For those of you ferociously dating, mastering conflicts needn’t be an issue. As soon as the first sign of strife looms you can just turn your pretty/handsome shoulder, pop open your notebook, scroll down the yummy photos and wink at the next eager to please suitor.
But for those of us bound and chained to commitment, dreary television evenings napping together on the sofa and in my case a mutual child – well conflict does arise and will need to be mastered.
And it’s bloody damn hard.
Younger men are great because they come with less emotional baggage. The flip side of the coin spells lack of mileage in the conflict management department. Not enough time spent playing tit for tat. No knowledge in the ‘let’s sit down and talk it over’ game. That young, fiery passion may be great between the sheets but when it flares out at you because it’s wounded, insecure, needy….Ouch!
And boy does it make my toenails curl when he sulks.
Or walks away in the middle of me making my point.
Or hangs up the phone mid-sentence; an older man would not dare do that. In fact a lot of what you put up with with a younger guy, an older lad wouldn’t get away with. He’d be classified as a social retard, a complete autistic in the communications department.
Of course my J will tell you I’m a control freak – which I may be. But then isn’t many a woman who has mastered her own life, career, income etc for forty years? He’ll also tell you I’m difficult to live with. But then isn’t everyone? Let’s face it who has he lived with so far? His mother and a bunch of stoned college students. Gee, that’s going to make him ‘Mr. I can handle any domestic situation, anytime’ isn’t it?
What really gets me is that the juvenile anger is infectious. I regress into a kicking, screaming psychotic adolescent, briefly before morphing into a blubbering mess. Mature people don’t fight like this. They may raise their voices temporarily but then they sit down and reason. If only my lover were a little bit more patient, less jumpy and not quite so temperamental. Then I would be able to control myself better too.
One, two, three: of course she could!
However, if his fire was moderated and his anger tamed would he become like his father: chilled out but not completely attentive? J says he doesn’t want to succumb to ‘zoning out’, just to put up with me. So what’s the solution aside from couples counselling?
I think the great British gift of humour can win many a battle. On numerous occasions I have been able to avoid arguments with friends by making silly, sarcastic, self-deprecating comments. So why don’t we try it? Well, maybe because the irony would get lost in translation. My J is not only a whopping fifteen years younger. He’s also from a different culture; that be Planet Latino, so together we espeak Espanish. You gotta know how to pick ‘em…. Maybe I should have stuck to internet dating??!!!!
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