Not Crying Over What Is Spilt

When I was 22 years old (and still living with my parents), my mother told me that she was going to the store and asked me what we were out of and subsequently what needed to be purchased. Bearing in mind that I worked two 24-hour shifts outside of my home two days per week and occasionally did another part-time job at which I'd also spend about 16 hours overnight, I told her that I didn't know exactly, but rattled off what I did know. The truth was that I wasn't in a good position to take inventory of our household needs as I wasn't there all of the time.

My mother went off to the local stores to purchase things. When she returned, she went to the bathroom and discovered that we were nearly out of toilet paper. This discovery had her coming to my room in a rage and she started to berate me with great hostility. She attacked me verbally continuously for about five minutes and told me what a horrible and irresponsible person I was. The barrage ended only when she'd reduced me to tears. By way of "apology", she ended her tirade by saying that I "knew" she was like that and that I should be careful not to upset her.

During the entire time I lived at home (I left when I was 23), my mother was emotionally volatile and verbally abusive. As a child, I remember times when I was so terrified of making a mistake that would incite her wrath that I'd suffer anxiety at the thought of the situation playing out. She took no responsibility for her own emotions. She never once apologized for anything she did wrong and she never thanked me for anything I did for her.

I haven't had a face-to-face relationship with my mother since leaving home as I moved too far away for that, so I have been spared any further experiences. The truth is that she is not a bad person, but she is both playing out a generational dynamic and is incapable of managing her stress. My maternal grandmother berated her and was vitriolic when upset. She grew up to do the same. It didn't help that my mother's life was incredibly miserable since we were extremely poor and my father is a disabled alcoholic. She had a lot to be unhappy about and she had little in the way of resilience or role-modeling to manage the situation.

During the first year of my marriage, I would occasionally exhibit the same sorts of behaviors that my mother demonstrated toward me. There was a situation in which I said to my husband that I felt that he'd "intentionally upset me." What he said in response chilled me to the bone. He said, "Why would I upset you knowing it would bring on that sort of response?" I realized that I was holding him responsible for my emotions just as my mother had held me responsible. At that moment, I decided that I would do anything I could to stop the cycle.

That sort of change does not come easily and it does not come fast. It took me years of effort to both dial back my emotions and to strengthen my control. Lately, I've found that the fruits of my labor are fairly intact, though sometimes they are challenged to a greater extent by circumstances. Last night, I had an experience which illustrated this well.

In the past two to three weeks, there have been three occasions in which a relatively large quantity of liquid has accidentally been spilled. The first time, my husband knocked over a cup of fruit punch on his side of the bed that he was keeping there to drink through the night. As someone who has knocked over the glass of water she keeps by the bed at least three times in the past six months, I was very patient with this despite it happening in the middle of the night and the contents emptying into a nearly full bag of hard candy on the same stand. I salvaged the sticky goo, because that's what poor people do - we don't throw things away which can be of marginal use. It's a mess that keeps on giving as it has spawned 30 little messes as I've gotten sticky fingers with each candy's unwrapping. You'd think I'd just give up on the dollar spent on them, but, no.

The next spill was actually my fault with some help from my husband. I made French toast for breakfast and was bringing the dish to the table. My husband had put his coffee cup near the middle of the place mat so he could drink it more comfortably (moving it from the upper corner where I'd placed it ). When I went to move the cup, with my focus on too many things, I knocked over the nearly full cup of coffee. Like the cup of fruit punch, it spilled all over the place including the wall and table.

I was agitated about this spill, but was attempting to keep it together when my husband asked if it was his fault. I angrily said that he had this habit of moving things into the space I needed to serve food and that I did believe it was his fault. It is true that he cluelessly puts things down in the wrong place while I'm trying to carry things over as part of a sequence of managing a meal and it has been annoying. Later, I told him that I didn't think it was his fault and was unhappy with myself for both being angry and for blaming him. I felt this was a temperamental failure on my part. It was likely facilitated both by his question and this habit he has (which I really have not worked with him on) as well as the time of day. I was a bit foggy that morning and just wanted to get the food on the table and relax while I ate, so my impatience also played a role.

Last night, I served tomato soup with dinner. My husband knocked over the full bowl and it spilled everywhere again. The first spill didn't upset me. The second one irritated me, perhaps because it was my fault. The third one was even harder to contain as I'd only slept four or so hours the night before and was pretty tired. However, despite the frustration and accompanying anger welling up in me, I held it together this time. My husband, after the previous experience, wisely did not ask me any questions while I cleaned things up. 

My husband was quite upset about what happened. He said that he felt bad because, not only was a mess made, but it was homemade soup that I put effort into creating. He also remarked that that seemed to be happening more often. It has, but I believe it's because he has been working harder than usual and is worn out. I think that situational awareness is diminished when someone is mentally tapped out and he's been engaged with work and extra training a lot more lately. His brain is drained and he's not seeing things around him. Even if he's suddenly grown more clumsy, that's just the way it is. It's not like he's doing any of these things on purpose.

One of the things that I had to learn and that my mother never learned is that sometimes frustrating or bad things happen and it isn't anybody's fault. Berating someone for carelessness when they spill something or raging at them for the mistake doesn't change the fact that accidents happen and you just have to live with it. In the moment, when the part of your brain that kicks up a little inner tantrum goes off, it may be a relief to yell and blow off steam, but the price for that is that the other party will become anxious at the least and get angry back at you at most. It's a destructive dynamic which ultimately can poison the well of your relationship.

Having grown up a victim of someone who blamed others constantly for anything that upset her, I'm gratified to have had the experience I had last night in which I was upset, but I didn't act on my feelings and was able to calm down and attend to how my husband felt and help him instead of venting destructively. This is a sign of my triumph over the generational dysfunction passed on from my grandmother to my mother.