by KissyO

Created on: February 16, 2010

“Why can't you take my side for a change? You're always defending the other guy!” My husband feels as if I'm never on his side. I understand all too well what his side is after hearing him complain about what the other guy did or didn't do. My husband has an inability to put himself into someone else's shoes. He refuses to even try. Everything is cut and dried. “This is the way it should be!” His manta he recites, firmly believing the way he was raised, the habits he learned, the opinions he has formed, are the proper foundations or principles everyone should follow.

After a long day's work, he pulls in the garage, looks over the driveway, covered partially with ice, shakes his head, and proceeds to chip chunks of frozen snow solidified by vehicles driving on new fallen snow. All the while I watch him from the bathroom window, lending itself the perfect view of what he's doing. I can hear him in my mind, cussing me. “Why couldn't she have gotten off her fat ass today and scrapped this damn ice off the driveway. It's not like she's doing anything important. She doesn't have a paying job, not even searching enough by my standards. Why can't she just take any job that's paying something...a gas station cashier or one of those temps job in the city! She's had dozens of jobs that paid decent money for a woman. Just quit before she even had another job to go to. I married a nut case. I'm stuck with a nut case!” His lips haven't moved, but I can hear him just the same. The set of his lips, the firmness of the shovel slamming into the ice, the way he pauses every so often to look off into the distance. He doesn't care, nor comments on the fact, he realizes it took me at least a couple hours on the day it snowed with the snowblower, followed by hours spent with a shovel chiseling down to dry payment over more than half the driveway the day before to clear a decent pathway for his vehicle to come and go as he pleases. He only thinks about the fact he wanted the driveway completely cleared the way he likes it done. He didn't want to do it, so I should have. His needs, his wants, his desires are the only thoughts going through his head. To his credit, I know he's not the only one who thinks the way he does.

I think I realized over the years, I was viewed as antagonistic when I failed to agree with my friend's or coworker's openly expressed opinions or points of view. They'd comment on a teacher they didn't care for or a coworker who

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