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Compare And Contrast Two Spouses

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When people commit to each other, they marry each other hoping that everything will go perfectly in their lives together. The hope that they will always get along and believe both spouses will do their fair share of the household responsibilities. For two employed spouses with children, they share the thought that no single guardian will have more responsibility for the children than the other parent. Eric Bartels, who writes for the Portland Tribune in Portland, Oregon, feels he has insight to what it is like to receive his wife’s irrational “rage”. Bartels tells his readers of the horrific anger which his wife puts on him. He feels this anger would be more appropriately dispensed upon other more deserving. While Bartels does a good job …show more content…

She consistently lashes out at him. After working many hours, and then helping to attend to the kids, he is constantly being chastised by his wife about the things he did wrong and the “could haves” per say. Bartels provides a certain sort of “probable cause” as to the possible up bringing of his wife’s anger. He feels he has not done anything wrong and that his wife’s pent up aggression is out of lines. He continually pictures her as a monster and only shows the bad sides in the …show more content…

He understands the hardships of marriage by saying “I think it’s fairly well established by now that marriage is a challenge, a creaky, old institution that may not have fully adapted itself to modern life, one that now fails in this country more often than not. Put children in the picture and you have an exponentially higher degree of difficulty” (439). He also understands the troubles caused from motherhood by saying “Motherhood asks the modern woman, who has grown up seeing professional success as hers for the taking, to add the loss of a linear career path to an already considerable burden: child rearing, body issues, a shifting self-image and a husband who fell off his white horse long, long ago. I suppose this would make anyone angry” (439). So although he does not approve of her anger and is not pleased by it, he understands why she might have so much built up anger that she feels the need to take out on her husband. Again, it seems he is blaming society’s standards and stereotypes instead of taking responsibility for his part in the struggling

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