150: Irritations and the Future

150th blog entry - a sort of landmark I suppose!

Have been at home for coming up to two months now. I work as an independent consultant and I have not yet been able to pick up a new assignment since the last one ended in early November - now it is the end of December.

Life has been pleasant enough. The jewellery I bought for the 20th anniversary turned out to be identical to one bought earlier. So, that has been replaced - expensively. Perfume. Money has been spent and, therefore, things are good with the world.

But the irritations continue.

One Sunday I shop and cook and take our son to football and come back and look after his food while she has been browsing on the phone and has not even showered - and I am criticised for the choice of meat cuts!

As usual she is folding clothes at 10 pm when it could have been done during the day and watching TV on high volume - enough to be heard around the house and, in particular, potentially disturbing our son's sleep. I ask her to turn it down - she refuses.

I come home having been out all day on errands and she is at the foot of the stairs looking at her phone - I work the dinner. 'I must show you the Facebook page of X,' she says. X is a friend of a friend and someone who she spent a few days with and is likely never to see again. Why waste time stalking people on FB that you have no interest in?

Last night she asks me when I intend to go to the gym as she has to go shopping.. I say, 'oh, sbout 4 pm.' Today the day passes - she doesn't wake up until 10 am. Then does this and that. At about 1 pm she says that she will not be back in time - she will not hurry her shopping for me. Fair enough, but why then ask in the first place?

And, you know, this is a sort of casual / instinctive selfishness - perhaps not even deliberate thought but just a lack of perception about anyone other than oneself. No doubt she will say the same about me but it is what it is.

And so, when I think of the future, I think of the huge burden that will be lifted if I succeed in being on my own - away from her. Nominally, the only way I see that happening is that our son moves to university and I take the important step of separation. But I truly - truly - cannot envisage the years that I have left continually having to think about her.

I suppose I am also disturbed because a former headteacher at my old high school passed away yesterday. She can't have been more than in her mid to late 50s but was suddenly struck with bowel cancer. A huge tragedy for her family - a husband and a three daughters I think. Her husband was my PE teacher and the three of us played many games of badminton together in the mid and late 80s.

I suppose the question there is whether one should wait before trying to find some peace - as who knows what time we have left.

But it is not a choice right now. The negative thrown at our child would far outweigh any good that may come out of it. There is little doubt that he would prefer to stay with me but there would no end to the drama.

The onesome silver-splitter will have to wait!

149: Tale of Weekends

There is a continuity here from the previous post.

A couple of week-ends ago, while joshing around with friends in his room, our son had spilt quite a lot of fanta or some other drink on the floor. He had tried to clean up but had not done a very good job of it. Her anger was partly justified but it was all a bit dominating.

A couple of days later, he drops some more in the kitchen. I am upstairs and I can hear her SCREAMING at him. As a hint that this may have been a little over the top, I suggest that our neighbours would have heard her!! 'So, they did, so what?' was the response.

The following week-end was fine and pleasant.

This last week-end, after a very calm one, she started shouting at him on Sunday evening for what was or was not in his pencil case. On and on and on.

So, not in front of our son, I state clearly that what I remember most about my mother was her temper and her shouting and that if that is what she wants to leave as a legacy then 'carry on doing what you are doing.'

'That's between you and your mother. And our son is different from you,' she snapped back. But then, nothing, where I was ready for further debate.

What gets me almost as much as the noise and stress itself, is the hypocrisy. Yes, my mum could be harsh but when expecting high standards, she also delivered them herself. Everything was on time, the house was clean ... she worked hard, our father worked hard and she expected my brother and I to do so as well.

Here:

Have to leave the house for the school run at 7:45 am and she does not come down to make the packed lunch and have her coffee before 7:20 am. Our son also takes his time in the morning but as soon as she is done, is continually harangued.

He is told to tidy his room but her room has, for example, now had little sample bottles - of perfume, soap and stuff that she has taken from various hotel rooms - all over the floor for 3 days. Our lovely cleaner is coming tomorrow and so, no doubt, they will be cleared before then.

For the school drop, she has in the past taken her breakfast - stodgy cereal - in a bowl in a bag in the car.

And again, none of that matters if she were to apply the same standards to others as she does to herself. But she does not.

Consistency of character is an important point, isn't it? At work, with friends should not be a contrast to when the front door is closed. I imagine that there are folk who are 3 'different' people in each of those environments. She is one such - mixture of good and bad in all scenarios (like all of us) but some things like the anger and entitlement and micro-management and judgement and lazy generalisations and hectoring are not seen outside.

148: Random Notes – random instructions and telling off / temper

It is Saturday morning. We have to leave at 10:45 am to pick up our son from a rugby match and then drive to a festival a couple of hours away. One of our son’s friends has stayed overnight.

I wake up, have a shower, get the boys up, give them breakfast, empty and then load the dishwasher, make coffee for her and me, drop them off at the rugby, pick up lunch on the way back and, for about a half-hour, sit down to watch some sport on TV. It is 10 am.

She has done essentially nothing other than given instructions to our cleaner who has arrived at 9.

Comes out of the shower. ‘Oh, there’s tons to do … can you do it?’ And then, ‘Oh, it’s only 10:15, I’ll do it.’

Then, suddenly, at 10:40, ‘can you empty the bins in the bathroom, take the rubbish out from the kitchen, get his stuff ready for after the rugby ….’

Don’t mind doing any of that but do resent being harangued and instructed at the last minute. Why not some timeliness and organisation?

Then it is Sunday evening. English as a subject is not our son’s strong point but he is trying – as she herself has told me. Now and again I check his homework but he clearly resents it and, actually, I can’t help him with myriad other subjects – so we need to trust him. And, overall, he is doing very well.

She clearly had some beef going and went on at him that I should check his work. I later suggested to her that it was wrong to – suddenly – get on his back when he is doing well overall and appears to be trying in English. We should be objective about it and so, if there are concerns, we should make an appointment with his English teacher and get some facts together. After another diatribe which was mainly ‘noise’, she agreed.

Our son, while speaking to his mum, had copied what he had written and sent it to himself by email – leaving the document he was working on blank. However, all I had to was Paste and I could see what he had written – which was pretty good actually! I think.

Perfectly pleasant week-end spoiled by her temper. I remember my mother being like that – continuously losing her temper and often haranguing. I struggled to shake it off but our son appears to be made of sterner stuff and does not seem to get down. 

Soon – if not already – he will begin to ignore all the noise.

147: Interesting thoughts on a Common Theme – even Dr Who has doubts!!

Read this about a famous actor a few days ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/oct/05/christopher-eccleston-how-often-do-i-have-sex-its-not-been-a-vintage-year

Some lines resonated:

What does love feel like?
I think I’ve only really experienced it on a parental level, and it feels like the rhythm of nature.

What is the closest you’ve come to death?
During my severe clinical depression in 2016. I was at Piccadilly station in Manchester and a train was coming.

So many common stories – going across professions, material wealth and temperament.

146: 20 years - Anniversary

It was our 20th marriage anniversary yesterday  - 15th August.  We have two dates - one for the registry wedding and one a week later for the ceremonial one.

Ok, in the past, often she has been in India on long holidays with her parents over this period and so I have not had to think about the day. 

But then, of course, she 'knew' - https://dear-confidant.blogspot.com/2015/09/in-her-words-and-some-in-mine.html - that I would not do anything and that was why she was in India!

Since the time of our 'troubles' I have been conscious to book an expensive meal and sometimes a show. I have still got into trouble for not posting pictures on Facebook!!

So, this year I said that for the 15th of August, she should book the restaurant. My mother would be staying with us and so we could easily go out - just she and I. She agreed.

Nothing happened.

And then I hear,'your mother says that she wants to take us out for dinner.' 

'We do not have to do that,' I respond,'we can go out.' Previous years I would have insisted on us going out for fear of her reaction but this time I did not - left it to her. My mother would not have objected if told that we wanted to go out on our own. 

In the meantime, I have booked a show for the 22nd for all three of us. And, to be fair, she has been fine about being taken out by my mother - saying that she and I can go out another day; a very reasonable attitude.

I was swimming the other day and a thought occurred. To mark the landmark anniversary we had gone away for a hugely expensive holiday - an African safari. But that probably was not going to be enough was it? I decided not to take the risk and ordered some expensive jewellery in addition!! So far, so good - mood is fine. But no, 'oh, I was not expecting this, you should not have - after all that we spent on the holiday.'

For the Facebook update issue, I took a couple of photographs because she wanted to and sent them to her by WhatsApp. I have not yet seen on FB - and if I'm challenged, I will once again say, 'why does it have to be me all the time?!'

On the face of it, things are good between us right now and all is calm and even fun. In my head and heart, of course, nothing has changed and I have lost all connection. Even if I did love, whether a picture appeared on FB or not would not matter to me. But what if it did matter? Why, indeed, does it have to be me all the time? Anyway, didn't matter ever, doesn't matter now.

As I was walking to work today, I began to think that it would be fascinating to do a study on a mix of husbands - to see what they feel. Many of the dads at my son's school are white, English and far more successful than me. Do they feel they are slaves? Do they feel under-appreciated? Do they need validation? In brief, drunken, Christmas party conversations it has seemed that they have similar stories but would be fascinating to know.

Onward ...

145: Advice to a younger self

Another interesting article - this time about 'advice to your younger self'. The author questions the value of this but the important conclusion is:

'Because the crucial issue, after all, isn’t what you might have done differently in the past, had you been someone that you couldn’t have been back then. It’s what you’d do now, if you treated yourself with half the kindness and goodwill you unhesitatingly extend to your favourite relatives or friends. For many people, I know, this can be a major challenge. But unlike changing the past, it has the enormous advantage of not being impossible.'

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jul/12/cant-change-past-why-advice-younger-self-oliver-burkeman?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1562941383

144: Life without a narrative

Really interesting article about the self. 

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/jul/06/are-you-really-the-real-you-and-how-can-we-best-become-our-true-selves?CMP=share_btn_fb

And an excerpt:

'I now think my question about whether we can be persuaded into the “right” belief about our “true selves” rests on the false idea that there is some truth waiting to be discovered. And that we can get at it with enough evidence, as though the Alex of today was waiting, dormant, inside the Alex of 2000, and that the right sort of evidence could have revealed him. Of course it wasn’t.

'The traits and preferences and perspectives Alex now takes to define himself didn’t exist to be discovered when he was wondering who he really was; they were made in and by the decision to walk away. Perhaps the challenge in changing our minds about who we really are is not to rationally persuade ourselves into a new story about who we are, but to learn to live for periods of our life without one.

'This sounds like a deeply frightening prospect, if you think that selves just are – or depend upon – a coherent narrative. But life without pre-written story can also be enormously fun. That’s part of what was so great about the episodes of Faking It that ended as successfully as Alex’s: you got to watch the childish wonder of people realising they were capable of the things they had declared they could never do. It was hard not to well up when people broke through their rigid views of themselves to find joy and promise in the possibility of life without a script.'

I believe it was making the point that we all live to a narrative. But perhaps we believe there is a different narrative - the 'true' self. But how about life without a narrative?!