The Campground from Hell
Early in our marriage, my husband Tom and I decided to go on a camping trip in northern California. I was pregnant with our first child.
On arrival at the campground, the person registering us asked, “Do you want to be in the adult or family section?” Tom and I looked at each other, as if to say, “Huh? This is a campground!” We finally blurted out, “Family section.”
Once we had gotten our tent up, I was puttering around, and I think Tom was getting ready to make dinner. I had brought along a small “candle lantern.” While checking it out, I unthinkingly touched a forearm to the heated metal, and burned my arm so that there was a 2-inch by 3-inch brown spot on it. It was bad enough to need ice, so we made a quick trip to a local grocery and bought a bag of ice.
After dinner and clean up, we probably stayed out at the picnic table at least until dark, and may have been watching for stars. Then we crawled into our sleeping bags, perhaps around nine or ten o’clock. There had been some thumping noises in the camp, but we couldn’t see who was making them or what caused the noises.
As I attempted to sleep on my back, because of my pregnant tummy, while holding a bag of ice against my burn, we increasingly noticed the loud thumping noises. From the voices and sounds, we surmised that a group of college men were throwing rocks or heavy pieces of wood at some big logs; at least, that was our theory. This went on for two or three hours. We finally heard a car come into the camp (later we learned it was a police car), and the noise abated.
“Now we’ll be able to sleep,” I thought. But a noise we hadn’t noticed before made itself known. It was a radio from another camp, loud enough to keep us awake. By this time it was somewhere between one and three a.m. Finally, I said to Tom, “Look, you don’t have to do this, but if you feel particularly brave, could you go over and ask that person to turn off their radio?” Tom decided he was brave, left the tent, and I heard him walking towards the noise of the radio.
I may have prayed, not knowing what would happen, “Please, Lord, don’t let some angry person attack my husband!” After a few minutes, the sound from the radio ceased. Soon I heard the approach of footsteps, and Tom came back into the tent.
“Well, what happened?” I asked.
“I found the camp where the radio was playing. A man was sprawled, sleeping, in his Volkswagen van, with the door open and the radio playing. His campfire was still going. I tried to speak to him softly, but there was no response. So I gently reached into the van, turned the radio off, and then came back here.”
I really thought that was a brave act, and told Tom as much. We did fall asleep shortly, even though we felt it was … the campground from hell.
Blueberries and Junk Piles
“… most marital arguments cannot be resolved.”
How about that for a startling statement? Read on …
Now that my husband is retired, we have more “opportunities” to learn about each other’s perspectives.
Many years ago, I did learn that certain of my husband’s behaviors were not deliberate attempts to hurt me, though they often felt like it. Now I am learning that we truly do see things differently, which is why we often have (usually settled amicably) conflicts.
Take the case of the blueberries.
One day we were beginning our breakfast routine, and Tom said he was going to put some frozen blueberries in his bowl. I said, rather harshly, “Please eat the fresh blueberries first.” A little while later, he asked me, “Why was it so important that I eat the fresh blueberries? I like the frozen ones, because then the milk (or half and half) I pour on them freezes a little and it reminds me of ice cream.”
So I had to explain that I hate for food to be wasted, and I wanted the fresh berries used up before they became rotten. Why didn’t I explain that, instead of being harsh with him? Maybe I assumed he would have the same perspective I have, namely, the need to not be wasteful. But he was seeing blueberries in a whole different way.
Then there’s the case of the junk pile, or piles.
I came home and noticed that my husband had kindly put out the trash bins on the street in anticipation of the following day’s trash collection. When we went for a walk the next morning, he mentioned that he had started breaking up some items in the side yard, to “clear up more junk,” and had put them in the trash collection. I said, “What exactly did you you put in?” He named some items, and I said, “Wait a minute, I was going to give those to Goodwill or freecycle.org.” “But I’m trying to clear up junk like we agreed to, and it was in the junk pile.” “But,” I said, “the junk pile is in [area A], not the area you were clearing.” He replied, “I thought the junk area was the whole side yard, and those items have been there for months.”
Well, besides us never having explicitly defined the actual junk pile area, and me leaving items out for a long time (because I needed to clean them before giving them away and I had procrastinated on that task), I realized that we needed to have a lot more communication. “Why,” I asked, if he wasn’t sure about throwing something out, “did you not ask me?” “Because you weren’t home and I wanted to get the task done.” Anyway, I thanked him for his effort and rushed home, but the trash collector had already come. [By the way, afterwards I did clean up some remaining items and most have been given away successfully.]
So my point is that many disagreements have to do with misunderstandings and assumptions. They aren’t necessarily examples of people being mean to each other. Perhaps my husband and I have not talked enough about our perspectives, priorities, and what values are important to us (in this case, my value of frugality or not being wasteful).
In the book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work”, by John M. Gottman and Nan Silver (Harmony Books – 2015), on page 28 the authors state, “… most marital arguments cannot be resolved. Couples spend year after year trying to change each other’s mind — but it can’t be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, or values. By fighting over these differences, all they succeed in doing is wasting their time and harming their marriage.”
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