I used to forget that men and women deal with stress differently. But I also think that most of us forget we deal with stress differently until we watch someone be beaten over the head violently with their own stress. Then we remember. And then we go back to the blissful state of ignorance when the poor victim of stress walks away. Life is great.
This stops working once two people decide to walk down the aisle. Then, all bets are off. I’m not trying to scare the single friends out there but it’s true.
Then you get the pleasure of living with your mate’s stress and their way of addressing their stress.
Like many women, when stress hits I give myself a pep talk and pull myself up by my bootstraps. Your house collapsed and you have nowhere to go? Great, I’ll organize a community meal schedule and prep the house for you to stay with me for a month. I’m five minutes away. Oh you need a baby sitter with ten minutes notice? Great, by the time you pick up your family, the kids will be fed, homework will be done and my house will still be immaculate. Money is tight, we got a surprise bill and you don’t know how we’re going to manage it? That’s fine, I moonlight as a miracle worker, and I’ll make it happen.
It sounds ridiculous but this is how I process everything in my head.
Brian’s approach to dealing with stress is much different. He shuts down. He ceases to function. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. He’s okay with stress to a point, and then he is not. He just stops.
I go into “Super Bitch” mode when I get to that level of stress. At that point, I’m going to get my shit done and you will not get in my way. Brian is very kind when he calls me “Cranky Face”. A little too kind perhaps. Kind to the point of lying to me.
We both get a little annoyed with the other for our respective coping mechanisms. The coping mechanisms that worked best when we were single are not necessarily the best coping mechanisms in terms of a marriage.
I talked to my friend Carmella about this. Carmella is a marriage counselor and a newlywed herself. She is also my frequent voice of reason. When I cross over into crazy land with my expectations of other people, she is the one who can say I’m being unreasonable and I know that statement from her does not come from a defensive place. It comes from the voice of someone who is pursuing a Ph.D. in Psychology.
Carmella, of course, tells me that this is normal and most couples find themselves with similar responses. Which I find hard to believe at first. Because how did we as humans manage to populate the planet if the men-folk were shutting down every time stress happened? “Uh-oh Honey, some prehistoric beast is attacking our cave! No wait; don’t hide in the corner, save our offspring!”
But while I am still contemplating the evolutionary implications of our stress reactions, Carmella tells me that the dinners I make are excessive. And she’s right. Because dinner is a massive undertaking in our house. It takes me at least an hour to make dinner every night. Maybe I’m going overboard but I want my husband to have one really good meal every day.
The night after I talk to Carmella, Brian looks at me and says “you get home every night and it’s late. And then you make dinner and it’s late. And then you clean up dinner and it’s late. And then we watch TV but you fall asleep.”
I deal with stress by trying to make a perfect meal and Brian deals with stress by wanting to watch television with a wife who is awake.
We continue the dance of figuring out what it means to be in a marriage with each other.
Norcross said...
1Funny enough, this was one of the very topics Mamma and I dealt with in our marriage counseling. Only we’re the opposite. She shuts down. I don’t. So I don’t think it’s a gender thing, rather, a personality thing.
10/29/08 9:55 AM | Comment Link
Rebecca said...
2Love this post. My boyfriend and I are so stressed right now, it’s not even funny. I think we react slightly differently than you and Brian, but this post still made me feel loads better
10/29/08 10:08 AM | Comment Link
Dorie said...
3@Norcross – Your tweet response was right after I finished this post and I seriously thought about changing it.
@Rebecca – Do you and your boyfriend have polar responses or are your coping mechanisms a little better aligned?
10/29/08 3:30 PM | Comment Link
Rebecca said...
4Hm, I’m not sure yet, since we’re a new couple. I think we’re really similar generally, which has it’s good and bad
And he’s amazingly patient, which helps just about everything. 
10/29/08 4:27 PM | Comment Link
nancy said...
5More than a gender thing, I think this is probably personal character traits in action that are inherited or influenced from one parent or the other and probably cross over into many areas of a person’s life. Also, this is a compatibility issue between partners. As far as problems that involve the both of you, it is not unreasonable for you to desire a more equitable distribution for responsibility in the relationship so that no one particular person is bearing the brunt of the stress that married couples face, otherwise it seems like it ends up being more of a parent-child relationship where one person is “taking care” of the other.
10/29/08 10:27 PM | Comment Link
James Thomas said...
6Interesting…
My wife and I are kindof opposite from you two in this regard… I tend to be the frantic fixer, while she goes into a bit of overload…
we’re learning to balance one another out though…
funny that someone who deals with other peoples’ stress on a daily basis still has to figure this stuff out in his own life!
all the best,
-J.T.
10/31/08 10:45 AM | Comment Link
Jill R. said...
7This is an interesing topic… my husband and I both manage stress very differently as well. In fact, my husband says that he doesn’t know what stress is! One day when I was really struggling, he asked me what stress felt like! Can you believe it!
So while he thinks he doesn’t have ANY stress to manage, I manage mine by being pro-active with myself and working to help others manage their stress (helping others really helps me as well).
Great topic!
11/1/08 12:37 PM | Comment Link
Carmella said...
8Sigh… insightful reflections on this, Dorie.
Now that we see that we are reacting in not-so-complimentary ways, how to we begin to align? How do we bear one another’s burdens, so that neither one of us snap under stress, or go all psychotic??!!
I think we should exchange time-saving techniques with each other. (I still need to figure out how to decrease the frequency of dusting my black and dark brown furniture…)
11/3/08 10:31 AM | Comment Link
My love is like ice cream. « the kids are having fun. said...
9[...] think Jack is right. I think men and women are both guilty of being too specific when it comes to dating. I am not suggesting that you settle [...]
11/3/08 5:26 PM | Comment Link