I Just Don't Get It

I watch the news, I read the news, and I am mystified. When I was a young lad but old enough to think that girls weren't "icky" (come to think of it, I never thought that), I wondered why girls seemed to like guys who treated them badly. I saw that a lot of the time. It wasn't an illusion. When I mistreated a girl in any way (and I never physically abused them), I would find myself without a girlfriend. Yet other guys (a few, not most, I admit) could treat them like dirt and they came back for more. It made no sense to me.

This is why the Ray Rice thing makes no sense to me. Yet, it does... because I have seen it happen many times. And she married the guy! After he knocked her out in that elevator. Granted, I have learned that she spit in his face just before he smacked her and that can cause someone to snap and just react violently. But that really isn't an excuse to knock her unconscious. Relationship dynamics are a mystery to me and a lot of others.

Of course, I grew up in a household where the only strife was between my siblings (mostly between me and my brother). My parents did not fight, did not argue in any way. If there were disagreements, I certainly never saw them. So I was totally unprepared for disagreements in my first marriage. And there were many. The first couple of years were quite turbulent. Eventually, I developed a strategy of passive-aggressiveness. An argument would start, heat up quickly and I would just say, "You're right" and then continue to do whatever it was that ticked her off. I merely used that "You're right" as an excuse not to continue bickering.

Toward the end, I just stopped caring what her reaction might be. I wanted a new (shall we say "expensive"?) camera, I just went out and bought one. When she would demand to know why I didn't talk it over with her first, I just said, "I already knew you wouldn't approve." I began to do as I pleased, regardless of what she would say. To be honest, I really did not care anymore.

I won't go into the reasons we eventually split up but it had little to do with my behavior at the end. I had decided that I could not keep the marriage together by myself and quit trying.

I still do not understand women... But, then, who does?