What's for Dinner?

I am learning the I have to assert myself to get what I need to maintain a degree of sanity.  My husband, John, has absolutely no problem spending hours of his time, for days or weeks on end, on his various projects, to the exclusion of nearly everything else.  He feels no guilt (good for him!).  He feels no sense of obligation to assure that there is a meal prepared at the end of the day.  He feels only the need to continue work on whichever project is currently on his mind.  Right now, this project is to install a totally unnecessary bathroom in our basement.  Let me say first, that it is utterly amazing that he has the capability and skill to pull this off -- most people don't.  But this bathroom, which has taken already several weeks of his time, many hours each day (and a couple thousand dollars -- but who's counting?) is entirely his idea.  He'd like someplace to shower off after working on his outdoor projects.  So that's fine, but let's not mistake this for a project for the family. When he first broached the subject of the totally unnecessary bathroom, I declined to show support.  I suggested that his time would be better spent finishing the boat that has languished in our garage for one month shy of a year, making it impossible to use for a car and nearly impossible to walk through it without injury.  I also suggested that his help with the housework, cooking, childcare, etc. would be so much more appreciated.  He disagreed (of course) and plowed right in, full-throttle.

I called him on the way home from work the other day on what had been for me a very difficult, long day.  I was going to be picking up our daughter from daycare.  Then, I made the age-old mistake of asking what he had planned for dinner.  I know!  It sounds so 1950s insensitive husband!  It was five thirty.  He paused.  "I haven't thought anything about dinner," he said defensively.  As if dinner is truly secondary to the important work that still needed to be done on the totally unnecessary bathroom in the basement.  "I'm really not hungry," he said, "and the kids will eat anything I throw in front of them."  He then proceeded to lecture me on the fact that he has absolutely no intention of spending two hours preparing dinner for just me.  Ready to explode, I asked him to call in a takeout order, which I would pick up -- after picking up our daughter, so as to save him the trip.  I resolved to spend Sundays preparing meals for the week.

They say that most arguments in marriage when people have kids are about division of labor, and I truly appreciate that.  Recently, I've insisted on meeting a friend at least every other week.  This after having had no social life to speak of since having children.  I've also been insisting on leaving the house at least once on most weekends without the children and going to a coffee shop to write or just running errands on my own.  This doesn't solve the housework problem, but at least I have some time to myself.  To John's credit, he doesn't argue -- he knows.

I know we both love our children, but miss the freedom we used to have.  It's hard to remember, even, what that felt like.  It was lost on me, at the time, not knowing how hard raising a family would be.  But it's difficult to be partners with each other when it feels like we're forever negotiating (fighting) for time and for the other to help.  I have no idea how to mend this divide between us.  I'm sure that we both feel that the other is getting the better end of things, but I know that neither one of us is, really.

The bathroom looks really nice, though.

Other People's Messes

Let me start this by saying that I love my husband and my children tremendously.  I feel that I need to say that because I complain about them.  On a regular basis.  To whomever has the misfortune to be listening. That being said, the problem, really, is me.  I enjoyed an orderly, rather regimented life before I had children.  My husband disturbed my peace on a regular basis, with his lack of understanding that a tidy house is critical to one's sanity, but by and large, I was able to control my life and my surroundings and feel relatively calm and centered.  I woke up at a reasonable time, exercised regularly, cooked healthy and nutritious meals, cleaned up after myself, and did my laundry.  I went to work, where I was the assistant to the director in running a small (also orderly) library and came home feeling like my life was my own.  My husband would tell you otherwise, but I remember that time as peaceful.  I think this peaceful and controlled life made me just a little bit selfish, as I continued in that blissful manner for five years before we finally had our first child.  

Now, with two young children, a busy and hobby-prone husband, and a more demanding job, I feel as if I am forever dealing with other people's messes.  Not to say that I don't have my own messes -- but my own messes are understood to be my responsibility.   Other people's messes, on the other hand, are an entirely different matter.  

My husband is currently unemployed.  His job is like that -- he is in the trades and is laid off and hired again at least four times a year since the financial crisis.  So he is home during the day while I am at work.  Unfortunately, he does not see this time as an opportunity to keep on top of the housework, laundry, cooking, paperwork, and all the rest of the drudgery that goes along with running a household.  Instead, he is building a boat in our garage.  A very large canoe, to be exact.  It takes up the entire garage and has been there since March.  It is now January.  Building this boat takes a lot of time -- time which he did not have when he was working between March and December.  It also creates a lot of dust, as he powersaws and sands on a regular basis.  So this week, while I headed off to work each day, he spent a lot of time not doing the housework.  Each day after work this week, I picked up our young daughter at daycare and headed home, bound for a house that was in chaos.  Everyone's dirty breakfast (breakfast!) and lunch dishes still on the counter, piles of laundry waiting to be folded and put away, unmade beds, mail and paperwork in distressing piles in a variety of locations, dirty bathrooms (this is a real issue, as our older child, Liam, is a nine-year-old boy with bad aim), toys throughout the house, and my husband's tools, change, wallet, receipts, and other bits and pieces laying hither and yon throughout.  

Now I don't expect to come home and find a perfectly clean house, a hot dinner on the table, and my husband fixing my drink.  It would be nice, but I am a reasonable person.  It would thrill me to death, though, if he could see the task of keeping his part of an orderly home as part of the deal.  I clean up after myself.  And the children.  Can't he understand that cleaning up after himself is part of being an adult in a mixed marriage?  Mixed, in that I am a tidy person and he is not.  I bring this to his attention.  He tells me that I am neurotic and that my standards of clean are unreasonable.  The dirty dishes will be taken care of -- if today, or tomorrow, or next Thursday, he will eventually wash them.  Eventually.  He won't put them away, though.  That's just silly, as he will indeed use them again.  And so I seethe and put everyone else's dishes in the dishwasher, which he refuses to empty.  He does not believe in the dishwasher, so if I put something in the dishwasher, I am responsible for putting it away.  He believes in eventually washing the dishes.  And leaving them on the counter.  

Our four year old daughter, Eleanor, who was -- I swear -- potty trained more than a year ago, has recently decided to rebel.  Sometimes recently, when I pick her up from daycare, I all of a sudden notice a nasty smell in the car.  When I look back at her in the rearview mirror, she has a guilty look.  "Eleanor?"  I will say.  "Do you have a skid mark?"  "Just a little one," she will eventually answer, after first trying to change the subject.  And so my first task when I get home is putting her one the potty and cleaning yet another pair of princess panties.  She was so well potty trained they my husband and I got into the habit of leaving the house with no diaper bag, no change of clothes, no wipes.  We were even taking day trips to New York City with no back-up underpants.  This recent turn of events took us completely and disappointingly by surprise.  

We were at a trip to the mall recently and spent more time in bathrooms.  Finally, I found myself in the single use men's room at Chipotle (the ladies' room was occupied by someone having some real issues), not a paper towel in site, with Eleanor, and poop-filled panties.  The men waiting on line for the bathroom could clearly hear the following conversation:  "Eleanor, you ruined these underpants.  I need to throw them away -- I have nothing to clean them with."  "No!  I need those underpants!  My hiney will be cold!  It smells like pee in here!"  "Eleanor, you can't wear these underpants.  Mommy doesn't have any more underpants!  Next time, do not poopy in your nice underpants!"  "Mommy!  I need underpants!  You're being MEAN!"  I hung my head in shame as I led Eleanor out of the men's room in Chipotle, screaming, past about four twenty-something male hipsters.  I now carry a clean pair of princess underpants in a baggie in my purse.