My own thread...my sordid story.

[Meredith]

Wow, us sharks are hungry creatures lately! Must be the weather or something…

Ok, so let me make sure I have my facts straight here. You have an idea in your head about what a perfect wife should be and what she should do. You want to be that perfect wife so that he can never use any of the things you don’t do as a deal breaker and in return, he’d have a lot to miss if he left…right? Add to that drive the overhanging guilt from some past actions and we get Pam the superwife!

Then we have H…who feels that he is a grown man and can take care of himself. Yet, strangely, he seems rather miffed when there isn’t enough dinner for him or something that he expected done isn’t. He doesn’t want to be the Neanderthal husband who wants his wife to work outside the home and still be responsible for the cooking, cleaning and caring for the children. Yet, he is a man and they have a natural tendency to let us take over when we so vehemently volunteer to do so (I learned this from you on my thread…by the way!).

I think that the ultimate solution here would be to sit down at the kitchen table as a family. Everyone should have their schedules ready, and as a family it should be discussed what needs to be done and who is responsible for it. For instance, Pam and the boys may alternate who cooks, and dinner can be at 6 (or whatever). If H is going to be late, then he forfeits any portion of food that would be his and if there is some left, he lucks out. If not, the bread is in the pantry! All I’m saying (and you and Betsey said the same thing to me on my own thread) is that if everyone knows what is expected of him or her, then there won’t be any confusion later. Yeah, worked well for the Waltons! In real life, not sure what the solution would be .

The quality time…ah, the quality time. I think that we can bring this need up until we are blue in the face but they won’t get it the way we need them to. They have a different LL...they may think theirs is the only one. For instance, I would far rather my H showed up earlier at the house so we could spend time together than wait for 20 minutes at the coffee shop for a bagel and coffee that I didn’t want in the first place! But he saw it as an act of love! He would much prefer a gift than quality time, so the quality time didn’t even cross his mind (even though I’ve said it, and said it, and said it some more). Here is where more of you own advice appears on your thread. What if you were to positively reinforce him when he does offer quality time? “Thanks for sitting here with me, H. I really appreciate spending this time with you” or something equally corny. Enough words of affirmation and he just might figure it out.