Mrs. Dunn
18 October 2012
A Critique of Eric Bartel’s “My
Problem with Her Anger” When most people get married, they go into the marriage with the expectations and hopes that everything will go as planned, that they will always get along, and that the responsibilities will be evenly divided between both spouses. And for two working spouses who have children, they share the expectation that no one parent will be more of a caretaker than the other. Eric Bartels, a feature writer for the Portland Tribune in Portland, Oregon, feels as if he has personal experience as to what it is like to be on the receiving end of his wife’s irrational—or at least in his eyes—anger. Bartels informs his readers of the anger his wife projects on him, which he believes should be saved for people who are portrayed as angry people and who do not tend to care about the people they are taking their anger out on. While Bartels does a well job at being understanding of where his wife is coming from with all of her anger, he personally does not take any of the blame for the problems in the marriage. Eric Bartels explains how he feels himself to ultimately be the more dominant parent and his wife has much built-up anger that she constantly takes out on him. After working many hours, along with helping to take care of the kids, he gets yelled at by his stressed out wife about the things that he did wrong and the things that he could have done right. Bartels provides probable cause as to why his wife is so angry, such as motherhood and professional success, while also admitting that he did make mistakes before the marriage. Bartels ultimately feels that he does not deserve any of her anger because he has not done anything wrong making her the only one with faults and who is being the harsher one in the marriage. In this article, Eric Bartels does a poor job at showing her side of the story and admitting to lashing out on her every now and then. He only provides the reader