lose face. This is bad enough at work, but worse where organizational
charts are not so clear. Competing claims for dominance lead to countless
unintended struggles.
You’re slaving over a hot stove, making dinner. With both hands
full of garbage, you kick open the cabinet under the sink. The
can is overflowing. Again.
Your husband, whose only household task is emptying the
garbage, lounges on the couch, watching television.
“Sweetheart,” you say, “the garbage needs to go out.”
“Sure,” he says. “I’ll do it after the game.”
“Honey, I need it done now.”
He gets up, muttering something about working all day but
still not being allowed to relax in his own house.
“What?” you say. “You don’t think I work?”
“Yeah, you work,” he says. “For $12 an hour.”
You look down at the frying pan, wondering what kind of
sound it would make bouncing off your husband’s head.This argument, like most I referee in marriage counseling, is not
about garbage, work, or money. It’s about dominance. Each of you is
asserting ascendance over the other: You by “ordering” your husband to
take the garbage out, and he by his declaration that his earning power
places him above household responsibilities. It doesn’t matter what you
thought you meant, this is the way such actions will be interpreted.
Most fights, marital or otherwise, have an element of disputed
dominance. Jenna believes that grammatical errors are tantamount to
insubordination. Zack feels that lowly toasters may not refuse to work
correctly. When you blew your horn at Brandon for cutting into line, you
probably felt reasonable in reminding him that he was breaking the rules of
the road. To him, how he drives is none of your damn business. Brandon
is certainly not alone in this belief.
Instinct distorts. The very idea that arguments can end with one
person being right and another wrong is a fantasy born of the urge for
dominance. All being right gets you is the animosity of whoever has to be
wrong for you. Good and evil work the same way. In the real world, there
are precious few absolutes. Our instincts show them to us, regardless of
The Instinct for Anger ❧ 229