sorry to interupt with irrelevant issue, but i am new to site/ new member and can not figure out how to post a topic. i need help desparatley and can't get started. could someone please respond with some guidance?
Still living for my family (even if she doesn't want to be a part of it). WAW wants me to WA???
Peterabbit - when you go to a forum (like newcomer's - usually the best place to start) click on "post" at the top of the forum - that will start a new thread for you.
Okay, a long overdue update: No big happenings here (thank goodness!). I must admit, though, that for a while there, H and D14 were really getting on my nerves. When they (and my S13) were gone for the weekend, I really realized how much they all stress me out on a daily basis. Note to self: Cone of Silence must have a leak!
I guess H has been stressing me out mostly because he's going through one of his "uptight" periods. Yes, I now know they aren't about me, and I'm not at all worried about him straying or anything like that, and I do understand now where it comes from. Still, it's difficult not to get drawn into reacting.
It starts slowly at first - little complaints, like the house is messy (no, it's not out of control, but if something comes up that takes me away from it for a day or two, it can take a while to catch up - nothing terribly serious, but one's socks might be in the dryer instead of the drawer, or the kids might have left all their school papers cluttering up the computer desk - that sort of stuff. But I totally see the legitimacy of his complaint, and do my best to remedy it.
Then it progresses into the ridiculous. Examples? H suddenly deciding at 8:55 P.M. that S13 must clean his room NOW (S had a friend visiting who was still waiting to be picked up in 5 minutes, and S's room, while not immaculate, was actually in the upper 25% of clean for him).
Or - I have sorted through some papers and set a stack of miscellaneous papers belonging to H in a pile in the bed for him. He sets them on top of a piece of roller luggage at the end of the bed (which he hasn't put away from his trip last week). The next day he comes home from work to find the papers have been spilled all over the floor. The next day he asks S13 if he did it - he denies, but says D14 was in the room. Hours later he asks D14 if she did it, she denies. At this juncture I point out the obvious - that, duh, we have a German Shepherd and SHE probably knocked it over. H seems nonplussed to have no one to blame and no one to order to clean it up. Finally, after two days of the papers on the floor, I picked them up and put them in a box for him. (Only about 10 or 15 papers, btw, and some pretty important).
Of course, leaving the papers on the floor is pretty out of character for H, since he's usually pretty organized. And while it's not unusual for him to be bothered if the housekeeping slips (he likes it neat - heck, I do too) the irrationality of his behavior is a clue to me that he's slipping a little. He didn't suddenly order S13 to clean his room because S13 had been shirking, or because someone was coming over in 10 minutes, or because it was impossibly messy (actually, D14's bedroom was messier). He did it because he was feeling anxious and somehow if D13 had jumped up to clean his room he would have felt less anxious.
And I suppose the thing with the papers on the floor - was he looking for someone to blame because he was secretly mad at himself for leaving them in such a precarious spot, and he didn't feel he could deal with the obligations the papers represented (nothing big, but just more little things to deal with)?
So - I'm off to try to finish catching up the housecleaning today, so H won't feel anxious (and our biweekly cleaning lady comes tomorrow, so that will help too - although it drives H crazy that she doesn't put all the knicknacks back in their proper places when she dusts!).
I guess I realize too that while H's anxiety about disorder is directed outwardly towards us, the real issue is that HE is being more disorganized than he would like, and is probably berating himself internally for that.
On a lighter note - S18 ran into the garage door last week! (Hit the gas when he meant to hit the brakes). Luckily no damage to the car - the garage door was pretty tweaked, but H and S managed to beat it back into some kind of workable order for now.
And this last weekend, H and I found a laptop for D14 at a garage sale for $75. We had just stopped on a whim. It is an older machine but almost exactly the same as H's old laptop which I use now. It was missing the part of the power cord which goes from the wall to the transformer - but since we have a similar machine, we have that part. We ran scandisk and defragged the hard drive and deleted the previous owner's stuff, and it runs great! So, now she has a machine she can use to type her homework in her room, and listen to music at the same time.
I was flipping channels on the TV andsaw a snippet of Dr. Phil. Featured a H who was inches away from having an affair and becoming a WAH. His comment about coming home from work struck me: "Every day wasn't bad, it was just the SAME day"
Never underestimate the need of the WAS for CHANGE in their life. Even if your married life before the bomb was pretty good (mine was) - the SAMENESS may have gotten to them. I guess this is why GAL, acting mysterious, buying new V.S. undies - all this change tends to work when DBing.
I'll post an update soon.
