TEAM WORK

The team I’m talking about is my husband and me. We’ve been married a long time. Our relationship was probably average when the kids were still at home. Kids can cause a lot of stress and consternation, especially when they aren’t doing so well. And even when they are.

Now it’s just the two of us with our “opposites attract” kind of support system. He does the taxes; I do the cooking. He takes the cars in for maintenance; I do the parties, pot luck dishes, birthdays, and Xmas.

You get the idea. If I wanted to cut the grass, he’d faint. I’d faint if he wanted to take over the laundry. We have traditional roles and for us, it works. Most young people today are much better at picking and choosing non-traditional ways in which they’ll each contribute to the relationship.

Now exaggerate the older, traditional roles. Say she loves to work outside. He won’t let her. She hates to cook. He won’t take over a couple nights a week. She needs his help around the holidays. He prefers to spend time with “the boys.”

That’s not teamwork. It’s a dictatorship because one person decides all. That would be the batterer. The other person follows his orders because she has no choice. That would be the victim.

A couple where one is a batterer cannot be a “team.”

Luckily, that’s something I’ve never been part of and hope I never will.

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