Whining about work and dh (I'm probably PMSy)

Complaint 1:
So I have a degree in Design and Marketing and 15 years experience, but am I allowed to use those skills in my job as Marketing Art Director . . . no, of course not. That would just be silly. Obviously the guy in Sales has much more knowledge about design than I could even hope to acquire. Arghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
Another good design killed this morning :mad:

Complaint 2:
I am somewhat of a traditionalist and therefore, take on certain roles as wife and mom. However, I do also have a full-time job with an income that rivals DH. So, why is it that DH feels that he DESERVES to jump in his PJs the second he comes home from work, sit in his chair, and eat dinner/snack undisturbed until bedtime? If I ask him something or get too close he puts his hand in my face and says "space." He does work long hours and often doesn't get home 'til 8 PM. But, would it KILL HIM to wash a few dishes, pick up a few toys, sort a few bills, put away his stinky socks???????? I don't think I'd be so upset if he took on some the traditional male roles (taking out the garbage, mow the lawn, handywork, etc) but he doesn't!!!!! And, if I ask him to do one thing he acts as though I've asked him to sever an arm or something. I'm just the nagging wife. . . . .

Of course, I'm perfect in every way ;)

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ilies-7979.pnghttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3.../multitask.gifhttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ies/bighug.gifhttp://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...es/mrburns.gif:D

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Originally Posted by limewave

Arghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
Another good design killed this morning :mad:

Complaint 2:e So, why is it that DH feels that he DESERVES to jump in his PJs the second he comes home from work, sit in his chair, and eat dinner/snack undisturbed until bedtime?

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What kind of design did you make? (we'd like to hear about it!)

He can't do chores in his PJ's?

(hire a maid?)

you need to train him. if he EVER does even ONE of those things (like pick up a sock, put a dish in the dishwasher) PRAISE him!

YOu should have a talk with him, but do NOT complain about his BS, simply
shine it on and PRAISE him for the leettle tiny tiny things he does.

good luck
also married to a man who comes home and kisses me and gets on the computer and expects things to materialize (like dinner) a lot of the time.
Not All of the time....

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Originally Posted by limewave

If I ask him something or get too close he puts his hand in my face and says "space."

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Woah! This is not acceptable! How inconsiderate and rude! And what kind of example is this to the little cutie in your avatar?

He could put a hand in my face only two times . . . . :mad: Has he always done this or is it a new thing?

Practice turning over the chair, and then turn the sucker over with him in it!!

One hand in my face would have been a sign for me to get a lawyer!!!





karen

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Originally Posted by limewave

If I ask him something or get too close he puts his hand in my face and says "space."

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If my DH said that to me it would be the very last time he ever did it. The gesture and attitude shoes blatant disrespect.

I can't imagine Dh doing that either, but maybe that's something they both do?

remember, she has to live with the guy..

WTF? Sorry but you aren't PMS'ing honey. That is wayyyyy out of line in my book.

If I'm going to live with someone, they best participate in chores and things be equal. What you have in your pants doesn't make a hill of beans difference. Dishes are dishes, garbage is garbage, cleaning a tub is just that - he won't be any less of a man for doing it.

This probably explains one of the reasons I'm perpetually single. Nonetheless, I'm not going to be someone's mom/maid for the sole sake of having company.

But of course you are perfect, we knew that silly :cool:

I'm getting entirely different picture from what you are saying.

Sounds like both of you are under a ton of stress. (two jobs - long hours - your avatar says you have young kids) Your DH sounds depressed to me more than anything. And you sound like you need a break.

You can't fix him. He's gotta do that himself.

But you can fix you. :) Take the break. Take a day or two off of work to just do stuff you like. Take a night or a Saturday off from the house with a friend who makes you laugh.

Then see how it looks.

One thing is for sure, if you try to fix this stuff when you are already angry about it, you probably do more damage than good. If you try to fix it when you're a good space, it's alittle easier to work on.

It seems to me that things are not reasonable at all in this situation.
I think you need to talk seriously- preferably with a third party present who has professional experience with mediating and working through couples' problems together.

...and you're training for your first marathon? Does he support you in that? It might be a way to open the conversation.

Lise, we are actually training for the marathon together. And he is very supportive as far as that goes.

I think he grew up where his mom did everything. I have to say on his behalf that about once every six weeks he gets a bug up his butt and he cleans, cleans, cleans--its ridiculous. But then the next day its a mess again because he doesn't know how to pick up after himself.

Thanks for listening girls. I really needed to get that out of my system. I'm taking the afternoon off tomorrow for a massage and vegging. I can't wait. I'm planning to have a chat with DH the next time we have a weekend together--when we are away from home and from work and everything stressful so that we can look at things rationally.

Thanks again!

Once, I was traveling. I came home to a very proud of himself DH. While I was gone, he needed some clean laundry, and had to move it down to the laundry room.

He bought himself a laundry basket to carry it all down.

He said, when I got home, "see? and when it's full, I take it down to the laundry room and put all the clothes in the sorting baskets..."

I waited and waited, and the basket got heaped higher and higher....

Sometimes, I took stuff that wasn't in the basket down to the laundry room, and washed that stuff, but I waited and waited....

Well, he SAID "I take it down" right?

Karen in Boise

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Originally Posted by Kano

Once, I was traveling. I came home to a very proud of himself DH. While I was gone, he needed some clean laundry, and had to move it down to the laundry room.

He bought himself a laundry basket to carry it all down.

He said, when I got home, "see? and when it's full, I take it down to the laundry room and put all the clothes in the sorting baskets..."

I waited and waited, and the basket got heaped higher and higher....

Sometimes, I took stuff that wasn't in the basket down to the laundry room, and washed that stuff, but I waited and waited....

Well, he SAID "I take it down" right?

Karen in Boise

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So I'm dying to know where it is now and if it's full or not! :)

I am going home and kiss my DH, I married a gem and I am soooooo blessed. If a hand went up in my face, it would pull back missing a finger or two. I understand stress, but thatis really rude.

GRRRHHHH!!!!

Ruth

Okay, now I feel bad because everyone thinks DH is a jerk, and he's really not bad. But he does have his days. I'd go on about his knight-in-shining armor moments but the pooper is crying at my feet. She has a cold . . .

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Originally Posted by esther231

You can't fix him. He's gotta do that himself.

But you can fix you. :) Take the break. Take a day or two off of work to just do stuff you like. Take a night or a Saturday off from the house with a friend who makes you laugh. .

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Totally agree with ester... I'm not married but I'm living with my boyfriend almost a year and here how it goes...

He loves me very much but he's not guy who knows how to say it. "Love you" out of his mouth is a shock for my organism and I miss that cause I'm the youngest child so I received nice words and attention all my life. On the other hand every once in a while he surprises me with flowers or with little gifts or something like that that tells me how much he loves me.

It's important to look the better side. We all have flaws. I can also see he's lovin' me when I have PMS, he tolerates my naggin' and all other pms side affects.

And about socks... :eek: As far as he's concern they can be in the livin' room until the more than 10 flies come. It possible that he'd react after 10th fly. But we found compromise cause it's quite degrading for me to carry his dirty socks to dirty laundry room. We bought one little part of furniture (we call it tabure... people usually relax their legs on it when they're sittin' in a armchair) ... that has inner department that no one can notice so he puts his socks in it and when I'm washing laundry I take it out of that compartment. It's not worth it to argue about silly things like that.

Also, when I'm learning (one week before my exam) the house is dreadful but I don't care. When I'm not learning in that period I'm relaxing cause my brain needs some rest and I'm not even tryin' to clean all day and after that learning again. No way...

that hand thing reallly put people off. What's up with that? but i understand.
My husband has done some things... embarrassed me in front of my friends..
po'ed my sister beyond repair (I think)

but he makes up with it in other ways.

My thought was that it sounded worse than it is or she would have knocked his block off a long time ago.

One way to handle it, if it's getting on her nerves - cause stuff that doesn't annoy you at first can really annoy you later - might be with a sense of humor instead of anger.

If my DH did that more than once, I would call him space man when I needed to ask him for help or whatever. Just takes the charge out of it. And hopefully will make him laugh at himself a bit instead of immediately jump to defend himself.

Lime, all men are a bit strange if you ask me. They just don't think like we do. And they never will. So, your DH has nothing on my DH. I could write a book about the things he does that annoy me to death.

But I still would walk 20 miles to be near him if need be. (complaining all the way)

You all are probably right, it was the hand thing...and sorry the pooper has a cold, that always makes me feel for both mommy and baby.

I learned a long, long time ago what was important for me as far as household issues. My DH is such a wonderful guy and is so good to me that I gave up caring 20 years ago if he has a messy closet. We don't share one so who gives a rat's behind. The man held my mom up while she was barfing from chemo....come on now....how can I get mad over socks......

Gotta pick those battles...right now he is on the phone, working a deal for my new Titus Racer X... I LOVE THAT MAN!!!!!

Ruth

i know how it goes. i've been in the same boat where i just wanted to scream at BF. we've been living together for 2 years now. i did what esther said. i took a step back and changed some things about me. i don't think DH is a bad guy, no more than i think DBF is on his bad days.

its so difficult living with someone. you no longer have to think for yourself, but for another too (not to mention a sick wee one who i hope feels better soon.)

hope you enjoy your relaxing day. you deserve it!

Thanks again for the support and advice. Sometimes I just need to vent. Socks really aren't a big deal--that's why I whined online instead of DH. No need to get into an argument over something not important.

He does get into these spells where he stops contributing to the household duties and works really long hours. I think its because he's so stressed out at work. He has his own business--which is more pressure than I can even imagine. I try to be the supportive wife, but sometimes it gets to me too.

Anyways . . . I do have to give it up to DH. When we were engaged he came to many a gynecological appointment with me (ovarian cancer scare) and even kept a straight face when getting lectured about different "positions" by an oncologist who looked like someone's grandfather. And, he's never hesitated to run and get me tampons or vagisil or pads so large they look like diapers at 2 AM. So yea, he's not so bad :)

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Originally Posted by limewave

He does get into these spells where he stops contributing to the household duties and works really long hours. I think its because he's so stressed out at work. He has his own business--which is more pressure than I can even imagine. I try to be the supportive wife, but sometimes it gets to me too.

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Oh, Limewave......

Oh dear, this is going to be long -- back story that if I could figure out how to shorten it a bit and maybe make some sort of coherent story here...

Yes, if it's his own business, I KNOW what you're living with -- Mine, who is the same one who was so proud of himself for getting a laundry basket that HE takes to the laundry room (IF I'm out of town and it's full to overflowing) had his own business for several years. There IS no downtime when you do that. I remember Earl being at work for 16 hours many days, and sometimes for like 40 hours straight when deadlines were coming. He'd go to work at 4 in the morning sometimes, so he could work a while before phones would start ringing, because once they did, he felt like he didn't get anything done the rest of the day.

He had partners, and they had several employees, so in many ways the responsibility wasn't just to supporting his own wife and children (yes, mine were little like your mini-wave). In many ways, he was responsible for the well-being, of 16 families. Having your own business is a 24/7 job if you're going to be good at it. And I'm pretty certain you wish you had at least six more hours and three more days in each week too!

Business climate for small start up companies being better in rural Minnesota than in the "big city," he also uprooted us from family and friends. Fortunately, I was able to continue being an at-home mom (unlike you) because there was NO way he could/would have helped out around the house. He did help some when we painted the house, and when we re-built the deck to make it bigger. He HATED that sort of work -- just not his thing, but he wasn't having anything to do with me on the extension ladder doing the second story of the back side of the house (gee, he DOES care!) even though it scared the bejeezus out of him to be up there. On the other hand, that was far less than a quarter of the house, I had to work on it while the girls were napping, or before they got up in the morning -- and I got an awful lot of the deck building too, along with snow shoveling, lawn mowing, plumbing, electrical, septic system maintenance (is that plumbing?) and just about every bit of kid-tending. Grocery shopping was a day-trip.

So, long story short, it's a REALLY stressful life for him, given that he wants his business to succeed. Most likely, he really DOES need space and quiet (but probably puts the TV ridiculously loud!) because of all the demands for attention and action all day long. I DO understand why he wants to come home and "hide" as it were.

And it's a REALLY challenging life for you, being the support person to a small business owner. It's gotta be especially hard to have been at work all day and have to come home to chores. I think I remember reading somewhere back in this thread that it might be helpful to pick some things that you can live with letting go -- lawn a little longer, beds unmade(mites won't like this, which is good!), whatever makes life easier for both of you! Hang in there -- I consider that era a great learning experience, even though it was sometimes mighty miserable!

After several years, DH sold his business and had more free time. This was quite an adjustment for all of us!

You didn't mention how he is with mini-wave. Please tell him something for my husband -- he thought he had forever with the girls, and suddenly, our oldest was learning to drive. He tells his friends with small children now, to be sure to enjoy them, because it's over before you know it. I know they're probably both mighty tired when he gets home, but maybe bedtime stories? Little girls need to know their daddies love them!

Well, I suppose none of this fixes anything, but maybe it helps a little to know that there's someone out here who's lived what you're living and survived?

Karen in Boise

Regarding DH's special laundry basket:

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Originally Posted by slinkedog

So I'm dying to know where it is now and if it's full or not! :)

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Slinkedog, the basket is down in the laundry room right now, and there's lots of laundry in the bedroom. Several years have passed, and I still wait to see if he will bring it downstairs when it's full. And I still take stuff from the floor down now and again and do laundry, and once in a while, I might take some stuff out of the basket to wash, but then I fill it back up again, like it was when I started digging around in it...

Karen in Boise