Oh sh!t

[haphazard]

Cine:
In what crazy bizzaro parallel universe does looking after a dog preclude taking care of clients? Sounds like your H is in need of a serious attitude adjustment.
In my H's crazy bizzaro universe it is all about him martyring himself one way or another. So because the pup cries when you leave him in the house H didn't leave the house. Every other dog owner I know lets the dog get on with crying and the dog gets over it. If I point this out then it is typical of my cruel and heartless nature.

The decision for me to be SAHM was partly because we both believed in caring for our own children rather than paying others to do it. When DS was born I said to H "we can share this - lets split the childcare and the income earning 50/50" I could see he was tempted by the idea as he was entranced by his new son but he back-pedalled pretty fast so it was left to me. Of course after six or seven years out of the loop my income earning capacity has taken a nose-dive. His on the other hand has rocketed. He gets off on the fact that he can earn so much more than I can and that gives him "rights".

About 10 years ago (before kids) I left the place I was working at to go free-lance. I pretty quickly was earning more than I had been in half the hours. To me this was ideal and I didn't see any reason to work more hours. To him it was abhorrent. He grew very resentful of the fact that I had spare time. He started to insist that I either worked more and brought more money in or worked harder around the home. Since there was absolutely no inherent need for me to do either - the house was fine and so was our income - I declined to do so. I remember saying to him at the time "don't get jealous just because I've sorted my life out, you could quite easily do the same if you put your mind to it" He has a very over-developed sense of duty and strong work-ethic which just prevents him from enjoying life, and he tries to make it prevent me too. I am not lazy, far from it, I just know how to chill out when I need to and I know when enough is enough - I'm not a perfectionist. I guess I get these traits from my Dad, who has led a very enjoyable and productive life, always taken a nap in the afternoon, always taken long holidays, sabbaticals etc. He just never sweats it, and neither do I, but my H can't see life that way.

Our LL's reflect this completely, mine is QT his is AOS, he feels love by the sweat of someone's brow, by the fact that they have put themselves out (worn themselves out) for him, I feel love by the time someone is willing to spend just chilling out in my company. He spends NO time doing this. Zero. However I do spend time doing things for him, such as cooking, cleaning, paying bills etc. When I first began the DB journey we both read 5LL's and he knew instantly that QT was my LL. He was more cagey about agreeing what his were, but I guessed it was AOS and WOA. For about 2 months he agreed to come to salsa dancing classes with me as QT, everytime it was with a bad attitude until in the end I stopped forcing him to do it. He wonders why I don't do the AOS with good grace In fact I think I do do them with a pretty good attitude but like Mojo's H he thinks he can pick up on things like whether I did it with "love".

Corri:

I remember when I first started posting on SSM and described some traits of my H and you replied "Boy, do I know the animal to whom you are married". Seems like you do
You asked about the tag line to this thread. "Oh Sh!t" it's because what started out as a line drawing exercise about not disrespecting my time turned into a let's call the lawyers type exchange. It happened so quickly, and I know I made a lot of really basic mistakes. What was even sadder from my point of view was that when I said "you don't even like me" and words to that effect he made absolutely no attempt to disagree and in fact spent some time piling on more nasty comments. Funnily enough saying "you don't love me" doesn't elicit this response, however "you don't like me, and haven't liked me in years" doesn't seem to get the knee-jerk "oh yes I do" reaction. It reminded me of when I split up with long-term BF, saying I don't love you didn't do it. Saying I don't want to be your GF anymore did.

We were supposed to talk last night, we didn't really, we were both too afraid to I guess. In the end he said, there's no point saying any more it's all been said. Can you think of anything else we can do? I said "not really", he said "nor can I". Then I reminded him that a couple of months ago we were going to find counsellors, the plan had been to each come up with a short-list and for the other to vet it and come to some sort of mutual selection. Well I did my part. So I asked him if he'd found any, he said no, so I said I had and he said he would look at them.

I do have some hope I guess but the very fact that he can't even be bothered looking into the question of a C when we agreed that's what we would do is just symptomatic of his lack of attention to the problem. It's not like he doesn't know his marriage is sh!t, it's not like he hasn't said he would like to sort it out and his preference/determination is to stay together but he can't be bothered, just like he couldn't be bothered to come to salsa with me, or spend any evenings together or listen to me prattling about something without being bored and irritable. I can't MAKE him give a rat's azz.

Fran