"I'm sorry but. . ."

[vortex of confusion]

I really don't give a rat's patooty if he mops the floor. It will get done. I'll throw some soap and water on the floor and let the kids slide around and play in it and a good time will be had by all. When it is all said and done, the kids will have fun and I will have a clean floor and nobody will say a word.

I noticed what happened and I chose to let it go. He has done some other really great stuff since then. Our dryer went on the fritz so he watched some Youtube videos of how to fix it and he fixed it. He took the car in to get it inspected for another year. He is working on finding a better job and has had an interview and is waiting to hear back from them. He has made lots of progress with the kids as they actually seem to want to play with him these days. He has been changing the cat box without any prompting from me. There are a lot of things that have improved so I am not going to say a single word about whether or not he mopped the floor. To me, that seems a little too nitpicky and I also feel that focusing on ONE thing to the exclusion of all others is not very helpful. I picked the floor mopping as an example of a time that he dropped the ball on something that HE suggested. Did it bother me? Heck yes. Have I thought about it? Yes, I have. I would be lying if I said it didn't annoy me. In the grand scheme of things, I can be annoyed by it without feeling the need to say anything. I don't need to ride his butt or remind him to do it. I am going to save that for the more important stuff like paying bills or fixing stuff.

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[Notwendy]

Vortex- this is a difficult situation that I don't have an answer for. I mentioned that my H keeps up his end of the tasks- because he is the one who decided them. Many are things we agreed on in the first place. He fortunately has a job that he likes, is very good at, and he earns more than I do. I realize that I am fortunate for this as I really did want to spend more time being a mom. However, what I didn't understand was the rigid division of what he considered man jobs and women jobs. I didn't understand the idea of poor sense of identity. If I fixed a leaky faucet, I was still a woman, but even if I did the dishes all the time, and asked my H once, there'd be an awful rage of how that isn't his job.

The other idea is "if I do something you ask me to, I lose a part of me". If I asked him to do something, that was an almost guarantee that it wouldn't get done. If he decided that my asking him to do something was ordering him around, then he wouldn't do it at all. Another one is that if he has to ask for something, that makes him seem weak or needy or somehow less. His behavior completely confused me because I don't have these thoughts. I don't think like this at all.

So, the way I aquired "my" end of the bargain was basically doing everything he didn't want to do. Most of it was things I wanted to do and all of it benefitted the family. I wanted to take care of the kids, I like to cook. Some of it was just because the job needed to be done. If he decided he was not going to change a diaper, then someone had to change the diaper. If the baby cried and he stayed in bed, someone had to get up and take care of the baby.

If I ever raised the discussion about the strict division of jobs, he reminds me that he never asked me to do them. No, he never asked, he just refused, but where children are concerned, their needs were my priority.

[Timmi]

My guy understands feelings.  He might look at me sideways from time to time, but if what I am saying and how I am saying it aligns with the feelings that I'm expressing... .he gets it!  He trusts it! 

Very true. Working on becoming better at that... .