6 - “And that's why you'd rather give in first …”

Summary

I think it's lousy that people are always hurting each other. We simply can't have a reasonable argument. One person is always hurting the other, and then gradually it becomes ingrained somehow.

My shift work means I have a lot to do, and I also want to get to grips with the housework. I'm pretty ambitious when it comes to that. Everything has to be clean and tidy. But it's no fun if the housework's all on my shoulders. What kind of a life is that? Always working and cleaning at home and that's it. Bernd goes to work too, but afterwards he takes photos. He says: “What's with all this endless cleaning?” But then he'll say: “It's really nice to have a clean, tidy home. When I see how other renters live.” That's a huge contradiction somehow.

Earlier, back before we were married, he didn't take photos; everything just revolved around us. It took a while for me to get used to the fact that there is something else besides us that takes up a lot of time. For a while I was pretty jealous, but it's not so much of a problem any more.

We got married because we wouldn't have gotten an apartment together otherwise. My mother never wanted me to go over to Bernd's. Staying away all night was completely out of the question. There was absolutely no talking to her about it. She had been divorced for years; my brother and I were everything to her. She was probably jealous.

I mean, I don't want you to think I'm not happily married. But it's no longer the way I imagined it: all love and bliss. We have a lot of problems and we try to deal with them somehow. Our daughter always takes my side when we have a fight. Bernd thinks I influence her to do that. But it's just that children take the side of the weak, and they see their mother as the weaker one because men are always so quick to get loud.