Marital Warfare.

By Alison January 8, 2006 2 Comments 2 Min Read

Laundrybook_1

To all those who have more experience than me: tell me this and tell me no more, how on earth do you manage your husbands?

I have all but stopped asking Mark to help around the house:  not because he isn’t (grudgingly) willing, but because laziness makes him utterly hopeless.  So he will  put the dishes in the dishwasher, but  in an effort to save electricity, not turn it on.  Or he will  tidy the entire kitchen, but never dream of wiping down the surfaces.  He tell’s me,  in the occasional fit of pique, that he is too tired to bath the baby (one of his few allocated tasks)  or that he will empty the bin "when he’s ready". Next week then??

Now don’t get me wrong: he is as  lovely as can be, but the fact remains that he is a man brought up by another, who still to this day believes women should be seen and not heard. A man who doesn’t own a vacuum cleaner and wouldn’t know what to do with it if he did. His father.

Every relationship is a battlefield. Every conversation a lesson in the subtle art of negotiation. We laugh. We fight. We make up and we have the same old fights all over again. I get irratated because I don’t get enough time to work on BrocanteHome. Mark get’s irritated because he says I look upon him as a glorified babysitter the minute he walks through the door, when he has already done his "proper job"!  Our son is two years old and still to this day we are struggling to re-establish the clearly defined roles we both understood existed before he was born…

So the title of this book -Just Kiss Me And Tell Me You Did The Laundry-speaks to my heart: I no longer need chocolates and flowers (Thats a lie!!), but I am irrationally thrilled if I find the ironing stacked in a neat pile, because Mark has remembered to take it out of the tumble dryer  on time.

Lord, when  was my life reduced to  this ??

Buy the book at the really rather lovely Femail Creations.

2 Comments

  1. melissa says:

    I remember telling my husband one time that I got more excited by what he did for me around the house…chorewise…than if he gave me a big hug. He didn't get it. I think part of it is temperaments. We need different things from one another but aren't always keyed into what those things are. If we want it for ourselves, we figure the other person does too. My husband is very affectionate, and assumes that that's the way to get to me. Not always so.
    You make sense to me, sister!

  2. denise says:

    There is no managing them — they are that way for a reason, I'm sure, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. My husband sometimes offers to "help" — therein lies the rub. Don't assist me, do it yourself! If he does try to do it himself, then there's all kinds of whining about "how?" or it winds up not being done to my satisfaction. Usually, the offer of this "help" comes when I'm just about done, thanks, maybe next time, but next time he's off mowing the lawn or doing other "man's" work. I prefer to keep him busy with his own stuff and out of my hair. Love him, though he tries my patience (and I his).

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