A Little Epiphany - (and a newbie delurking)

[Dia]

Lot's of little updates...

Finances - we have been tippy-toeing into financial discussions. We still have separate bank accounts, but we are slowly divvying up financial responsibilities. He funds his own IRA.

He pays for the hardcore living expenses - rent, utilities, various insurance products.

I pay for about 95% of the groceries, most of the meals out and most of the family outings. I handle contributions to kidlet's college fund, my own IRA and that alleged 6-months liquid savings that everyone is supposed to have.

Before we officially reconciled, I was paying $200/month toward health insurance, but in light of my other contributions, we've decided that's not necessary.

Essentially, he pays living expenses and I handle investments and play money. I buy groceries because I'm the cook. This arrangement is working for a couple of reasons. 1) We're still feeling, and therefore being, somewhat cautious about blending our lives and hence our finances back together. 2) The division reflects our temperaments. H likes to feel like the breadwinner, the guy who keeps the roof over our heads, keeps us warm and safe, etc. Me, I'm the adventurous one. I like exploring food and travel. I like like researching investments, watching the market and feeling the rewards of watching the numbers (hopefully) climb. To H, this sort of research, whether travel or financial, is tedious, unrewarding work.

Holidays - we're spending Thanksgiving night down by my folks, then heading home sometime on Friday. His family hasn't made their plans yet, so H said we needed to make ours and not wait on them. His family wants to have a big to-do up in Ojai, so we'll do what we can to get H and kidlet there (and me, too, if I'm invited - which I doubt) once we find out when and where it's happening.

We've pretty much acknowledged that everybody is feeling uncomfortable about the holidays in varying degrees. We're handling it well, my family is handling it well, and people on H's side - except his mom - seem to be handling it well, too.

My family has a recent death to remind them that it's unwise to let resentments continue to simmer, and that family conflicts are best dealt with up-front.

QT, PT and getting our needs met - we're having some productive growing pains in this area. H has a need for uninterrupted headspace, for being able to work on or focus on things w/o a kid bouncing around, a wife chatting at him, etc. When he doesn't get that during the early evening, it leaves him feeling stressed and over-stimulated. The result is that he seeks it during the late evening, after kidlet goes to bed, getting on his computer, putting on his heavy-duty, noise-blocking headphones and satisfying his inner introvert.

I get this because I'm an introvert, too. For him, it would be absolutely fine for us each to pursue our own ends most evenings, and then to fall into bed when we're done, make passionate love and fall asleep. His LL is PT, so this works for him. My LL, however, is QT, so over a long period of time, this does NOT work for me.

Today, for instance, H wanted to work on his programming projects. The office juts off our dining room, and there is a double-wide doorway with no door. If I'm rattling about in the kitchen, it sometimes bothers him. Kidlet chattering, asking him random questions, me walking by enroute to the bathroom then blowing my nose - all of these break his concentration and frustrate the beejeezus out of him.

We had a good talk about it today. For his part, he readily admits that the answer is NOT to make us tippy-toe around him. We have as much right to do our normal activities as he does to have quiet, un-interrupted headspace. I'd suggested it before, but today H finally agreed that what he needs simply isn't going to happen in the current office location. It's too public, and it's in one of the major traffic paths of the house. H isn't happy about giving up the nice windows with the ocean view, but the inability to concentrate has finally trumped the view. H will be moving his office into kidlet's old room and I will take the office off the dining room. Interruptions bother me less, so this should result that utilitarian ideal of the most good for the most people.

Circling back around to QT for Dia, H can't give me adequate QT until he recharges his introvert batteries. This isn't diva behavior; it's just how he's wired. Hence, improving the quality of his introvert space enables the conditions *he* needs in order to give me what *I* need.

We've been struggling with this for a good two weeks. We've not had a movie night in that long, and mostly what I've been getting are 15-20 min chat sessions during dinner, or in-between when he gets home and when he heads to his office. Those 15 min sessions are great as maintenance. They provide just enough to stem the outright draining of my tank. But they're not enough in the big-picture sense. I need 1-2 hours of time on a weekly basis, and something like an afternoon outing together once a month.

Both of us are intuitive, idea-people, so getting down to concrete, nuts-and-bolts statements of what we need is both different and good for us. "I need more time" isn't all that helpful. I need to understand and then communicate the specifics in order to get what I need from him.

Also, while it might be different if we weren't so freshly reconciled, the two weeks of maintenance-only QT has had a predictable effect on my sex drive. When I don't get my QT, I'm not as interested in sex and I'm less willing to respond to advances. If he games til 2 am and wants to fool around when he comes to bed, nuthin' doing. It makes me feel like I'm 2nd best after his computer. It's not at all a conscious tit-for-tat thing, though, it's very much and under the radar withdrawing.

Here's another way we handle the various situations above. Next weekend, I'm taking kidlet to see some extended family who are visiting my folks from out-of-state. This satisfies everybody. Kidlet gets to see my parents, his great-grandfather and a host of great-aunts and cousins. This pleases me, my mother and the afore-mentioned extended family. Filial obligations are met which keeps me in my mother's good graces. Sunday and Monday, kidlet are going to Disneyland, which is pure fun for both of us. We're both QT people, and we really like our Mom-and-Kidlet adventures, something we discovered big-time during the separation. And H - what does he get? Almost 4 entire days of an empty house - pure heaven.

As a personality researcher, overlaying the LL thing onto my general understanding of introversion has been extremely insightful. I'm an introvert, too, so why has it been such a big deal to get quality time out of H? The difference is in the LLs and how we get our primary emotional needs met. Great stuff, Maynard!

ok, enough rambling for now.

Cheers,

Dia