The Schizophrenic Fighter

My Beef This Week

I never really understood that I could really love someone and hate someone at the same time until I got married. I remember hating my mom and dad when I was a teenager and even younger, but I never really thought much about it then because it was fleeting. I was usually just pissed because they wouldn’t let me do something I wanted to do, and the anger left as soon as I found something else to do.

I’ve been pissed at my friends and family but not the same way I get pissed at my husband. He can make me so mad that I can’t even speak. No one else can do that, although many have hoped I’m sure. Most of it stems from the fact that I’m a logical methodical human being; he is creative and random and thinks like no one else I’ve ever met. When he is mad, he comes up with these bizarre interpretations of events and comments that would only make sense to me if I were on crack. At first I thought I lacked perspective, but after several people have witnessed our seemingly LSD-induced spats, they told me they were just as baffled as I was. It is like arguing with a schizophrenic, which is why it leaves me speechless.

At work I’m paid to debate. Someone says something, I rebut, it goes on and on in a very professional manner. Typically, no one gets offended. But with my husband, it is like this: Me, “What year did Mama Cass die?” Him, “You never liked my mother!” Me, “What are you talking about? I just asked about Mama Cass, I wasn’t talking about your mother.” Him, “Haven’t I spent enough time with you family? I put up with your fucked up uncle D and your parents were here last weekend.” Me, “WHAT are you talking about?!” Him, “I’m going to divorce you if you talk about my mother like that.” Me, “Whoa, back up. Please tell me what you are talking about.” He then goes into a 5 minute rant about some ‘yo momma’ joke I made in December and how I disrespected his mother. This is where I’m speechless…

I love this man dearly, but he frustrates the fuck out of me. Now I understand (usually) why these random fights happen. They happen when he is pissed at someone else or frustrated/stressed about something and can’t verbalize it. He never was allowed to verbalize frustration or anger when he was younger so now as an adult, he fights like a 5 year-old would. Sometimes the shit he pulls out of his ass makes me laugh, which just pisses him off more, so I try not to laugh now.

But I’m not sure how to deal with this. If I point out what he is doing, i.e, you’re mad at your mom so you’re picking a fight with me since you can’t fight with your mom, he gets mad because I psychoanalyze him. If I try to rationalize and order the argument, he makes something else up to argue about or pretends he didn’t hear me. I can’t argue his way since I’m not schizophrenic. If I refuse to participate while still in the same room, he’ll pull up stuff from before I was born to be mad about. So what I usually wind up doing is leaving the room or the house until he calms down, but I don’t feel like this is the solution either.

These arguments don’t happen very often, only when he is really stressed (maybe 5 or 6 times in the 5 years we’ve been together). But they are weird and unsettling because it is like he’s a different person, an IRRATIONAL person. And I hate that person, but I still love HIM. And so goes my marriage conundrum…