Positive Changes From Negative Events

By now, If you are reading things in chronological order, you must know all about the fiasco that was this past week.

If you're a regular reader, you also know I deal with intermittent depression and funks. Also, you know Marti has said that he probably doesn't want to have another child, and the reasons for that.

These things all collided in a perfect storm on Sunday.

It all started Thursday night when I discovered the other blog. I felt blindsided at first, and then went OCD to find all my old comments and delete them. I was mortified that people thought my comments were intrusive and just wanted to make them all go away.

RIGHT SMACK DAB in the middle of all this, Marti came home from work early - which rarely happens. He pretty much kicked me off the computer to email his boss on behalf of his friend. Since I was in the middle of something, I sat there and waited for him to finish. This friend, for some reason, has always made me uncomfortable, and then here's my husband, coming home early, tearing into the house, kicking me off the computer to defend her by sort of telling his boss off. Since I disagreed with what he was doing and how he was doing it, as well as what was happening before he walked in, I guess I was glaring at him the entire time.

Backtrack to when I was a teacher -- I was so overwhelmed at that school and by having to take more classes myself that we started to grow a little distant. I thought that with the new, no stress job, that this would change.

Back to this week -- I didn't tell Marti about what was going on when he came home and when I saw what he was emailing, he became the object of my foul mood. When he finished what he was doing, I returned to deleting, and he went downstairs to watch TV.

Fester, fester, fester...

Saturday is my day to sleep in. He does a great job of taking care of Abby - unlike a lot of fathers I've seen. Saturday morning when I finally woke up, they were gone. They didn't return until almost 1:30 in the afternoon, and then they took a nap. I know I like to sleep in, but I don't want to miss almost an entire day with my family. I wish he would have at least TRIED to wake me up and asked me if I wanted to go play with them all morning. Instead, I just woke up to find them gone.

Fester, fester, fester...

Sunday is his morning to sleep in. By this point, I had already decided to leave FF and get back to my real life, as I had been spending too much time there. The distance between my husband and I had been growing over the past year or so, and the new no-stress job wasn't the cure-all I had hoped it to be.

Because I have been feeling this growing distance between us, things have not been GREAT. Over the years, I have tried telling him little things he does that infuriate me. (Such as not, for the life of him, being able to close any number of containers all the way. Ever.) When I tell him, I guess I'm a nag. When he ignores how it makes me feel, I guess I was supposed to just live with it. My way of living with it was to resent him for knowing, yet apparently not caring, that it infuriates me.

Anyway, Sunday I decided to "do something nice for my marriage" as I had heard on a radio spot recently. What the heck. I was making bacon to have with a nice breakfast, had the coffee all lined up to brew, and down he comes. He walked into the kitchen and proclaimed that he was going to the gym.

I was smack dab in the middle of making breakfast for him, and he tells me he is going somewhere else. THEN, he tells me to save him some bacon. ARGH!!!! Before he could leave, I snapped a little and we finally ended up talking. We both have been feeling the distance, but he wrote it off to "all couples go through that after having kids."

More talking to get to the root of things...

We both agreed that we have valid reasons to be upset with one another and brainstormed/named SPECIFIC things we were going to do to change that. We also know that we have more to work out/work on, but we're heading back in the right direction at least.

Some things we are changing:
1. Dishes used to be a sore spot for us. We have 2 very different styles of doing things. I explained my methods and I'm pretty sure he sees that there's a method to the madness, which will eventually lead to him getting more help keeping the kitchen clean. (He stacks dishes, food and all, on the garbage disposal side, making it impossible for me to even clean off my own dishes without taking on the mess that he left. SO, I'd leave my dishes there, too, and then he'd have to do mine to get to his.) He agreed to "store" dirty dishes on the drain side so I could use the garbage disposal as needed. We agreed to alternate weeks of "doing the dishes" (that don't already get done as a result of the new method) so if someone else's dishes are in the sink, they will now just get done instead of us staring at each other, both mad for different reasons.

2. I spend a lot of time online. I could help get the laundry done or clean up other trouble spots in the house in the time that I am sitting there chatting it up. He agreed to actually put my clothes on the hanger right when he does the laundry so I don't have a hanger dent poking out of the back of my shoulder all day, and I agreed to help put more of it away.

3. He flat out said that he does NOT want another baby now. Last time he said he doesn't, but that he might be able to be convinced if I insisted. So, that's going to be hard to take, but it is what it is. If that's how it's going to be, it's almost like I can move on with my life.

To a certain extent, I've let myself go because I always thought we'd be trying for another baby soon, and why bother getting in shape just to have it ruined again? I put it off because every time I turned around, it was "just a few more months, and this obstacle or that obstacle will be removed from our TTC efforts."

If we're not having another baby, we don't need to save the extra bedroom for a nursery. We are going to clear it out and make it into a home gym so we can work out at home. Going to the gym just never worked for me, and especially not since having a kid. It always seems like a big production to get out and get to the gym, so I finally canceled my membership. If I can hop on a treadmill or something at home for 20-30 minutes here and there, things will turn around. What husband would not automatically be psyched about that?

4. The baby clutter in the house is oppressive sometimes. We have such limited space as it is, and I've been saving everything for "the next one." If we're not having another one, we can get rid of all of the baby gear and breathe a sigh of relief in that department, as well.

5. What sucks is that after we calmed down a little, he actually said he was not getting "snipped" because he wanted to retain the right to change his mind later.

Um, ok. Well, so much for KNOWING what I am facing and just dealing with it. Now there's this THING out there that he could change his mind.

Last time I checked, the probability of my bearing another child is directly related to the amount of time that passes. If I have low quantity or quality of eggs and probable early onset of menopause around the corner, when, as I sneak up on 40 in the next 3 months, does he think he's going to change his mind?

I wish he wouldn't have said that part. That complicates things.

A lot.