Reply to Holding my boundary. Let him be mad.

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "Holding my boundary. Let him be mad."

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm in a FB group of about 60 moms and I remember one of them starting a post about how her husband kept refilling a dirty pot with new suds instead of just cleaning in. And we were all, oh you poor thing, he sounds awful, and she said . . . No, this is the man I love. This is funny to me. I don't care if he's ever going to clean the pot. I just laugh at the insanity of refilling it with water 10 times instead of just cleaning it.

I remember thinking, oh, I could just . . . laugh at my husband's foibles? It wasn't a lesson I had really learned yet. I think I've learned it now. The key is just to be in an earnest place. No tit for tat, just giving the benefit of the doubt. Why assume your husband knows the sand is driving you crazy and is choosing not to vacuum it just to treat you like a maid? That's not the simplest explanation. The simplest explanation is that it's not a big deal to him and he honestly believes he'll get to it later. He isn't aware of his tendency to put things off (and maybe the fact that you swoop in and do them before he has to recognize that he's bad at follow through is compounding things). He feels like being tired after travel is a good enough reason to give himself a break.

I DO think he should understand how his actions impact you. I just wouldn't assign malice to this failure on his part. The way you make this happen is by doing your part to give grace, give the benefit of the doubt, etc. That doesn't mean eating your frustration. It just means that when you express it, you do it like this: "I know you're so exhausted, which I totally get, but this sand is driving me crazy and I know you don't want a crazy wife. Could you please handle it before dinner?" The feelings underneath your request are slight amusement at your husband's silliness, slight amusement at your own silliness, and a desire to have peace while also not having sand on your floor.[/quote]

You are wise.[/quote]

I have approached things with my husband similarly. We have laughed at his gymnastic ability to make it up stairs when I have piled things on them that need to be carried up in a way that I thought would force him to deal with it. He said didn't really "see" the stuff because he hadn't put it there and he didn't know where it all needed to go, but when I explained to him that the stuff on the stairs is the clothes of the kids we made together or the detergent that is used to wash his clothes or the suitcase from the trip we took as a family, i.e. also something that relates to him and should be just as much his responsibility as it is mine, he now picks things up instead of stepping over them. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics