How many licks does it take...?

[2thepoint]

As mentioned in a previous post, W asked me if I would show her how to maintain the pool. I had decided to stop maintaining the pool and other domestic chores around the house because a) I no longer live there and b) I am tired of propping up my W in these matters.

Earlier in the week we had arranged via text message a time for me to hold my pool maintenance seminar. The pertinent portion of the text reads as follows:

Me - can we do the pool seminar tomorrow afternoon?
W - ok, after 6
W - 5

So I show up after 6pm (which in my book is also after 5pm) and tell my W I'm ready to walk her through the pool maintenance process and she says she can't because she is going to the gym. I said "we had agreed to do this today" and she says "I told you I was going to the gym at 6:30." I said, "we never talked about that" and was reaching for my phone to show her the text. She said, "yes we did." With that I remembered that I was dealing with an alien who has no sense of time or commitment and put my phone back in the holster. Huge 180 for me!!

I then told her that we have 10 minutes before she leaves and if she wants a crash course on pool maintenance, she needed to come outside right now. She complied and I did my best to teach her the basics. I know I'll need to go through this again because her mind was clearly elsewhere.

Later in the week, W sends me a text stating "I can't maintain the lawn/landscaping and will need to hire someone to do it unless it is something you can do."

This is one of those domestic chores that I had stopped doing. Now it appears that my W is starting to discover that crap around the house doesn't just miraculously get done. That someone has to be responsible for making it happen and she once again comes to me.

I'm happy to maintain the grass and the pool. In fact I get enjoyment out of it. But, at the same time, I don't get to enjoy either once the work is done because I don't live at the house.

Where I'm a little conflicted is that I have been working hard to stop inserting myself and my actions where they were not wanted. I stopped keeping up the interior of the house, because whenever I did something as innocuous as cleaning off the kitchen counter, my W would interpret that as me somehow sending her the message that I thought she was lazy.

Now that I've stopped the yard work, W seems to need my help. Since she is asking as opposed to me assuming she needs the help, I kind of feel like I should step in. I also don't like spending money unnecessarily on things that I am capable of doing myself.

Is that rescuing or simply fulfilling a request?

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The other day I was talking to a friend about various things and the topic came up about my feeling of loneliness and my need to feel loved again. Anyway, without going into detail, the tears began to flow like they hadn't in months! I thought I was over this crap of a sitch. I know that I had finally figured out how to detach in a way I hadn't before. And I was starting to feel good about myself and my future. But it is amazing how deeply wounded we are by the actions of our WAS.

I hope to get past this and I hope to be able to one day feel loved again.