The water meter fight we didn't have

This is a post about a water meter. I promise it gets better than that, but not by much, and that's the point. It's also the most honest example I have of what partner support looks like in real life: not a grand gesture, one sentence at the right moment.

Not long ago Anna and I got home from a trip. Long day, long drive, the kind of tired where you're not really listening anymore, you're just waiting to sit down. We're unpacking, and Anna asks about the water meter.

Some background. We'd been told to replace our water meter. There was a deadline. I'd said I would handle it. And then, in the way of every small administrative task that has ever been handed to me, I'd completely forgotten about it.

So she asks, and I don't have an answer, and she can tell I don't have an answer.

The version of me from a year ago

I know exactly what I would have said, because I said it, or something like it, for most of thirteen years.

"I'll deal with it. Don't worry about it. Why are you bringing this up now?" Said louder than needed. Then the sentence I'm least proud of, something in the family of "stop interfering" or "leave it to me". And then Anna says something back, and I say something back, and twenty minutes later we're not arguing about a water meter anymore. We're arguing about who does what in this house, and who forgets what, and there's no way to win that one at eleven at night with the bags still in the hallway.

Neither of us would remember what started it by the next morning. That was the pattern. The trigger was always tiny. The fight never was.

What was different this time

Two things were in my head that evening that wouldn't have been there a year ago.

The first: Anna was in the last stretch of her month, the week or so before her period. I knew that because The Real Husband had reminded me a few days earlier that she was heading into that week, and that she may have less patience than usual for small things. I'm careful with this in the app, so let me be careful here too. That note doesn't mean she was wrong, or unreasonable, or that her mood explains anything away. She was right. I had forgotten the meter. What the note did was much smaller and much more useful: when the subject came up, I wasn't surprised.

The second: I was tired too. End of a trip, end of the day. I've learned that I'm not a better man at eleven at night after hours in a car. Nobody is. When my tiredness and her low-patience week land on the same evening, the small thing stops being a small thing, fast.

So I had maybe one second between her question and my answer. A year ago that second didn't exist. My mouth was already moving.

What partner support looked like that evening

I said, roughly: "You're right, I forgot. The deadline is the end of the year. I'll sort it out." Calmly. Not the fake calm you use to make a point. Just calm.

And then nothing happened.

That's the whole story. She said okay. We finished unpacking. We went to bed. I have no idea what we talked about next, because it wasn't a thing anymore.

I want to be honest about how small this is. I didn't do anything heroic. I didn't say anything wise. I agreed with the part that was true, gave her the one fact that mattered, and told her what I'd do about it. That's it. Any decent person can do that. I just couldn't do it reliably for over a decade.

I agreed with the part that was true, gave her the one fact that mattered, and told her what I'd do about it. That's it. Any decent person can do that. I just couldn't do it reliably for over a decade.

What I think actually changed

Not Anna. I want to be clear about that, because the easy version of this story is "I understood her cycle, so I handled the situation", and that's not what happened. If it were, it wouldn't be worth writing about.

What changed is that I've stopped being caught off guard. Knowing roughly where she is in her month doesn't tell me how she feels. It tells me how I'm likely to react, and it gives me a moment to choose otherwise. On most days that moment isn't needed. On a few days a month it's the difference between a normal evening and a fight neither of us wanted.

The app didn't say the words for me. It just made sure I walked into that evening knowing what week it was. It turns out that's most of it.

If you're in the same spot

I'm not going to hand out a method. For me, partner support in the week before her period is mostly this: not being surprised, agreeing with what is true, and saying what I will do next. There are three things I now notice, and when all three line up on the same evening, I slow down:

• We're both tired. Late, after travel, after a hard day.
• She's in the week or so before her period, or somewhere near it. I wrote more about that week here.
• The thing on the table is small enough to be stupid.

When that happens, the small thing is never about the small thing. So I don't defend. I agree with whatever is true, I say the one fact that matters, and I say what I'll do. Then I stop talking. That last part is harder than it sounds.

And if I get it wrong, which I still do, I try to come back to it the next morning instead of the same night. Nothing good has ever been resolved at eleven at night in our hallway.

In short. Partner support is not a technique. On the evening it mattered, it was knowing what week it was, one calm sentence, and then not saying anything else.

The water meter is on the list for this week.

Zhivko