"Girl, It's So Smoooooth and So Cream-ayyyy... You Got That Butt(er) Luv, Bab-ayyyyyyy..."

It started over butter...

Yeah, butter... somehow, an innocent quip about there not being any butter in the house led to a two-hour standoff about the problems of our relationship... I hate when this happens... for those that don't know, I'm not usually as excitable as I am in these blogs... I'm not passive aggressive by any means but it just takes a lot to get under my skin... I'm docile for the most part... I can understand how you, the reader, might get this confused as I come off as very lively when I post about what and how I'm feeling but your favorite blogger, your boy Hard Work, isn't overly aggressive... so this is why this argument made zero sense to me...

I'll set up the scene:
It's an early morning and, as usual on mornings, I want to make the wifey some breakfast... I ask her if she's hungry and before she answers, I remember we don't have any butter... which means we can't have that great French toast she loves so much because I refuse to use anything else (I'm just adamant about ingredients when it comes to food sometimes... LOL) so when I confess to her that we don't have any butter, she asks why didn't I remind her when she went to the store last night... I jokingly respond with this:

"I honestly forgot all about it... in my defense, I put it on the list..."

This, in turn, makes her proceed to go the fuck off... it's at this point, that I'm trying to figure out what's wrong and she tells me that she's making it seem like it's her fault... I ask her why she thinks I think it's her fault and it goes back to my whole "in my defense..." statement...

Now, I understand that if she didn't know me, how that would seem like I was blaming her... usually when somebody says "in my defense" they're placing the blame onto someone else... so it's perfectly reasonable for her to think that... if she didn't know me... unlike my beautiful future wife, I have no problem taking the blame for something if I did it... Nicole, however, will never accept the blame for anything... if she's angry, it's because someone made her that way, not because she's just angry... anytime we argue, it's constantly MY fault which I don't totally agree with (NOTE: I do however accept the fact that I usually make things worse but I don't agree that I'm the primary source of arguments...) So, when I said "I honestly forgot about it..." to me that's ME taking the blame for it (coupled with the fact that while I did write up a list, I never gave it to her...)

So in my mind, it's over... she misunderstood something I said, I corrected what she thought... everything should be good now...

No... no, not by a long shot...

This is when her favorite quote is presented: "It's not what you say, it's how you say it..." I understand this in the concept of someone you've never met before... like if I'm on the street and I'm rocking some kicks that aren't so fresh and somebody says to me "Nice shoes..." depending on how they say it, I could take it a couple ways... now they could see my sneakers and if they're a shoehead, they might see that I'm rocking a pair of vintage sneaks and think they're dope... if they're some kid who's always concerned with what's the newest thing out, they might look at what I have on and be trying to crack jokes... but like I said, that's something that's necessary if you don't know someone...

When you know someone, however, this becomes a little clearer... at least in my opinion... like I mentioned earlier, I'm not an aggressive person... I can be sarcastic but my tone is so recognizable that you KNOW when I'm being sarcastic... so whenever I hear Nicole tell me "it's how you say it, not what you say" it frustrates me to no end... for one, if I say something, then it's how I feel... period... I'm not one of those people that say "Nothing's wrong" when something clearly is... if I'm mad, I'll say it... if I'm happy, I say it... so I don't understand why Nicole would feel compelled to think about what I was TRYING to say instead of what I just said...

Even if the case is that you believe I was trying to say something, when I tell you that I'm not saying that and am, indeed, saying something else, that should end the argument... not make you madder...

And this is where the argument took off... I'll spare you the details but it includes her not feeling appreciated, ME not feeling appreciated, Basic Relationship Communication Problems 101 and a bunch of other things that need not be spoke of...

And to think... it all started over butter...