Thanks Corri and honeypot. Using a vibrator!!! Phew... In my dreams... Perhaps when I am feeling very cheeky I'll buy her one. I did try touching her during LM a couple of weeks back but she told me not to and it didn't seem that easy to do anyway. What I was planning to do was to tell her that I would be happy to take her all the way on any day she likes if she initiates it but that Fridays should be when we do it my way. I came close to suggesting this but I have to get the timing right as you don't get a second chance of springing that as a surprise and I know that she is dead against more than once per week (at the moment). SD
Corri, your example is quite accurate for my relationship. I have tried to not "cave". For example, I do most of the housework. I have tried to go a LONG time with the floor not getting swept, the dishes piled up in the sink, no clean laudry, nothing picked up. The house was a total pig sty. It did not bother her much. I ended up cleaning the whole mess up because: 1- I don't want my kids living like that 2- I can't live like that 3- I don't want social services or the fire department intervening...
This is just an example, but she can pretty much outlast me on all facets. Bummer. And I am most definitely a fixer/problem solver. I have been since I was 10 and living with my alcoholic mother. As a matter of fact, I solve problems for a living (engineer) - so yeah, you could say it's really hard for me not to try and fix stuff.
The differentiation song:
All I want to do
Is be more like me
And be less like you
Linkin Park
Froggie, I think the necessary part of the plan working is to inform your spouse of A) what you are doing; and B) what your expectations are of them from now on.
For instance, I would have said, "I am no longer wanting to do the brunt of the housework so from now on I will do the showers and the trash. I want you to be responsible for the rest and my thinking is that regular cleaning should be done twice per week. What do you think of this plan?"
Then take into consideration what her thoughts are and hammer out a plan that works for both of you. If/when she flubs up (which she will) then you can say, Hey I thought we had an agreement for cleaning the house twice per week. What happened?
I have no doubt that she noticed that you had stopped doing the cleaning but rather than think she should take up the slack, I would wager that she was thinking, "Hmm, I wonder when he's going to clean the house..it's really getting messy."
OK HD, I'll blow the lid off of Corri's secret for you.
Way back when, you posted a couple of pictures of the Dog family. One was titled "Hairdog family.jpg". The other, a picture of you piggyback on Lisa was entitled "hairdog & lisa.jpg" and included a comment about that being the only time she ever supported you.
I really hate blowing my mystical personna, but honest to goodness, when MM came up with the name 'Harry' for her cookie analogy, I had no idea it was referring to HD's real name. And I just pulled 'Lisa' out of the air... had no idea that that was HD's wife name until he said... 'oh my gosh, that's my wife's name, how did you know?'
Um, Corri, you could have kept up the illusion and he never would have known the difference.... And kept him really freaked in the process.. You must have been feeling vibes or something, yeah, that's it.
Well so far I have slipcovered a chair, my couch, an ottoman, a filing cabinet (that one was mixed..looks like a restaurant table to me), my computer chair, and many many pillow covers. Today I am working on a cover for a recliner, which is requiring more brain power (and coffee) than I originally planned for today. This is all within the last two months.
Btw, when I said slipcover my whole house I meant the OUTSIDE.
Just dumb, stupid luck.