14 Months Secret Separation: talking mediation

[adinva]

Hi Cat04. I put straightening up below other things. I have a maid service that comes in regularly so everything is deeply clean and straightened out each time they come, but in between, I do as I have time to do if it's just for me. And with H out of town, S14 needing drop off and pickup 45 minutes away twice a day all week, my annual audit taking up all of my regular worktime and a major database project and teleconferences taking up even more, I would rather just ignore the clutter until the weekend.

This is a fundamental difference between me and H. H is a neat freak, and I learned in our MC that he actually seems to be stressed out and uncomfortable in a cluttered house and afraid to say anything because 'it's not his place to tell me what to do' and then it comes out in anger and passive aggression anyway to nit-picking and general yelling at everyone. I really didn't know he didn't understand my viewpoint, and I didn't understand his before.

In order for me to come home to a clean house, I would need to come down harder on the group of teenagers who are constantly in and out of my house all day. And I've chosen to be a comfortable place where they feel welcome. They are reasonably polite and pick up after themselves some, but the house is basically lived in by a lot of other people than me by the time I come home from work. It would be more effort for me, that I really don't feel compelled to put in, to change that. I like a comfortable, easy-going, happy home...not necessarily one where all the kids did all the dishes.

Sometimes the clutter bothers me more than the rest of my workload and I tackle it. It does feel nice to do for me.

But the extra work on a day that I was dragging and tired and overwhelmed with other responsibilities...that was for me only in the sense that I want to be a more thoughtful and giving person.