. . . and then there was pickle.

For those of you who don’t know - my wife blogs too. Actually she has been at it a lot longer than I. She discovered it when looking for support during our extended period of attempting to have a child, and fearing infertility.

That worked out OK.

The thing is, she never wanted me to read her blog. It was her way of venting and complaining with impunity from those around her. Which I dig.

When I began blogging - everything changed, because I am an attention whore. I needed not only everyone online to read me, but her as well.

She has taken more of my approach as time has gone on and we have lost one of the most important aspects of blogging – the ability to bitch about those closest to you (i.e. each other).

The other day we decided that we were both going to write posts complaining about how the other is as a parent. This is to be done without fear of repercussions. The key is that we both, on the whole, feel the other is an amazing parent – but as long as its been over a year since I’ve seen my therapist, it would just be tacky to show up and bitch about my wife for an hour and leave him again.

So here it is. I am now going to complain about the wife.

P.S. – if you would like to read about my inadequacies please visit her site: Urban Drool.

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I must say that my wife has been nothing but astonishing with The Pickle so far, and most all of the things I will be venting are my pent up paranoia and frustrations about her family.

We all turn into our parents, whether we like it or not – and I cannot stand my mother-in-law. I get sick to my stomach every time The Wife exhibits behavior that resembles her mother.

The biggest reason that I disapprove of her mother, as a parent, is that she had children for her benefit - not theirs. Instead of a family, she seemed to want a staff. I have shared enough on this site to let everyone recognize how twisted my home life was as a child, and I hear stories of what this woman did to manipulate her children and my skin crawls.

She ignores the actual needs of everyone around her, and gives both affection and gifts indiscriminately without any regard for what the people in her life are actually needing or even begging for.

It’s as if she lives in a bubble and thinks of what people would want or need instead of actually paying attention the signals and signs that they are giving. This is not to say that she does not give. She gives constantly.

And she expects results from those gifts. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to spend the day at their house because her mother did something for us. I feel like I’m being rented.

She cooks enough food for fifty people and wants you to take it home, or she shows up to baby-sit with a bunch of food that no one will eat. Then I end up feeling guilty for throwing it away after it has been rotting in my fridge for 2 weeks.

I told her to stop bringing food to my house, because I couldn’t take the guilt anymore. That went over well.

The Wife is by no means her mother . . . yet, but if there is one aspect of The Wife’s familial behavior that I want to weed out in this generation it is this.

My wife is a giving human being and I don’t ever want her to stop that, but I want to make sure that she does not use it as a tool for control – and I want to help ensure that she is giving what is actually needed.

My wife is not the most observant of people. She's just not. That is not meant as an insult - just a fact. Our daughter is a subtle dance of information and I am worried that The Wife will miss the guiding signals of what it is that she needs.

This is somewhat unfair because I spend so much more time with The Pickle than her and have gotten to know her signals considerably better, but what concerns me so far is the wife’s jumping to conclusions. (Get it? Jump . . . To Conclusions)

My wife has a certain automatic reaction to The Pickle showing signs of distress without ever actually taking the time to interact with her to discern what is really causing the issue. There is also the fact that when my wife is tired – The Pickle needs to go sleep. Finally is ‘the swaddle factor’.

The Wife still swaddles The Pickle to nurse her and put her to sleep. The Pickle is now at an age where she needs to learn control of her limbs. By consistently swaddling her we are laying the foundation psychologically for us assuming the control and responsibility of her actions.

Every behavior at this age is a building block on which all other behaviors are built, and the most insignificant of interactions can lead to a lifetime of assumed roles. The Wife professes that she gets too distracted when she is not swaddled. I believe that The Wife just doesn’t want to put forth the effort to wean her into self-control.

These are the basic signals that worry me about the wife and what her environment has led her to believe is acceptable parent/child roles. The problem with these behaviors is that they are not conscious, and I certainly can’t say something every time I see it occurring (not if I intend to continue to live here).

But what can I do to express my fear of these behaviors? I know that we must come to a compromise about how we approach satisfying The Pickle’s needs, as well as the interaction and reciprocation of those needs in a healthy parent/child relationship.

The Wife has many issues regarding communication. For some reason as a child she learned that the only way to get attention was to talk constantly. In my mind this shows an environment, which didn’t listen.

I want The Pickle to trust that if she expresses a need – it will be met, or at least she will be given a reasonable explanation as to why it is not going to be met.

I am worried from The Wife’s initial reactions and interactions with our daughter that she is going to have a natural tendency to fall into her familial traps of ignoring the actual need and substitute a barrage of other ‘gifts’ just to make the noise stop.

I do not know how to make the wife recognize these behaviors, or even if she will find them negative – or for that matter if they will even ever fully manifest themselves. But I've done what I needed to do - state my fears, and used my blog for what it was for. Getting myself in Trouble.

Pickle’s Papa