Friday and Origins in Book Five: Working Through the Maze 2018

Wife’s mother is in town. She is staying at our place Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, into Monday. She is here for a big Iowa United Methodist function. I’ll say this: seeing Wife interact with her mother… shows me how she got to be the way she is. And it is irritating to a point of enraging. You see…. All of her conversation failings are found in the interactions involving her mother.

Her mom came in and wanted to talk about what’s going on in our lives? Wife monologued (which is acceptable in this kind of instance) and then I wanted to say a bit about what is going on with my life. Except, Wife interrupted a lot. But perhaps the most illustrative example was towards the end of the night.

As MIL was discussing a recent episode of illness… Wife jumped in with something completely unrelated. A classic moment of “Wife isn’t listening to the person talking, has a thought on her mind, and jumps in… interrupting someone and (by topic) demonstrating that she wasn’t listening at all.” MIL simply changes her focus, focuses on Wife, and lets her talk. My jaw kind of hit the floor a little. (I’ll explain it later). After Wife was finished, I asked MIL to finish her story. She did. The night was stretching on a bit and I was looking to get some info on something I was doing… so I grabbed my Comic Book Cards. Wife grabbed her Comic Con pictures. Wife was talking about Dr. Who to MIL and… well… she wasn’t doing it properly. When discussing something with someone, the other person’s level of information and level of interest should matter. Wife was talking about Dr. Who to her mother as though the woman had been watching it her entire life. If you’ve ever had even a passing conversation with the woman, you know that MIL has no interest in Sci Fi. She’s never seen a single minute of Dr. Who. Then, Wife turns to my Comic Book Cards and begins to tell her mother the story of how she bought me the cards I was missing. Y’see… here’s the thing. In the middle of Wife talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking… MIL specifically said, “It is getting late, I should get to bed.” Wife said, “Okay.” Then continued telling the story. And MIL just kind of went with it… despite it being 11 at night… and her having a thing at 8 am the next day.

SO… here’s the thing… here’s how it is clear that our upbringings were very different and how our parents raised us is demonstrated in how we behave.

Growing up… if I just leapt into a conversation and demanded attention? My parents would have made me stop talking and then would have told me, “We’re having a conversation here. You can listen and engage in the conversation but it is not acceptable to simply rush into a conversation and try to redirect everything.” Pretty much growing up, I was often (almost constantly) being instructed on courteous communication. Apparently, Wife never received any of that. I would have been reprimanded and instructed if I were to interrupt, monologue, discuss things with no interest in other people’s interest, discuss things without properly explaining myself, and if someone had said something like “I need to go to bed” and I kept talking? Yeah. Wife? Apparently, her parents always just… deferred. If she interrupts, give her attention. If she’s being rude, allow it to continue. If she “barrels over” what you’re saying, allow her to. A bit flabbergasted for sure!