"I'm not old
but I'm getting a whole lot older every day
It's too late from keeping crazy
I've got to get away
The reasons that I can't stay
don't have a thing to do with being in love
I understand that loving a man
shouldn't have to be this rough
You ain't the only one who feels
like this world left you far behind
I don't know why you got to be
angry all the time"
-Bruce Robison, "Angry All The Time"

This article by Fred Reed is flippant, rude, applies to some women, but not most in my experience.

Of course, it's in response to a Susan Reimer article (unfortunately not available on the web) about how "Other than a 29-inch waist and a full head of hair, there isn't much to recommend the twentysomething male... He is living an extended adolescence -- an adult-olescence -- and every immature, irresponsible, self-absorbed thing he does is reinforced by the latest issue of his favorite men's magazine."

Still, Reimer's attitude is not prevalent among the women that I know. Nor is Reed's, except when he reads an article like Reimer's.

That's the rationale I am trying to use to understand Venomous Kate's take on the Reed article. Except that they're really not talking about the same thing. Not in fact (Reed's speaking more of professional women, Kate runs the household) and not in tone (Reed is half-sarcastic, folksy and Kate is a raging tempest).

It strikes me as the equivalent of someone responding to a sarcastic joke by pulling out a sawed-off shotgun.

Well, it's quite obvious that Kate is overwhelmed:

It's not that I resent meeting the needs of my loved ones. Far from it: I feel good when I do. It's not even that I resent putting my own needs second to the needs of my children at times: that's what mom's do. But what it comes down to is that no matter what I am doing - having coffee on the lanai, listening to my daughter talk about something that amused her, taking a shit, whatever - there is always something else that I'm supposed to be doing at the same time. There's always more, something that's not done, something that I forgot, something that someone else needs, or wants, or is thinking of, or can't locate without asking me for directions. There's a never-ending stream of this ... and I can't find time to take a leisurely shit but still feel guilty for trying.

As a wife, I am tired of feeling that my attention is pulled in so many different directions while also knowing that my husband gets the short-end of the stick. This is the man that I chose to be with, the one I pledged to spend the rest of my life with, who made a similar pledge to me. Yet day in and day out we find it hard to squeeze in thirty minutes here, fifteen minutes there, just to hold hands and talk and laugh together like we used to back when we fell in love. Those days add up into weeks, months - then suddenly the man sharing my bed feels like a stranger and, at times, a burden because he, too, needs something from me.

I am rarely left as speechless as I was after reading this. One part sympathy, one part anger, all parts of me knowing that anything said to her by her husband could and would be used against him.

It's things like this that make me never want to get married. To which I'm sure Ms. Reimer would say "See what I mean?"

I am fully aware of the axiom that when a woman complains, a man is generally not supposed to try to solve the problem. But if this isn't a problem that needs solving, I really don't know what is. If this is her version of "venting" then she is quite frankly a very likely candidate to become my ex-wife.

The situation going on there is between Kate and her husband, so I'll try to keep it applied more generally, with my supposition of Kate as a case-and-point.

From what I read, Kate strikes me as the person who has difficulty saying "no" or her family has difficulty hearing the word. In any case, it's apparent that she sets too high a standard for herself. Of course she wants to do everything for her family, but there are obvious limitations and it's not clear to me that, except in the case of sex, her husband is incapable of recognizing that. Maybe he is and she didn't say, or maybe he hasn't yet been given the chance.

I have a series of rules that may keep me unmarried the rest of my life, but I'd rather be so than married to someone who doesn't understand them.

1) If you haven't told me about something I'm doing wrong, you can't expect me to fix it.

2) You cannot insinuate that I am strongly contributing to making you unhappy (as Kate does) and then say that there isn't anything that can be done and I should accept that I am doing so.

3) If you want something from me, be specific.

4) Except for the most obvious cases (birthday, anniversary, etc) if you didn't ask for something, you can't expect me to give it to you.

5) If they're my standards, we'll talk, but if you set the standards for yourself too high, it's not my fault that you can't live up to them. I'll be happy to listen to you as you share and vent, but leave me out of it unless there is something you want me to do about it. Once you involve me, I will involve solutions.

6) If you don't say no, I don't know that the answer is no. Particularly if you do it anyway.

7) It is no more my job to live around you as it is your job to live around mine. Cooperation and communication.

8) Yelling automatically invites solution proposals.

9) Crying doesn't automatically invite solution proposals, but sobbing uncontrollably does.

10) No sentence begins "If you love me..." If I didn't love you, I wouldn't be with you.* Now tell me what you want.

* - May not apply in the first six months of the relationship.

Yep, if I were female, I'd be going to the pound to pick up a cat or ten, I think...