Communication is necessary. No Bull!

For a while my husband has been looking for a balancer bull to round out our herd of Red Angus cattle. He had mentioned a few times that he found some nice looking Charolais or other breeds but I told him we raise Red Angus and I had no real interest in any crossbreeds.

Low and behold at dinner one evening, my husband announced that our new bulls and heifers would be delivered the next day. The kids were excited. I was confused. When did we buy new bulls or heifers?

He went on to tell the kids that they were going to get some pretty, new white cows. He didn’t look me in the eye. I didn’t want any white cows. We raise Red Angus!

I didn’t say anything. I just began to clear the dinner table. After dinner we finished up another crazy evening of dishes, homework, baths, and bedtime. I was too exhausted to bring up our new white cows.

The next day the Charolais arrived as promised. We took our excited kiddos to see them in the lot. The kids named them and asked questions and fought over who got to open and close the gate. I didn’t say much. We raise Red Angus.

Each night we continued to check the white cows and the red cows. The kids continued to be excited. I continued to be silent. Life was too busy to talk about those stupid, white cows. 

Three weeks later, school let out and my job as full-time farmer and stay-at-home mom began. I was home every day for a week trying to play catch up from the busy school year. I sent the kids to daycare so that I could focus on the book work. The second week of summer, I had a lunch date with my best friend and took the kids for a few library and park dates. At the end of that week my husband was grouchy with me.

I asked what his problem was. I was not feeling very sensitive to his mood swing. Those horrible, terrible, white cattle were still bothering me. He said, “You are never home. You are supposed to be here to help me and you have not been home all summer.”

THAT WAS IT!  I had heard enough. I grabbed my phone and showed him my calendar from the last three weeks where: I had finished a school year, sent kids to daycare so that I could be home for the entire week before, and that my one lunch date had been postponed twice because I needed to be home to “help” him and just who the heck did he think he was buying a herd of white cows without telling me!!!!!*((!!?!

The cow was out of the bag.

He blamed me for working all night on the computer the last few weeks. (I was grading papers and doing farm book work after I put the kids to bed.)

He blamed me for being in a bad mood and didn’t want to talk to me about buying the cows. (I was quitting a job that I loved and exhausted from trying to balance everything else.)

He blamed me for not taking him seriously when he mentioned buying a different breed. (I thought we were “different” enough.)

What it all boiled down to was that we needed to communicate. We had been so wrapped up in our own internal dialogue, we did not open up to one another.

As you can tell, keeping my cattle conundrum bottled up led me an explosion of emotion and hurt. Hubby built up his own angst and eventually lashed out as well. We needed to communicate.

Too often we find ourselves frustrated, angry, and exhausted because we don’t know how to move past the animosities in our lives. We need to communicate.

Discussing our concerns and issues is the best way to let out the emotion before it rots and turns to anger. If I had been more honest about how I was feeling and if hubby had been more vocal about his concerns, we would not have had the emotional collision that we did and I would have liked the stupid, ol’ Charolais a whole lot sooner.

The bottom line is that communication is necessary. No bull!

By: Melanie A. Peters