90 - While Browsing

I was looking for something in my e-mails and came across the exchange below.


All I got for trying to be helpful was an insult. Now we are May 2016 and has she done anything? I gave her a contact in the Red Cross - did she do anything with that? 'No' in both cases.


In the meantime, I have been fortunate enough to add 10% to my salary and am negotiating an interest only mortgage in order to free up more cash per month. What has she done?


Bollocks to it all.


From: Her
Sent: 29 June 2015 13:58
To: Me
Subject: RE: thoughts on jobs

Thanks.  I think numbers 2 and 3 - I can remain silent about the 4th!  Since I have hardly any work experience, I have to start working full-time, if I want a salary or career.  Health permitting, I have almost 20 years of working life left.  So enough time to give it a try.  

 And let's face it - we need the money.  Your monthly income has gone up by around £100 over the past 5 years whereas expenses have gone up.....  No matter what you write on Linked In about how happy you are at work and what wonderful colleagues you've got, we need the money!

---

From: Me

To: Her
Subject: thoughts on jobs
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 10:43:00 +0000

I have been thinking about where you may look for jobs.


The first question anyone recruiting will ask is ‘what do you want?’


1.    You do not want a job that simply meets a need for additional money

2.    You want something that is worthy of your background

3.    You do want to ‘start again’

4.    You have significant constraints on time

The obvious first place to look, therefore, is in the charity sector, local, and perhaps start with volunteering.

 In parallel, you obviously have the ‘big boys’ such as Oxfam, CARE, DFID etc. which may require a direct approach.

I am trying to find out whether this organisation is still active: http://londoncharityjobs.co.uk/careers-advice/

I have a contact in the Red Cross who may be able to advise.

But general google search appears to throw up some roles – perhaps inappropriate – and Reed (and others?) appear to look at this sector as well.

 

89 - Something in the Newspaper

This was in the newspaper last week March 2016 - The Guardian - husband whom I can't leave and while the gender is opposite and the issues are not exactly parallel, some bits struck a chord.


'Your work has always come first. In times of distress, I have been left feeling unloved and unworthy.' In my case, work has absolutely not come first. Support at home has come first and I/we have been fortunate that this has been possible while maintaining a very decent lifestyle.


'We don’t have blazing rows, neither of us is violent and we co-parent well enough. So, it doesn’t feel as if I have a good enough reason to tear their lives apart other than my own inner torment and, I admit, your complete frustration with me.' An echo.


'What compelled me to write this letter was a cold. Yes, a pathetic cold. I have been sneezing and coughing all weekend, while trying to ensure that the kids are fed and watered and the household runs smoothly. Not once have you asked if I’m OK or offered to do the kids’ bedtime routine, or even suggested I might have a Sunday lie-in instead of you, God forbid.' Makes me laugh - have always been on hand and week-end lie-ins for her were standard until maybe two years ago. I look back recently to 79 - Now Let's See and 47 - A Typical Saturday


Nowhere in that article does the lady say, 'you did not buy me gifts.' In the fundamentals, I believe I did ok.

88 - Random Fillers

Our son is still away skiing - a whole week away for a 10 year old - and the conquering heroes return tomorrow.


Today is Easter Friday and I have come in to the office - partly because I genuinely have work but also because what would I do at home?


In a normal couples' world, I can imagine two people would discuss what they might do - might laze around - go out for a walk - watch a film - do some cooking.


Even in our normal state, I would have been worrying about what would be 'good enough' for her given that her only interests that I have known are shopping and eating. A restaurant - expensive, not expensive? Lunch or dinner? Dishwasher to load and start, ironing to do. Now, I just walk out and go to work. Bliss.


We did actually go to a film together yesterday evening - her suggestion and I acquiesced. Nice enough film but a main protagonist is a middle-aged husband who has had / is having an affair with a female colleague. At one point - before a car accident kills him - he says, 'look, I've been all confused. Do you think we can go back to what we were?'


Did she know some or all of this when suggesting the movie? Don't know, don't care. I have not had an affair, in any case.


Our son has just passed his Grade 1 Violin exam - which we are very pleased about - and he also learns the piano. We almost bought a proper piano but, in the end, she decided not to go ahead.


'Anyway,' she says, 'a piano would have made putting down under-floor difficult. Which is my plan.'


I did not react but 'my plan'? Really? Lovely you have a plan my dear but the money for this? You will contribute in some material fashion?


And under-floor heating because? Her friends have it?


Bollocks to it all.

87 - Minutae - what sort of a brain is this?

I’ve written before about incidents which suggest a very strange mind set.

So, our shower head was leaking drop by drop. Our plumber could not find a reason and nor could he fix it. Each drop was spraying around the shower floor and surrounding glass – marking the latter. I always placed the head on the floor after a shower – no drops, no spray. I requested her to do the same over a period of many months. No dice. A year and a half down the road, mould has started to grow and, finally, she also now places the head on the floor.

She dropped some ethnic snacks on the floor some years ago and as these little balls are sticky, they picked up dust. I suggested throwing them away. No. They went back into the container with the remaining clean ones (making it all unusable) and this container has been with us – on her bedside table – since 2011 or 2012. It even moved house in 2014 and is still on the bedside table in 2016.

When grilling something in the oven, I always use some foil so that the oil and herbs or whatever do not mark the dish; this makes subsequent cleaning very easy in that you can throw away the foil. She prefers to scrub away for a considerable time rather than use my suggestion of using a foil.

Exaggerating you say?

We moved into our current house in summer 2014. The previous owner’s parents live literally across the road from us. Some Christmas cards arrived in December 2015 for our predecessor. We do not have a forwarding address for them. ‘Should I drop them over the road?’ I ask. ‘No, I will.’

Christmas Day passes, January – still on our mantelpiece.

‘A bit late now,’ I say, ‘I’ll throw them away.’

They are brought back into the house, remain on our mantelpiece and it is now March 24^th 2016.

Tiring, far too tiring.

86 - Anger again - deprivation

Am planning a trip over to Ireland to visit some close friends of mine; potentially her’s as well as this group I have known for more than twenty years. But – though she thinks she is – she is not a ‘people’ person and, while she likes them, feels no resonance with them and considers them ever so slightly beneath her. So I generally go over in the summer when she is not around or meet them over in the UK.

 

She had previously said that she had some air miles which I would be welcome to use.

 

‘Will you let me know how I can access your air miles? I will need to book the tickets to Ireland.’

 

‘But you might want to use them,’ I continue, ‘to visit your cousin in Denmark for example.’

 

‘No. You don’t know how stressful it is not to have gone anywhere for a year. At least you have been for your golf week-end and are going to Ireland – you will be sleeping under another roof.’

 

‘You have the miles. You could go.’

 

‘I don’t have the money.’

 

‘Yes, we do. We could go to Rome in the autumn as we have been saying for a while. Or you could go somewhere on your own.’

 

‘Our son (P.) really needs a long holiday. I can cope without a holiday. We have been to most places in Europe. You only visit people.

(P. is away with his school for a skiing holiday which has cost close to a £1000). 'I hope he enjoys skiing because at least he will have a holiday then.’

 

‘Well, ok, we could book somewhere for December,’ I say.

 

‘I am going to India in the summer (to spend time with her parents) but that is not a holiday as I have to look after P. there as usual.’

 

‘Which is why I am saying you could go somewhere.’ No response.

 

So, she wants to go on holiday, complains that she has to look after our son when she is away for the summer, but does not want to go away on her own for a break..

 

Then, as I am booking the tickets.

 

‘You better be careful of the spend as you are buying your tickets – though they will be free because you are using my airmiles.’ (said in a significantly aggressive way)

 

‘I suggested £600 as a budget for your Christmas and birthday. I have said that I will spend about £350 for golf and £150 for cricket – that still leaves me some for this trip if we are being equal.’

 

‘Ok – so long as it is less than £600 overall.’ I book my tickets without using her fucking, precious air-miles.

 

Her own trip to India, of course, does not count as that is ‘not a holiday.’

 

I remember back to 2014 when we had two trips to India, Greece and the US. I cannot remember previous years but we routinely went on holiday 3 times a year – one year of not going and there is huge deprivation. (though we went to Prague in the summer of 2015)

 

The real issue, of course, is that I am appearing to have fun. And she is not. (I would add, because she is incapable, except at a surface level.)

 

Previously, I would have felt guilty – well, I still do actually. But, frankly, if you have been in one country for more than ten years and have not built up any warm friendships and, in addition, feel my friends or even neighbours to be not worth your while, then I am sorry.

I did not lose my temper, I answered in measured tones and did not rise to any bait. In the past I might have worried about what would please or displease her and what would not. Now I work on the assumption that everything is wrong … and I do not care. She is 43 years old, intelligent and with no constraints – up to her to take advantage and not make others miserable just because she is.

85- Emptiness and Irony

We dropped our son off at school at 2:30 am this morning as he went away with his friends and teachers for a week of skiing.


Came back home, went to our separate rooms and respective beds.


I am exaggerating I am sure but I felt convinced that, with our son not in the house, I felt a hole, a lack, an emptiness. Seemed to bring home that he is the only thing we have that keeps us together. Should not be a surprise but felt quite stark.


The irony bit is that we both went to drop him off and she suggested to some of the other parents - admittedly, jokingly - that we should all go to a night club. Ironic because one of her past rants has been that it is idiotic of me to think that, at my age (47), I should consider 'having fun'. Apparently, I did not when I was the appropriate age and now I am somehow past it and should just knuckle down to be a father and husband.


That is a valid point of view but then why even suggest the opposite with others? Or is it that she should have fun and I should just provide?


Anyway, thankfully, I had a bunch of office work to do and so headed into town. We have not spoken about whether we should speak to family and close friends about our situation. I'll wait for instinct to guide me with regard to whether I should broach or not.

84 - Little Things that Amuse and Sadden

We are coming back from somewhere and we are talking about this and that - very peaceable.

 

She talks about some members of my family. 'I should have more in common with them but I would much rather spend time with my friends (mothers from school) who are so much more positive, outgoing and fun.'

 

And that's fine, of course. One doesn't have to get on with one's family or in-laws.

 

So, she says to our son, 'don't be a grumpy person. Grumpy people are not liked.'

 

He responds, 'So people will not like you.'

 

'You think I am grumpy?'

 

Another example of her being completely oblivious to the fact that what she is with others is different to who she is with us.

 

This goes with at least two other incidents I may have written about.

 

1. There was a storm some months ago which was big enough to be given a name. 'If you don't behave, Storm Desmond will blow you away,' she says one evening to our son. 'No, it will blow you away and dad and I will live happily every after.'
2. In an English homework, making up dialogue, he attributes some immodest words to a very self-effacing woman. The teacher asks, 'Would she really say those words, a quiet woman like that?' My wife asks him the same question. 'You would,' he responds.

Many years ago, she burnt some rice and we still ate it but it did have a burnt smell. 'It is only social conditioning that says rice should not smell burnt.' If I had burnt it ...?


She spills milk over her yoga mat in the trunk of the car. No problem. If I had done it ...? The consequences do not bear thinking about.


I know I am being petty but the consistent inconsistencies are mind boggling.