pi$$ed off spouse...

well, i thought i might get a good answer to this here, as i certainly cannot formulate one myself.

i have been sitting all day, as is generally my custom. this is not unusual or deviant behavior for me. well, not all day- i did go to the apt office to make arrangements to re-certify for low income housing.

anyway, wife has been watching tv. on comes a show about dirty houses, and cleaning them up. my first thought? "jesus christ, here it comes..." sure enough, she shuts off the tv, jumps up and starts cleaning like a whirling dervish. she's barking orders at the kids, throwing things into baskets and vacuuming.

now comes the twist- she looks at me, starts yelling about how i "never do a godda..ed thing" and storms out, to yell at the kids some more. am i the crazy one here for being perplexed? honestly.... what do y'all think?

Hi,

I am siding with you on this one, but you must realise that your partners anger wasn't really directed at you. She just let herself get stressed out and then had to release that stress. You should tell her to clean the house more regularly, instead of letting the dirt/mess build up. Howevr, you should get involved in this too. If you both adopt a general 'clean house' rule, then cleaning will become an ongoing thing and that stain on the frggin' couch won't remain there for a month before getting a seeing to.

Sit down with her and talk... ...

Kevin

For some women those shows are like crack. My mom does that kind of $#%^ all the time. I still don't understand it. Just wait it out and she will move on to something else after her next tv show. Just hope this show isn't any worse.

Wow. I don't think you're the insane one for speculating there might be something wrong with her. For one, that's strangely erratic behaviour from your wife. She watches television, spontaneously jumps up, cleans up the house, throws directives at the children and her husband. Yes, I think that's a little strange.

I would suggest two things. One is to observe her behaviour over the next one or two weeks. I'm assuming that she's normally not like how you've described her episode. It could have just been that day that she had a random bout. If not, then it might be an issue worth having a discussion about. And two, as Chucky noted, is to talk to her. Maybe all you both need is a good talk. Have a good two-way communication, finding out what she sees as a problem and where that sporadic anger came from. Also, it might clarify to you what you need to improve on as well. Don't let anger control the conversation though. Nothing gets accomplished.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

I don't think it's as weird that she randomly started cleaning, especially since the show probably made her feel guilty or maybe insecure about the state of your house. Even so, I'm neither the guilty nor the insecure type, and I've been known to randomly jump up and decide to clean my bathroom at ungodly hours of the night.

The problem is the anger that's directed and you and your kids. As Chucky sort of suggested, if everyone has a cleaning job, it'll take some of the pressure off of her to maintain the house, and she won't feel like she's having to work for it on her own. A good family discussion could do wonders.