Marriage Moats-Don't Hurt Me

Published: Fri, 11/30/12

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

There is an infamous experiment in which subjects were instructed to administer electrical shocks to strangers. Although the predictions were that very few people would continue to increase the voltage to the maximum of 450, the results were far different. A chilling sixty five per cent of the participants continued to give painful punishments for wrong answers, despite screams and pounding on the wall. Although it was a ruse as far as the victim was concerned, the intentions of the person with his or her hand on the lever was frighteningly real.

We can look through this dubious window into the smoky side of humanity, as countless students of psychology have since 1961, and shake our collective heads at the potential for cruelty lurking inside otherwise upstanding citizens.

But before I start finger wagging I need to look within my own head.

One time John forgot to put the ice cream back in the freezer. I composed a clever if biting comment about it and figured I would zap him at the first opportunity. Then I did a self assessment. What was my goal? To inform him of the need to keep ice cream cold? Nope. He knows that. To instill good habits? Nah, he has a decent track record for freezer filling. The culprit motive was.... to make him wrong.

Gasp. What is the matter with me? Not only is he no stranger, like the scapegoats in the Milgram experiment, he is the best friend I have. What seamy slice of me takes pleasure in causing him pain?

The inklination is augmented by the training I got reading MAD Magazine when I was forming interpersonal skills back in high school. I am pithy at coming up with prickly remarks. But that skill is the booby prize.

Lately I have tried to hold it as a partnership. He gets out the tubs of vanilla and mango sherbet, I follow up and put them away. Instead of faulting him for an unfinished task, I get to be needed.

Photo by Andy Sullivan

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