The Nest

Things will get better

Posted Wednesday, June 25, 2008 10:30 AM

It's going to take some work and perseverence but they will get better. Last night DH got home at a few moments before I did and the first thing he does is start complaining about the A/C in our apartment (it hasn't really been working well lately). No "hi honey how was your day", nothing, nada, just a few expletives about the a/c. So I go to the office to talk to them about it again and when I get back to the apt, he's getting ready to go out for drinks with a co-worker when I obviously already have dinner planned because the crockpot has been on all day. Grrr.... I mean I don't mind if he goes out for a drink or two, but I already had something planned and it was just a little frustrating. After he leaves, I start cleaning up like I was planning to and then started the rest of dinner. He gets home in time (he was only gone about 1.5 hrs) but then passes out on the couch while I eat dinner alone at the dining table. I even set aside a plate for when he woke up, but he wasn't hungry, he just wanted an ice cream float with cream soda. I wanted to scream, I was so frustrated. But I tried really hard not to let it get to me. So I figured the whole housewife thing wasn't giving me the immediate gratification that I wanted so I decided to use my womanly ways to distract him from the TV That worked a little better.

Looking back on last night, I think I was looking too hard for immediate changes and that maybe I need to give it a little more time. Tonight, I'm going to vacuum, clean the bathroom, finish up some laundry and start packing for my weekend trip. Which brings me to my next idea for working on our marriage. I think this weekend I am going to ask DH to make two lists, one for me and one for himself. The one for himself I'm going to ask him to write down why he loves me and why he married me and that is just going to be for his eyes only. I'm not going to look at it. For the other list I'm going to ask him what he expects of me. I'm going to make the same lists while I'm away so we can swap and talk about what we expect from each other when I get back. I realized last night that he might not want a complete housewife but I always thought he did because that is what he grew up with, his dad worked all the time and his mom stayed home and took care of him. I grew up in a very different environment, single mom, rarely saw my dad and didn't have a very good model of a traditional family. So, I always think that he wants the martha stewart type of wife, like his mom, when in fact I don't know what he is expecting because I haven't really asked him. I think that figuring out what we expect from each other might really help us.

Now that I've written a novel, I'm going to stop rambling. I know this subject has been all I've been blogging about lately, but I think that writing about it has really helped me work through a few things in my head.