Paul and I are not getting along very well recently, though I hope a recent conversation will help improve things. One of the main issues, for me, is that he’s giving me the “Well, did you make sure it’s plugged in?” tech-support type answer to EVERYTHING I SAY. It’s as if his working assumption is that I’m really stupid, and that I would mention a problem to him before giving it even a moment’s consideration. We have been together for over 20 years, and he already knows that my IQ is a couple of points higher than his, so I don’t know where this is coming from but I sure don’t like it.
He is also doing that thing, that really aggravating thing where I bring up an issue I’ve thought of or an idea I’ve had, and he says “Yeah, I thought of that.” Oh really. You thought of that. Isn’t it interesting how you didn’t mention it before. Isn’t it interesting that I somehow NEVER HAVE A SINGLE THOUGHT OR IDEA that you have not already had. It’s incredible, really. Literally incredible.
I don’t want to call any of this “mansplaining,” because that term is funny but it makes me feel not-right, and because I’ve dealt with so many women who do this. A former boss comes to mind, one who would say, “Oh, it’s so CUTE the way you guys can never figure out the paper towel dispenser! Ha ha!”—when we’d already told her it wasn’t that we couldn’t figure it out, it was that we had reasons not to use it that way. A former co-volunteer comes to mind: on her first day, she tried to explain to me how things worked, when I’d been there over a year. And various commenters in various comments sections come to mind; I know for a fact I’ve accidentally done it myself in other people’s comments sections, when I have a GREAT IDEA that of course they would have thought of themselves in the first ten seconds of considering the issue.
I’d thought that if I responded patiently but with some irritation each time, he would work things out for himself: he would think, “Hm, every time she calls my tech support line, it turns out she has already tried ALL of the first ten things we’re supposed to start with, so maybe I should assume NEXT time that I don’t need to start with those.” I’d tried spelling it out: “No, I’m bringing it up because I’ve tried all the easy fixes and none of them worked.” I tried making light of it: “Oh, you already thought of that? Too bad you didn’t mention it, then, because now I get the credit!” I tried impatient irritation: “Pfff, PLEASE. YES, of COURSE I thought of that, and also I made sure it was plugged in and turned on!”
But no: it has continued. He’ll even interrupt me when I’m listing what I’ve already tried, to suggest one of the things I was about to tell him I’d already tried. So yesterday I had to say, right after he’d done it yet again, that he was doing that a lot lately, and it was making me feel as if his working assumption was that I was really stupid. He acted not only chastened but surprised and affectionate (“Oh! Swistle, no!”), so there is some slim hope that I am only yoked to an oblivious idiot and not to an incurable pinehole.
It’s possible that this is just a dumb habit he’s fallen into, and that he can correct it by realizing it. My fear is that this is because HIS areas of smartness are the ones that Look Really Smart, such as physics and math and chemistry and logic puzzles, and that my lower ability/interest in those areas have led him to consider himself much smarter than me. When he is NOT. It’s just that he doesn’t consider HIS areas of low ability (people, relationships, writing, etiquette, unspoken communication, implications, anxiety about hypothetical situations) to be areas of smartness. I don’t want to have to keep REMINDING him that I’m smart in other ways, because then it’s like it’s just an act he’s keeping up for my sake: “Yes, dear, you are smart TOO, in your OWN way! Why, I would never have known how to get the laundry so sparkling white!” I want him to really BELIEVE it and KNOW it. But I am feeling some despair, because it seems like after twenty years he ought to know already.