婚後生活:婚姻中爲何需要獨裁者大綱

It was 7:30 a.m., and I was groggily pulling on a bathrobe when the doorbell rang.

當時是清晨七點半。一聽到門鈴響，我便迷迷糊糊裹上了一件浴袍。

'Who could that be?' I murmured to my husband.

“那會是誰呢？”我向丈夫呢喃道。

'It's the painters,' he answered, darting downstairs to open the door. I soon heard him chatting with them in Spanish on the front porch. That's when I really woke up.

“是油漆工”，他一邊衝下樓去開門一邊說。不久我就聽見他和油漆工們在前面門廊用西班牙語交談。那時，我才真正從夢鄉中醒來。

'The painters? For our house?' I called down the stairs incredulously. Alejandro and I had been talking about painting the exterior of the house for over a month. We had looked at color charts, painted sample patches and narrowed down the choices. But we were still completing the plan.

“油漆工？來刷我們的房子？”我衝樓下大喊，覺得難以置信。一個多月以來，亞歷杭德羅(Alejandro)和我一直都在談論房屋外觀的刷漆問題。我們一起看了比色圖表和刷好的樣品，並縮小了選擇範圍。但我們仍在完善這個計劃的過程中。

By the time he came back inside, I was furious.

等他回到房間時，我已是怒不可遏了。

'Why are painters already here? We don't know the accent colors! We haven't sketched it out! We didn't run it by my sister!' I complained.

“爲什麼油漆工現在就來了？我們連主色調是什麼都不知道！我們還沒有把草圖畫出來！我們還沒讓我的姐姐過目呢！”我抱怨道。

'We'll get started and figure it all out as we go,' Alejandro said. 'It's time to make it happen.'

“我們就要動工了，在這個過程中，我們會把所些問題都一一解決的。”亞歷杭德羅說，“該是開工的時候了。”

I was mad all day long: Painting our house is part of our investment in it and ought to be a mutual decision, I fumed. But that evening when I got home and took a look at the painters' progress, it was suddenly easy to figure out where the trim color should go and what color the door should be. I tried to defend my morning hysteria, saying we had not technically been ready to pull the trigger on the project, but my argument fell apart in light of how well it was working out.

我一整天都氣鼓鼓的。刷房子是我們對房產投資的一部分，這應該是兩個人共同的決定，我十分惱火。但那天晚上，當我回家看到油漆工的進展時，突然覺得不費吹灰之力便能說出門該上什麼色、哪些地方該刷配色。但我還是試着爲自己早上歇斯底里的行爲辯解。我說，嚴格說來，我們並未準備好動工。但由於刷漆工程進展得異常順利，我的此番爭論因而完全站不住腳。

'Maybe you could even say…I was right?' he asked, teasingly, hopefully.

“也許你甚至可以說……我是對的？”亞歷杭德羅揶揄道。他對我的態度發生轉變仍抱有希望。

I answered with a mock cry of horror, as though he had asked me to curse my children. I love the man, but really. What a suggestion.

我對他的話報以一陣恐怖的假哭乾嚎，就好像他要我詛咒自己的孩子一樣。但我愛這個男人，是真愛。讓我承認他是對的，這是多好的一個建議。

***

---

In a democratic system like our marriage, where two parties enjoy a 50-50 split in voting rights, it's uncomfortable when one party designates himself or herself the dictator and makes a decree. I've always prided myself on being part of a marriage of equals, where we are both the breadwinners and, as I like to tenderly remind the South American gentleman to whom I am wed, we are both responsible for the housework. We also both handle the banking, bill paying and investment decisions.

當身處我們的婚姻這樣一種民主制度中時，雙方在投票表決權上各佔一半，如果其中有一方（他或她）自封爲獨裁者並作出一個裁定，這就會讓另一個人不快。一直以來，我都爲自己是這段平等婚姻中的一份子而感到自豪。我們兩個人都在賺錢養家，同時我也喜歡溫柔地提醒我丈夫──娶我的這位南美紳士──兩個人都應該承擔一些家務。而在銀行事務、賬單支付和投資決策方面，我們倆也是有商有量。

But as illustrated by the 'paint-gate' episode, sometimes it really doesn't work to wait around for consensus to take hold. Sometimes you need to designate a trigger man to execute the final decision. And sometimes─and this is where it gets complicated─we need to assign ourselves that role and simply take over.

但回到我剛剛提的“刷門”事件上，你會發現，有時候想要達成共識，光空等着根本就行不通。有時你需要指派一位“扣動扳機的男人”來作出最終的決定。還有一些時候──這種情況就很複雜了──我們需要自封爲這個角色並坦然接受。

In retrospect, I realize I did this a few years ago after our kids were born and I felt strongly that we did not have enough life insurance. For Alejandro it was a nonissue: None of his Uruguayan friends or family have life insurance, which he considered a symptom of Yankee neurosis. Getting insurance for myself was easy enough, but it felt awkward to demand that Alejandro take out a policy on himself. Combine that with the fact that when I can't sleep, I watch those true-crime TV shows that are inevitably about one spouse who knocked off the other for the insurance money.

回憶往事，我發覺自己在幾年前就曾這樣做過。那是在我們的孩子出生後，我強烈地感到一家人的人壽保險繳得不夠多。而對亞歷杭德羅來說，這根本就不是個問題：他在烏拉圭的家人朋友統統都沒有人壽保險，所以在他看來，這完全是美國佬的神經質症狀。要我爲自己買一份保險是小事一樁，但如果要求亞歷杭德羅也這麼做會讓我覺得尷尬爲難。還有，那就是我在睡不着的時候會看一些根據真人真事拍的犯罪電視節目，那裏面必然會上演這樣的劇情：夫妻中的一方爲了吞掉配偶的保險金而出手幹掉對方。

However, it was my absolute certainty that life insurance was essential that motivated him. Now we both have policies, and we both feel better for having them.

儘管如此，我還是百分百確定，人壽保險對他來說必不可少且至關重要。正是這種堅定，促使我讓他上了保險。現在我們倆都投了保，這也讓我們感覺更好。

One party having that total confidence that this is the right thing to do is, I believe, the first requirement for decree-making. It relates to the second requirement, which is a willingness to take responsibility for the consequences. It's not always possible to completely mitigate the impact after the fact, but it's important to let your spouse know you understand it will be your job to clean up any mess.

我認爲，作出獨裁決定的首要前提就是：一方須完全確信自己要做的事是對的。而這又與第二個前提息息相關，那就是願意爲一切後果承擔責任。雖然事後不可能完全消除所有的影響，但有一點很重要，就是要讓你的伴侶知道，你非常清楚殘局要歸你來收拾。

I got an opportunity last week to exercise some of my new theories on decree-making when we needed to clear out space in our garage, which we are converting to a guesthouse. I suggested selling our unneeded stuff on Craigslist.

上週，就在我們需要清空車庫、準備將其變成一間客房的時候，我得到了一個能將我自創的“獨裁決定新理論”付諸實踐的機會。我建議將家裏用不上的東西放到在線分類網站Craigslist上出售。

Alejandro was negative about Craigslist, arguing that he didn't want strangers stopping by the house and that the payoff would be too small for the work of posting ads and fielding calls. At first, I let the items sit while we mentioned them to friends, hoping we might somehow luck into a taker.

而亞歷杭德羅卻一口否決了在Craigslist上賣舊物的想法，他爭辯說不想讓陌生人到家裏來，而且跟刊登廣告和接答電話的工作付出相比，賣東西的所得太少了。一開始，我依了他，就將物品閒置在家裏，但向朋友們宣傳了舊物出售的消息，希望就這樣靠運氣，沒準兒會尋來買家。

Finally, I decided this was silly: I knew selling them on Craigslist was the right thing to do, and I was willing to do the work of vetting calls and receiving customers. A week later, our garage was empty and we were a few hundred dollars richer. Alejandro can hardly remember why he didn't like the Craigslist idea and is happy to have been overruled.

但最終，我覺得這種方式太愚蠢了：我知道把它們放在Craigslist上出售纔是正確的事情，我也願意去做篩選來電和接待買家的工作。一週以後，車庫就被清空了，我們的手頭也多出了幾百美金。現在，亞歷杭德羅很難想起自己當初爲什麼不喜歡在Craigslist上賣東西的主意，他也樂於接受自身建議被否決的事實。

And, oddly enough, that's how I feel about the house paint and some other decisions that my beloved temporary dictator has unilaterally imposed.

說來也怪，在刷房子和其他一些由我心愛的臨時獨裁者單方面敲定的事情上，我也頗有同感。

I may even work my way up to saying 'you were right.' But first let's see how the house looks when the paint dries.

也許，我會爭取說一聲“你是對的。”但在這之前，先讓我們等油漆幹了，瞧瞧房子的模樣再說吧。