Don't Ask If You Don't Want to Know

Why do people ask you for advice, when they don't want to listen?

My brother did this all through law school (I graduated several years before he did). He would even ask me legal questions and then disregard the answers.

Hell, my father does the same thing, and he has no legal training whatsoever, just thinks he's smarter than me, I guess.


My husband asks me to review the refi papers from a legal perspective, and when I point out problems, he gets pissed. I guess he just wanted a rubber stamp of approval. Sorry, when I see a problem, I speak up.

He claims it is because I got angry about the few little surprises that I found in the documents. Now, I got angry at the bank fopr trying to pull a fast one. I did not get mad at him. But anytime I get angry at anything, Kevin takes it personally.

So I guess this goes beyond why ask me to play lawyer when you will just ignore my professional opinion. Not that it counts because I'm no longer practicing law, but I can still read and analyse the occassional document or a case.

My husband cannot handle me being angry.

Its either that I must really be angry with him, or that nice girls don't get angry, or that anger is dangerous, or some equally dysfunctional script running in his head. Sometimes he says that he feels like he's failed me if I get angry, because he should have protected me from being upset.

Hello? Since when is he responsible for my emotions?

When I am not curled up in fetal position courtesy of PTSD, I have the full range of human emotions. Including anger. I think that is a good thing.

Now, I also think its what you do with an emotion that can be *wrong*, but not the emotion itself.

To me, becoming violent when you are angry is just plain wrong. Repressing anger to the point that you explode over minutae is wrong. Venting is not, so long as it isn't a personal attack. Bitching loudly is not.

Kev doesn't mind pitching things across the room when he's pissed. But he thinks its a tragedy of epic proportions if I bitch and moan, or, god forbid, raise my voice.

I wish I hadn't raised my voice, but when it seems like people don't hear me (or have just ignored me), I tend to get louder, hoping they will.

Sigh.