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Very sound advice Perna as usual. The ONE thing that caused the most trouble in our marriage was that I believed that he should know what I’m thinking. Or if I say one thing “I don’t want a gift” I would expect him to know that I really do, I just want him to want to give me one. Or when I would say “no, I don’t mind if you mow the lawn tomorrow” I would expect him to know that I really DO mind. To me: him asking the question was him acknowledging that it bothered me. HE was actually doing nothing more complicated than asking if I minded if he put it off another day.
A lot of miscommunications come from what we each perceive as “normal”. My father mowed the lawn every single Thursday, if it rained then it was done the very next available time. If something in the house needed to be repaired, he was very gifted in that area even though it was not his trade and he did it immediately. My mom didn’t even have to tell him something needed to be repaired.
His upbringing was very different. A leak wasn’t an issue until you had to replace dry wall or sub-flooring in their house. Why do today what you can put off until a week from the next Tuesday that the moon is aligned with all of the planets?
There are many things I can relate to. For many years whenever something good happened I could not fully enjoy it because I knew something bad was going to happen and it was going to be 10-fold. I had to really re-examine my priorities. Now any day that I have a roof over my head, food on my table, and my loved ones are healthy is a good day.
I know how frustrating it is to feel that everyone in the world is more important than you are. My husband’s blackberry is going off constantly, work, work, work. He recently went in to have a procedure done to see if he had cancer. As we were pulling out of the parking lot from the hospital his phone was going nuts, voicemails, emails, text messages, and phone calls. All from work! He was so goofy from the anesthesia that he couldn’t have helped them anyway, but he gave it a hell of a shot.
It took a lot of years for me to realize this is just who he is. He has a strong work ethic and he works to provide for us. It still overwhelms me sometimes, but when I have had enough, I tell him to turn it off, it’s MY time now. I don’t do it very often so when I do, he knows that I mean business.
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I've been married for 24 years and have four wonderful children.
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