Fighting with Tom, the Goat Hoarder

Tom and I had a fight last night.  As our fights go, it was pretty stock standard.  I had been quietly stewing away for a number of days about the prospect of getting yet another goat.  We had enough animals, I thought, and I was beginning to worry that Tom had developed an addiction to procuring more and more.  He was becoming an animal hoarder, I was sure of it.  My fear of an ‘Animal Farm’ style goat revolt was at boiling point, so, with 15 minutes to go before Footy Classified, I made my move.  

‘Tom,’ I ventured, ‘I really don’t think we should get another goat.’

‘What!  Why?’  

‘How can we afford to keep all these extra animals?’  My voice was already cracking.      

‘But it’s a free goat!  And we need it for breeding.  Sooky and Sook don’t have any balls!  You know that!  And anyway we’re giving Lucy away soon.’  It was Tom’s turn to get exasperated.

He had a point, I guess.  But now I was fired up.  ‘You’ve always got an excuse to get more goats!  When are you going to stop?  I think you’re becoming a GOAT HOARDER!’

Tom rolled his eyes in mockery.  ‘I am not.  You always have to pathologize everything I do.’ 

At this point it occurred to me that maybe we didn’t have that many goats and maybe my fears were unfounded, but I just felt like yelling a bit more.  ‘Well, you better not get any more!  And don’t think I’ll be helping to round them up if they all jump the fence into Rob’s property again!’

‘I won’t!’  Tom yelled.  ‘I don’t need your help anyway!’  

And then we had to stop fighting because Footy Classified was on and there is no topic in the whole wide world that is worth the fall if I were to talk over THAT.  I skulked off into the bedroom and looked at Facebook to calm down, and after a few minutes I felt refreshed and suitably placated as to the goat situation.  

Because, here’s the thing: I actually think that fights are good for Tom’s and my relationship.  If I had known two years ago that I’d be writing that I would have been sure I was on a one way trip to crazy town.  But our fights are very different than they were two years ago.  We are both reasonably heated people, with a fair bit of in built aggression, and we used to be really shit at handling that fact.  We’d get into these horrible rows where all either of us was trying to do was ‘win’, which basically meant making the other person feel like shit.  We would let our hot heads get the better of us, and achieve less than zero.  We’d both walk away from those fights angrier than we’d started out, and take hours to cool off afterward.  Those fights were, of course, not good for our relationship. 

But we’ve done a lot of growing up, and somehow, we’ve learned to ‘have it out’ in a way that’s satisfying to both of us.  We get to scream and yell and release the aggression valve, but we’ve worked out how to do that and listen to each-other at the same time.  There is usually a conclusion.  We get somewhere.  For some people, a talk is a good way to get things off their chest.  And don’t get me wrong, we do talk.  But being the people that we are, sometimes we just need to let off some steam and have a good old yell.  

These days, I usually feel better after a row.  It cuts through any tension that’s been building, goes some way to sorting out the problem, and gives us a fresh slate.     

   

It’s too bad society has to label certain, entirely natural, emotions, ‘bad’.  Anger is totes normal.  Yet we’re told that if we express it in our relationship, we’ve got problems.  Wouldn’t it be better if we were taught how to be angry at each-other in a constructive way?  Otherwise we’re trying to stifle something that is inevitably going to arise, and that can only make us feel like shit.  As long as we establish boundaries with our partners, I reckon a good blow up once in a while is healthy.