A WW? (7)

[lt0402]

Some quick journaling. Realized this morning that I'd forgotten to pickup some tile from Lowe's that we need to finish up our MBR bathroom remodel. Sent W this note:

Me: "Good morning <insert my nickname for W here>. When are the guys coming to do our grout? The tile had slipped my mind."

W: "WTF? Stop calling me that."

W: "Today. That's why I told you twice last weekend to pick up the tile. I will fix it myself. I also told you last night when D was getting ready for bed."

Me: "Will head out of here for a few, grab some tile, and drop them off. Need to get my wallet anyway."

W: "It's too late I would rather you did not"

W then called and said she'd been telling me for 3 weeks that this needed to be done. I listened, let her vent, and offered that I had thought she was having the grout people install the tile. She said, no, that was never the plan and she was going to put it in. I said that's a large project, she said no it's not and hung up. First, we didn't know about the missing tile until we ripped out the vanity 1.5 weeks ago. Second, she did tell me that the grout guys were putting the tile in. At this point, I'm not as open to questioning my remembrance of things as I remember this quite clearly.

Had to get my wallet, as I needed my ID for something today, so swung by the house. Got to say hi to D before school, which was a great bonus.

When D was upstairs brushing her teeth, I told W "I dropped the ball on the tile. I'm sorry for not getting it. This is going to be a big project" and honestly meant it. It had been on my list of things to do, but somehow it'd slipped off. No excuses, took ownership.

W was obviously perturbed by my forgetting and said: "Big picture, this is the main problem. You never do what you say you're going to do. You've done this 2 to 3 times now in the past few weeks." Then she went into not wanting to talk about it right now bc she didn't want to yell in front of D and then she walked off.

Thought that was useful feedback from her. I'd known that was an issue in the past, but did not believe it to still be. Could be that she's just grasping this opportunity to berate me. I don't have a clue what other 1 or 2 times I've forgotten something I said I'd do in the past few weeks though. I'm fairly proficient at creating task lists now, as I've worked hard to fix this aspect of my issues.

This comment has forced me to do some introspection though. There ARE two things I've said I'd do throughout this that I have not. One is that I told her last month I was coming up w/ a budget, but so far I've not found time to put pen to paper. The second is that I told her I'd only go back into our M if she agree to do MC with the goal of working on bettering our M. The first is easily fixable. I'm going to find time this week to put that together.

The second, however, is more nuanced. She wanted to go back to the MC from before. That was a disaster and she was not a friend of our M. I've also been putting this off bc I don't believe anything comes of it so long as she's unwilling (as she is telling me now) to work on our M. I think the way to address this is to sit her down and tell her exactly that, or to find a new MC and go. Probably leaning towards telling her why I have yet to find an MC and get her feedback.

Regardless, W seems like she's at a point where she's as un-invested in bettering this thing as she's ever been. IC had offered that w/ me challenging her w/ the "this situation is not sustainable" and "I can see you are unhappy, as am I" type of dialogue the reaction would be her pushing me further away. Almost as a defense mechanism. Does not feel like a defense mechanism as I live the spew, however, but maybe I'm just too deep into this thing. Really just feels like pure hatred coming from her. I think the thing that bothers me the most is she's not even willing to invest the smallest bit of effort in this to see where it goes.

So, none of this is unexpected. Trying to keep an unbiased third person view of things, but it's tough. Have my IC again tomorrow, so his take will be interesting.

FG, thank you brother. It's funny, but 37 seems so old to me at this point! But you're right, we both have many years ahead of us to thrive after this thing.

IC has recommended turning up the heat on the situation to see how it moves. I agree with him and that's what I've been leveraging the house conversation to do. Effectively force a dialogue on getting my thoughts out there about how we can't do this forever. The path it seems to be progressing down is, however, the one that ends with us further apart. We've also discussed a timeline, but haven't quite gotten that far yet. I have asked her in conversation, "what happens when our 1yr rental is up?" and haven't gotten any response to it.

My IC, also thinks that taking charge of the situation may help my W as I've never been that forceful w/ her in the past. He thinks it'd help w/ her anxiety levels, as it'd make me an ally against it. One comment she's said was "I need to know where I'm going to be living in a month" when I haven't responded quickly enough to the rent/own question. Her anxiety, I would believe, is driving that questioning.

FG, I think we both have a healthy and happy future on the horizon. It's just getting through this damn storm right now. Tough to see your way out, but when the clouds part and the skies clear it's got to be refreshing. I know that'll come for us at some point, but being where we are currently sure does suck.

Hang in there brother! You'll be good, your kids will be good, I know it!

Hawk, there was a commercial awhile back. There's a football referee and he's being berated on the sidelines by a coach and he just is staring off into space, cool as a cucumber. The announcer is saying, "wow folks, I don't know how he can take this beating!". Then it cuts to the ref at home, sitting on the couch, eating doritos (i think) and watching tv. Same calm/composed look on his face. the camera zooms out and you see his wife berating him for something and he's just tuning it out.

Long story short, I feel like that's the training I'm getting here. Leveraging my work experience to help as well. But man is it hard at times. Sometimes you just feel like you need to fire back, but it never seems to help things, it only seems to push her further away. Stay strong Hawk and thank you for the comments!