Chicken Thighs

[Sandstone]

Several weeks ago I mentioned to my husband that I fancied some chicken thighs. He does all the food shopping, and generally I'm happy to have whatever he picks. He forgot, so I reminded him last week, and when he came back from the shops he waved a pack of chicken at me.

Today i got the chicken out, and found - drumsticks. I was disappointed, and then panicky terrified.

At first I thought I must be over-reacting to my disappointment, but eventually realised My problem was the impossibility of telling him it was the wrong bit of chicken. I expected it to cause huge problems, but saying nothing seemed impossible too. I think it must be a hangover from childhood. If I'd given that message to my father he would have responded with rage at a personal attack on him. To my mother and she would have sulked for days. In either case t would have been all my fault, and my mother would have made my selfishness very clear to me.

I think this must have an application beyond the immediate, but I'm not sure what it is.

 

[The Albatross]

I think that the observation about telling him it was the wrong bit of chicken is the one I'd go with. But Stenni... yeah, it was a reaction beyond the immediate.

To my cave man mister, a chicken is a chicken (it's not). Dark meat is dark meat (it's not)... but when my reaction is disproportionate... it's most often not intentional... to me there is a difference, to him there's not. He just doesn't see the big deal. My reaction though... if I can link it up like you did is the best gauge of what happened when I react to a basically good willed person (in this case my mister).

 

[shandemonium]

Maybe a good way to point it out is with a joke.

If my gf asked me to buy chicken thighs, I would probably buy drum sticks too as I just learned from your post that there is a difference lol.

Def. sounds like some abusive and manipulative parents are still in your mind.

Maybe something like "tonight we'll have those lovely drumsticks you bought for me, and tomorrow I'll show you what a thigh is, on a chicken anyway. ;) "

The worst part of having abusers is the way they stay in our minds. Remember that your hubby is a different person and (hopefully) not the type to react in any of those ways.

Eat a drumstick for me!

 

[Friday]

Another upside to your realization? You know how to not approach your beloved about his mistake. :D

I tend to go all sex-kitten when I'm telling a partner about a mistake (Cook them up all super delicious and then...These, baby doll, are drumsticks. Not thighs. We're gonna have a chat about thighs :sneaky: ). Cause that way I can roll with it, and play, and if come to find it was deliberate (like drumsticks were 50% off?) then I can roll that into praising their financial acumen instead of apologizing for just having shoved my foot in my mouth, (or they like drumsticks better) I can keep playing. Good feelings on both sides.

90% my own issues... I tend to be really abrupt about mistakes, so I hurt feelings when I don't intend to. Especially if I'm emotionally invested in something otherwise trivial. The way I've managed that best in my own life is to deliberately go overboard in the other direction. Since my knee-jerk is to straight facts to bark an order spectrum... I take it in a direction I can be lighthearted in, instead. For me, that just happens to be sex. For people not-my-partner, I have to choose a different way not to shame them for trying to do something nice for me, or to hurt their feelings on accident. That takes more work on my part.

There are undoubtedly better ways to go about it. These are just the ways I've worked out, to date.

 

[Sandstone]

I didn't express myself clearly. I wasn't worried about saying anything to OH - I did that perfectly naturally, and he replied, with no emotion attached, that he knew they weren't right, he'd been up and down the aisle looking for thighs but couldn't see them. I know that, being the man he is, he will probably go do a different supermarket next time he shops and look again, because he cares about me.

My problem was about how to apply what I realised to moving forward in life and hopefully in recovery. Just knowing stuff isn't enough, I need to know what to DO about it. In fact I think knowing can be destructive without a way to apply it. I don't want to spend my life resenting the inadequacies of my parents. I know that they raised me in such a way that I was the ideal victim for abuse, and this is another example of that. I know that the need to placate them, and to accept blame and responsibility on myself probably made me more likely to go on to PTSD.

But what do I do with that knowledge. How can I apply it to move on? Or a I thinking in wholly the wrong direction?

The two suggestions about sexualising the reply to OH frankly terrify me. At the moment it's a victory every time I manage to hold his hand or hug him. One more combination of the abuse suff, and the strange upbringing. There was no touch in my childhood.

There was probably another layer, as I find it so hard to cook at the moment. Another thing I used to be good at and can no longer manage. My tactics require that I do one pot meals or am able to put everything together in the oven. If I try to do two or more dishes I get muddled, and burn or otherwise wreck something. Finding the wrong chicken meant I had to deal with a change to my plan. Oh how I hate this ridiculous condition! All the things I struggle to do used to be peripherals to life, now they loom so large and so challenging.