New to separation. Am I doing the right things?

[Accuray]

FWIW, there were many things in my marriage that I figured out in retrospect I was just "assuming" W would take care of -- buying the kids clothes, making the kids lunch in the morning to take to school, there were a million little things like that. It makes sense to list out everything it takes to run the household, provide for the kids, etc. Run through the list and look at the stuff you NEVER do, and ask why you never do it? Make it fair game for you to start.

There is one other interesting dynamic -- assume that you and W start your marriage where you take turns doing the dishes. If W is 5 seconds faster than you, eventually she's going to do it more and you're going to do it less, because she's better at it. Eventually, she'll get even faster, and you'll get even slower due to lack of practice. If you try to do the dishes then, it will make her nuts, because you're SO much less efficient than she is. You'll feel worthless and she'll think you're worthless at it.

It's easy to give in to those situations and just bow out, but if you do that enough, you create a domestic support crisis.

When you run through your list, there will be things that she does way better than you do, but that does NOT mean that you should never do them. You might have to insist that you're going to do it anyway, and keep doing it some proportion of the time. As you learn the ropes you'll get better. You may never get to be as good, but part of "the work" is to insert yourself into those tasks anyway and insist that you be given a chance to do them.

Accuray