H has been the king of cranky lately. The painter is bringing out the worst out in my H. The painter is someone I know very well, but he's pretty flakey. He has done some things that have annoyed me, all of which is stuff any contractor should know better than to do, but none of it qualifies as destructive. H hits the roof every day over it. He rants and raves, while I set things back in their proper order. I anticipated some bumps in the road, and I don't see the point in getting too wound up about every little thing.
H yells at me, as though I am the one doing these things and just to spite him. He caught himself the other day, when he apologized, but now H has taken the stance I simply don't care how it effects him. I do care that he had to pick glass out of our trash... once. I have made notes about our observations and calmly explained to the painter how to shut off the hose, why it's a bad idea to throw things in our trash cans, etc. Still there is no pleasing my husband who has completely overlooked the fact that the house looks great; and the painter only has a few details to finish up. This morning H called me to ask if I had in fact told the painter not to use our trash cans. When I said that I had, H told me that the painter had now left a single paint can lid in our trash... obviously out of spite. He demanded that I tell the painter "again" not to use the trash cans.
Yesterday, H was carrying on about how the painter didn't caulk the windows, and wouldn't do it right when he did and how it was all going to be ruination and misery if I didn't call to insist that it be done H's way. Personally, I thought the windows were fine, and just needed a bead of caulk around them, but H thought differently. So I said, "Obviously you need to call him and tell him how you want it done, because apparently I don't understand how you want it done." So H said, "No, I'm not talking to him. YOU did this. I haven't liked the way this was run from the very beginning. It's YOUR problem. It's going to be YOUR fault when this has to be fixed." I said, "Fine, then I'm not going to call him, because I don't see the problem and I don't think anything will need to be fixed."
Then, I came back from lunch today to find a message on my voicemail from H. "I'm at the house and the painter isn't here. You need to find out what's going on." Shows how much H knows, because I'd already talked to the painter and received a perfectly lame excuse as to why he wasn't coming today or probably anytime soon. Wait until H finds out...
I really don't understand how H thinks it's okay to play this both ways. He keeps a seperate residence and doesn't help pay the mortgage, but he constantly discourages me from fixing up the house in which I live. When I did move forward with fixing it up, he offered to help me out with money a couple of times, but I didn't need it. Now he's riding me to have it done differently than I am inclined to have it done, all the while reminding me that it's MY house and MY problem. If that's really the case then why is HE so mad? He wouldn't admit it, but I think he's just mad that he's not in the loop. There may even be a touch of insecurity because it is MY house, all MY house, without a bit of financial contribution from him. There I go acting independently again... probably just to spite him. Geez, I wish he'd figure out how to be happy with himself.
On that point, he's grown cranky and sullen again over the last week, which says to me that he's miserable. He's also been increasing the number of "projects" he needs to complete for me, which doesn't do him any good either. I'm beginning to think that the best cure is to cut him loose. I think he needs to go be by himself for a while, work on HIS life for a while, without the constant distraction of needing to come see me every night. Hopefully he'll use the time constructively to get himself to the point where he can be comfortable in my company. So the million dollar question is, "How do I tell him that we need to cool it for a while without him thinking he's being thrown out again?" (He still insists that I threw him out of the house. Whatever!)
