Images by John 'K'

One of the character traits of a Libran is that they like balance and will tend to try and see fair play for all. Well that typically fits me to a tee, and at times it gets me into trouble.

 

Take today for example. Without going into too many specifics, my wife said something (tongue in cheek) to one of my daughters that was taken the wrong way. My daughter, as she usually does when something like that happens started stropping around, and my wife started telling her off for it. Now with these two there is a clash of personality, and things started to quickly get out of hand, and as a result I voiced an opinion that I though my wife was getting heavy handed, and that unfortunately led to the first big arguement that we have had since we got here.

 

Now I don’t know how much of it was just reaction to me voicing that opinion (note that I didn’t think that my daughter shouldn’t have been told off), or how much of it might have been compounded by the fact that she feels she’s been uprooted from everything she loved in England and brought to a strange place (the same might be said for my daughter), or whether the fact that she’s had to leave some stuff behind thyat she wanted to bring, or whether recent events in the house have contributed, but a lot of stuff was brought up at me and all I could really do was bite my tongue and listen, knowing that if I said anything of significance back it’d make things 10 times worse. I know this because I’ve made that mistake before, and the few comments I did make back would have been better left unsaid.

 

So I’m stuck in a hard place. I know the way my daughter was acting wasn’t right (and I’ve subsequently had quieter words with her about that, and we’ll see what happens there). I also feel that the way my wife reacted was a little excessive (but I understand why she did), but trying to do what I thought was the right thing has made matters worse for all concerned.

 

Now I know that my wife needs to let off steam occasionally, and if interrupted she is a lot worse than if she’s allowed to just vent her frustrations, but each time we have one of these ‘one way arguements’, I end up bottling a lot of stuff up that I’m sure one day will spill over into a very unhealthy mess, and because I have no way to let off steam, I’m left feeling like everything is stacked against me. I daren’t comment back for fear of making things worse, but not being able to comment back builds a feeling of resentment inside that I hate feeling but have no safe release for.

 

So to my wife I say sorry for saying what I did and sparking that arguement, and for giving the impression that I’m sticking up for the wrong things that our daughter does because that’s not the case.

 

To my daughter I say please remember to show respect for others, your posessions, and your surroundings, and if you can do this consistently others will react better towards you. If you can’t treat others the way you would like to be treated, you can’t expect them to treat you the way you would like.

 

To myself I say keep your mouth shut when your instincts tell you to do so.

 

Now please lets put this behind us and move forward as a family.

 

Now if I could just get my PC back up and running and vent some of my frustrations with a few well placed rockets in a nice violent game of multi-player Halo I’d be a much happier person! 🙂