not the case).
My July Airshow attendance is the same. My defining event. The love of my life that is this airshow. This airshow happens on the same date as she expects to be at her familys cabin over several weeks. Every time I have tried to talk about how important this airshow is to me, it ends up not good. More than once she have played the “family card” on me, meaning that I “don’t care about my child(ren)” when I leave for a weekend together with my father and brother for this airshow. How insanely evil of her to play this card. How disrespectful it is.
I wanted to check out meditation just before Christmas and informed her I had an interest to find out what it was all about. It would mean a few hours away every other week. I wanted to find out what meditation was not because of belief, but because of curiousness. I informed her like I intended one night, and I dreaded it for days. I knew what was coming. The disrespect, the prejudice, the giggle factor, the attacks coming my way. The fight was massive. I am sure it lasted four hours into the early morning. I have to get up early, and these form of talks going into 02:00 in the morning destroys me.
Last line of many of these problems of informing things happened last night. My father called me, offering me his bicycle roller. I have used his extensively the past four months. I haven’t told my girlfriend I leave work a bit early sometimes because that will ALSO create these arguments, challenges or prejudice attitude. And so he offered, and I thought about where I could put a thing like that without creating trouble. The solution ended on putting it in a storage room by the garage – almost like a basement. I have painted the entire room, and our tenant use it for storage. So, I went to the tenant and asked her if it was okay to put a bicycle roller there. Of course she said it was okay. No worries! I was outside anyway, and so I finished my work and came inside the house at 19:45. Our tenant gave me some newly made bread which I was thankful for, so I went inside again offering the rest of the family some of this bread. I told my girlfriend I got this bread from the tenant because I had to ask her something. I was being very cautious this time around, trying to ease in the subject without creating an arguments. She asked me what I had to talk to her about, and so I told her I asked her about putting up a bicycle roller.
Her response was giggle (later on she said it was because she thought I was joking, but I never joke this way so I suspect this was just to cover up that she thought it was a dumb idea.)
Then the objections, the arguments and the challenges arrived.
“But how can we move things in there if that thing is in the way?”
“But what if we have more things that needs to be stored?”
“When we take the tires out, how will that work?” (the tires are located in another room further inside)
“Was the tenant really sincere when she said ok?”
“What about space?”
“Why didn’t you ask me first, why did you ask the tenant first?”
Then onwards to the attacks;
“You never tell me anything”
“I refuse to use it, I want to be out in nature”
“Why would you use such a thing?!”
“Why would you want to just bike like that inside a basement room?”
“I don’t think you will ever use it that much”
In the end I called her father to simply ask about electricity and wiring thinking of the tenant. The electricity was on our network – not the tenant, and so she proceeded with an encore after I finished my talk.
“It’s on electricity??!”
“More electricity? We use enough!”
I never even got to the part about how I would need to put up a screen and PC in order to use it on Swift. Actually, I told her about the network bit when I informed her the first time around, but she never understood what I said.
I told her in the midst of this that it felt like she was trying to take away anything from me that she wasn’t directly a part of. Because with these type of arguments, challenged, rethorics – it sure feels like it.
How much of these situations can I handle?
The daily bewilderment 