After biting my tongue for so long. After humoring the little paranoid things instead of fighting them, I had enough today and I had to say something. It just builds up. Since 1998, I've come to realize that I'm in a bad spot no matter what I say. If I take the logical road and say that I'm not an expert because she would listen to an expert, then she gets angry that I'm not cooperating or that I'm copping-out or that I'm not offering my opinion and that's all she wants is just my opinion. So that often turns out bad. Many times I think she doesn't want to wait for an 'expert' so I'm the only other adult around to ask and she wants some kind of answer because she can't think of anything or she's unsure of what she thinks. She's always unsure of what she thinks. Instead of deffering to an expert, if I instead tell her my opinion, she quickly challenges me 99.9% of the time. "How do you know that?" "why?" Do you know what it feels like to be constantly challenged all the time? You probably think, what's the big deal? I can tell you that it is exhausting. As if we don't have enough things to deal with everyday. Now we have to answer a question and back up that question with reassurance, evidence, stories, whatever I can come up with. Sure, this is not a big deal a couple of times. Even a hundred times. But, several hundred (thousand?) times? I can tell you it doesn't just get old, it gets exhausting. It's not like any one of the questions, and answers, and explanations of the answer is exhausting. It more like the death by 1000 cuts. One small cut is no big deal. Another one is nothing. After 20 cuts, you start to get annoyed, and after hundreds of cuts, you feel like screaming.
Yesterday, we inspected her cut palm. It is a bad cut and that has nothing to do with this story except it is the reason why we were using cotton bandages (wraps) and first aid tape. After the wound looked ok and got some air, we re-wrapped her hand with the long strip of cotton gause. Around and around and around, until the hand was snugly wrapped and looked like a white ball of cotton. To secure the wrapping, I cut some first aid tape to tape down the gause. And I should have expected by now that this would be questioned. "Is that scissors clean?" It was the household scissors used to cut paper, tags, and the usual household tasks. She was concerned about any uncleaniness of the scissors being used to cut the first aid tape. Which is a fine concern for surgery, even fine if cutting a bandage that will be applied to a wound or to the skin. But, I remind you that the wound was already buried by multiple layers of cotton gause. The tape is being used outside that ball of gause to prevent the strips from unravelling. This is a typical concern over the years that I have a hard time getting used to. Just doesn't seem reasonable to me. At first it's no big deal, but call this one cut number 998, in death by 1000 cuts. I have already died multiple times before this.
Today, we removed the gause from her hand. Underneath the strip of gause was the usual square of gause and this covers a gelatin patch that covers the wound. Some of that square was stuck to the patch because of blood clots, so we had to be gentle in removing it. This square gause is cotton like so many such bandages. We decided to cut away the free, bulky parts of the square away, leaving small pieces that were still stuck to the wound area. Upon noticing that cutting the gause left strands of cotton as those smaller pieces are really just small pieces of a cotton cloth, she voiced concern over these strands. "Are these fibers going to be absorbed by my body?" Mind you, the wound was completely clotted and dry, and the patch was dry, just what you want to see rather than moisture, pus, or ooze. Knowing her well, I quickly knew she was scared that something would be buried in the wound and get "stuck in there" and probably get in there permanently or cause an infection. On the day her hand was cut, she asked repeatedly if there was any glass in her cuts, which is a legit concern by all means, but there were small cuts where there clearly wasn't any glass, and she would know this if she trusted her eyes and nerve-endings to tell her if there was any glass. I decided not to use the "I'm not an expert" approach as that routinely fails to result in anything good with our relationship. I, ever losing patience with each bit of paranoia, said that it was fine. And knowing that I will be challenged, I knew that I had to come up with an explanation why I believed this. Why do I feel like I'm always thinking for her? She always says that she just wants my opinion and that's all, but over the years I have come to understand that she has insecurity, habitually, and that I have to do the work to reassure, which often fails because who am I? I'm not an expert and certainly not in her eyes. If a stranger told her it was fine, then she would feel much better. But I am easy to challenge and just challenged out of habit, and the answer is never good enough. If I try to make it good enough, it usually ends up being questioned more and puts me more on the defensive because who wants to justify everything they say. You have to at times because it's important, but doing it all the time? You have no idea how it gets tiring over the years. I get accused of not being patient, but I had been patient all those times I bit my tongue and went along with it. It's the times that I finally get pushed over the edge that I get accused of being an impatient person. I've had scrapes that were sticky and had lint stuck to them from inside my pants. They would dry with the lint still stuck to the scabs. They fell off with the dead skin/scabs. I told her I had lint stuck to scabs before and from wearing jeans. I sound like a jerk for saying this, but all these little moments "in-court" don't just get old, they get exhausting. Until they build up so much that I can't stand it anymore and then I just had it. I'm sick of it and I have to say something. I have to let out my frustration because "just relax ok?!", enough of the paranoia, please. Worry about the big things for once and let the little ones go. How is it humanly possible to worry about every little thing all the time? I did not think it was possible until this relationship. Truly, something that marvels me when it doesn't madden me. I need a way to deal with this frustration. Biting my tongue only delays and bottles it all up until it has to be released when I'm tired and tired of it. I tried saying that I'm not an expert and that only an expert can really put your mind at rest, but that doesn't work. I am now longer able to answer the array of questions in a constructive way, I know the paranoia behind every question and it just triggers a bad nerve in me. It triggers the defensive mechanism because I know I have to justify my opinion and answer all the "why?" and "how do you know?" questions. It triggers the "Of course it's ok." and "Sigh, yes, it's fine!" answers. I don't like it, but I'm lost to find what to do. More patience is the answer? Not if the questions are incessant and about the most remote paranoia that even I am surprised by hearing. Patience after cut 1, after cut 10, after cut 100, but after cut #500? #1000? If I knew there was an end, I might be more patient. It never ceases to amaze me what she can find to be paranoid about. When there's a new angle or new microscopic concern it is incredulous to me and the imaginativeness that really amazes me. She can create new linkages, patterns, sequences of invisible and minute degrees; chain them together into a scary and debilatating hypothesis, and then launch them off so that our every daily task is reworked to have more steps, more precautionary measures, more waste (if things are thrown away for being deemed contaminated, etc), and saddest of all, requiring more time and calories. It is the ones that still surprise me after 9 years of marriage that I hope to vent here in hopes of regaining some sanity. It took 1 hour, 10 minutes to write this. That makes me angry too as there just isn't enough time in our day. But, at times like this, I've realized that my need for sanity can outweigh lack of sleep, lack of energy, and while fighting a cold.
