It's taken me a couple of days to even settle down to post this. You see with me working 4 nights a week, I pretty much plan all the meals in the house. When hubby gets home, supper is already on the table so we can eat as a family before I rush out the door to work leaving hub with the dishes. Lately, however, hub's been under a lot of extra stress with work and family etc so I've been trying to pick up some of the extra work like trying to make sure a lot of the supper dishes get done while I'm making supper, making sure the dishwasher's empty for him etc.
However, it seems the more I do, the less he does. I don't think he's even realized that he hasn't helped out with the laundry for the past two weeks, made the bed or even vacuumed. Course he wouldn't cause I've been picking up the slack.
So I do all this during the week, taking it on the chin, doing my bit for the team er family. You'd think that on the weekend would be the time for him to jump in and help a little bit with some of the eating decisions. I thought I was communicating my need to him for him to help with some of the preparation and decision making on the weekends by frequent questions like ... "what do you think we should have for lunch? or what do you want for dinner" What are we going to do about dinner?" etc.
I don't know about your husbands but mine amazes me with his ability to actually not answer a question, I walk away and realize half an hour later that he still hadn't answered the original question. Part of it is because our house is crazy and I do mean crazy with 3 kids. They all seem to want 100% of our attention now. Part of it is because he appears to be actually pondering the question. Guess what, he's not! Usually we waste a whole lot of time until I just get up and do it myself. AGAIN.
So this weekend was like no other except for the fact that I got real pissed about it. I decided that I wasn't going to cook. Hub knew I was annoyed about the whole what's for dinner, we'd had words about (too long to get into) so what does he do? Takes the kids outside and plays with them for 2 1/2 hour. Ignoring the fact that we still have to resolve the dinner issue. Okay, maybe I was being childish, but now I was really ticked. There was no way I was cooking dinner.
Finally at 7:00 p.m. (their bedtime btw) he brings them in and makes Kraft Dinner. OMG! That was the best he could come up with? For us it was soup. No, I did not want to eat left over 2 day old soup for dinner thank you very much.
So after the kids are in bed we have it out. Guess what? He's totally clueless to the whole let's plan out meal ideas. You know his man brain.. (no, not that one) just does not go there. If I want him to plan dinner he's got to know in advance.
Here's the kicker, if I want him to help out with dinner, then he will. I just need to tell him. Uh hello, that's what I thought I was doing with the whole, what should we eat questions. No, apparently I have to be more specific and notify him days in advance.
Yeah, like I get advance notice. Well actually I guess I do cause I am the one who usually makes it every day. Apparently he draws a complete blank when I ask him about meals. It simply does not occur to him that he could get up of his @ss and look through the cupboards/fridge and give me some freakin suggestions. When I pointed this out to him, he shrugged and said "yeah I guess I could do that."
So apparently.... I am not communicating very well.
We do a slightly different version in our house where we're both trying to make exactly the same point, but can't pull our heads far enough out of our woohoos to understand what the other person is saying... Communication snafus are the worst.
ReplyDeleteI think you should go OUT for dinner tonight :)
*L* Looking back at the post.. I can see I was on a total rant.. I was trying to make the point that I actually GOT that we think differently and maybe need to communicate in a different way to get the understandings across. Guess it was too easy to vent than be understanding *g*
ReplyDelete**I'd LOVE to go for dinner tonight.
sooo frustrating! I only see my boyfriend on weekends and we go through this too. Makes me want to rip my hair out. I can't imagine living with it all the time. (haha... he want s to move in together. Maybe THIS could be my argument...:P)
ReplyDeleteI noticed "colour" in your post title has a "u"! I don't think it registered before that not only are you Canadian, but your a BC'er too! I'm in the lower mainland.
After all these years of marriage, and being surround by testosterone (4 boys) constantly, I have more than given up on open-ended questions where communicating with them is a concern.
ReplyDeleteI've learned over the years that my questions are not pondered, Hell . . . they're not even paid any attention! Yes, the 30 minute thing happened to me, too.
I finally just learn to look them dead in the eye and say, "You're doing this or facing the wrath of Mom!"
Problem solved. ;o) lol
Angela
That is frustrating. I'm on the other side of this and I know he does so much stinking work each day that I want to just go along with the flow and eat whatever he makes. Not sure if that is what your Hubby is doing, but maybe? Either way communicating with the opposite sex really is a different language. I'd argue that he is not communicating well either but they seem to leave the communication realm up to us for some reason.
ReplyDeleteI think your hubby and mine just might be long-lost brothers. Same thing happening over here, even right down to the ignoring the questions I ask. And when I finally say "um, did you hear me...I asked you a question?", he'll say "I was thinking about it". Okay, well, you might wanna acknowledge that you at least heard me!!!
ReplyDeleteOh but I'll bet if we asked our hubbies, "would you like to have sex right now on the kitchen table?", they'd hear that and answer almost immediately.
okay that made me laugh.. how right you are. He NEVER fails to hear any suggestive remarks I might make...
ReplyDeleteYou're preaching to the choir! I remember the days before kids when we both worked and we both cleaned the house, though I had a large share always. But then he went to school, and we had kids, and then work got way intense witout school, and somewhere along the line I became the ONLY person to cook and clean. If it wasn't for the boys, I would pull a strike like I used to do.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh! Is there a Man Brain Flu going around? My husband refuses to use his brain, too! LOL
ReplyDelete