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June 10, 2005 - 11:50 a.m.

Grumpy Today

I'm a grumpy bear today. I wanted to go to the beach this morning, but when I finally woke up at 10:30, it was raining. It's now almost noon, and I haven't accomplished much. These are some of the reasons why I'm grumpy.

It's very difficult to try to catch up on your life. During the school year, I'm so totally focused on school that I can't tend to the house very well. We had hired a maid as a way to keep me from killing Rob. He's wonderful, but getting him to help with the housework is like pulling teeth. Rather than face the conflict, I end up taking all the household duties on myself until I get fed up and then guilt him into helping. I don't like the struggle. For a while he was talking about division of duties, like he takes care of the outside of the house and I take care of the inside. This doesn't work very well for me because outside care is sporadic. Inside care SHOULD be weekly. Our sheets should get washed weekly. They don't. The floors should be swept weekly. They aren't. And whose fault is that? Mine, because the inside is my realm of responsibility. And when there's something outside that Rob doesn't like doing? I have to do it, if it's going to get done. We have a flower bed in the front of our house that's full of weeds. It looks like crap. Rob doesn't like to weed, so I'm the one who has to suck it up and occasionally weed it. I keep thinking that I should just stop worrying about it, let some things slide, see how he likes living in a dump. And therein lies the rub. He has a much higher tolerance for mess than I do. Our house is so small that I go nuts when all the surfaces are cluttered for too long, the kitchen isn't clean, my feet get covered in grit when I walk around barefoot...

We had a discussion about his inability to help me with housework. He sees it as an inability, I see it as immaturity. I have a hard time motivating myself to take care of the house because I don't like housework. But I do it, because I don't have a mother around to take care of it for me. And I don't want to be Rob's mother, cleaning up after him all the time. He's an adult, and he should start taking a little responsibility in this area. I don't whine about doing household chores nearly as much as he does. When he does do things around the house, he expects an exceptional amount of praise. I have a hard time dishing out the praise when I feel that he should have done the task without me hounding him in the first place.

Hmm, I wasn't expecting this to turn into a venting session. Rob will read this at some point, and he'll feel bad. I'm not going to censor myself, however. It's my diary, this is bugging me today, and none of this is revelatory to Rob. We've talked about it but we still have yet to reach a working solution. I'm trying to use the Flylady.com system to help me get the house under control. Rob thinks a lot of our problems will be solved with buying a bigger house. Some might be. A big one would be giving him his own room to keep in whatever state he wants it in. And things are definitely better than when I moved in. We're getting there, but we're not there yet.

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