Yea! My internet is back, my migraine has been downgraded to a headache, so I thought I’d give posting another try today. Because I have something to say.
Tonight Ernie and I had a lot of boys running around our house and Ernie was helping these young boys draw their designs for their Pinewood Derby cars and then he worked on cutting the cars out for them on his woodworking equipment. After everyone left, I went to go find Ernie and he was already in his pjs and in bed reading (which is understandable given his incredibly long and stressful week) but it made me mad. Mad because I was tired too and the kids still needed to go to bed and we still had to read scriptures and all anyone had for dinner was peach cobbler and hot chocolate. [I know, I am a really bad mom- the nutrition police are going to come after me] and Ernie in his pjs was a signal to me that he was opting out for the evening. So I pulled the martyr card and painfully took care of everything myself, got all the kids to sleep, and then went back to talk with (confront) Ernie. In the course of our talking it out, I admitted that I should have been more articulate about my expectations for him, which is completely fair, and I was also able to articulate to Ernie what I was really upset about.
- I’m tired too. Ernie’s long week at work meant that it was a really long week for me at home.
- My feet and legs are aching. And I had a migraine today.
- Even though I may not leave the house all day (most days I do), my days are really exhausting. For example, Max is sneaky and he loves to play in the toilet- regardless of whether or not it’s been flushed, and let me tell you- I’ve cleaned up some unpleasant messes.
- I HATE cleaning. I do it because someone has to and I’m at home and we can’t afford a housekeeper so it might as well be me, but for crying out loud- I feel almost angry some days when I’m loading the dishwasher. Again. Or cleaning up spilled _fill in the blank_ again. Cleaning does not energize me the way it does for some people, it just feels like drudgery to me.
- I hate being alone. Rather, I hate not being with Ernie. And I know that while he will be home tomorrow, he will be leaving Sunday morning (leaving me to handle church alone with 4 kids) and won’t be back until late Wednesday night and that feels really overwhelming to me right now.
Ernie’s comment was that he didn’t want to have the “Who Does More” fight tonight, so he wanted us to clearly communicate our issues so that we could put the hurt feelings to bed and move on. So we talked it out. Rather quickly, actually and it’s done. In the early years that fight might have taken hours to get over, so yea for progress. I just wish these things never came up to begin with.
3 comments:
Funny, I think Aaron and I just had this SAME talk just last week, and you all did much better than us! Our argument lasted for about an hour, and ended up with me staying up till 2 a.m. cleaning (totally with you on that one), and him going to bed (by himself), and we both were hurt/mad.
I think we both felt really bad about it, and have tried exceptionally hard to be more understanding of one another. He's been more helpful (without me even asking), and I've been asking less. It's funny how you can actually find yourselves closer, after the storm.
communication is so important- especially when it's hard to communicate.
yay for you for "confronting" ernie and working it out.
now you get to wake up and do it all over again tomorrow. yay for life. :)
trina- i honestly thought you were one of those people that enjoyed cleaning. :)
Trina- don't feel bad. Ernie and I have had the "who does more" fight for years now. It's really the only fight we have now (compared to the many fights we had as newlyweds) and it always starts differently, but when we get all the way to the heart of it- we're having the "who does more" fight again. Depending on the trigger, that fight can take a couple of hours of serious discussion to work through. Last night, it was just obvious to both of us at the beginning that we were having that fight- so we thankfully we were able to bypass the preliminaries. :)
About the cleaning, I have tried for years to make it more efficient, more organized, more fun, etc. All my efforts have helped, but sometimes I just can't lie to myself. I really just hate it.
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