193: Treading water and having fun / staying peaceful

 I have written a couple of times about amnesia and how a few good moments can wipe out months of misery.

Her 50th birthday in early January and we go on a expensive trip to Costa Rica for Christmas. And, actually, it was quite fun. Good travelling group with us, our son was quiet but seemed to enjoy the time, we were being led from place to place and so she did not have much to 'control'.

(Once, though, we were given the option of cleaning or not cleaning our rooms at our hotel for a two night stay - would have been a few tens of dollars I suppose. As Costa Rica has the system of dumping the used toilet paper into a bin rather than flushing, I suggested it would be a good thing to have the room cleaned and, specifically, the dustbin refreshed. Of course she said no!)

In the same town, we needed to go to a supermarket for some provisions. 'Oh, I've heard of this one,' noticing one across the street. A more modern one was on this side of the road and looked a rather more attractive place. No, that was not a good option. The newer one turned out to have far better stocks and was the place where she could get coffee. (Of course I did not know this initially. I have no magic devining powers but why automatically shut me down?!!) 

Having come home, it's been peaceful as well. For her 50th I was expecting some issues as the only thing I'd planned was a dinner at a very posh restaurant and a card - plus Costa Rica! I was expecting (hoping?) for a blow at my lack of care.

(To be fair, I had suggested posh lunch and then a day out in London and a play - but she preferred a dinner, after school, with our son. Fair enough, Had also suggested a lunch with a group of her girlfriends - but this was also turned down. I know of other couples who have arranged parties in secret and so on but I was not going to be bothered with all that - it would be hypocritical.)

But no drama came. 

I wonder how long this reasonableness will last.

This, 'saying and doing the opposite' is almost an illness now. Usually she is a bit over-worried about petrol or charging up the cars. She always fills up well in advance. So I ask this afternoon whether she wants me to put her car on change as the range was down to about 30. 'It's 35 and I will need 24 tomorrow - it is better for a battery to be low down in charge before charging again.' Fair enough argument but completely opposite attitude to her usual one - but the constant is that it allowed her to go against what I was suggesting. Hey ho ....

So, treading water for now and I continue to wonder about the right time to say that we have no future together. Dunno - letting the universe flow.

192: Petty, petty, petty ...

Our cleaner gets £56 for four hours' work.

Usually I minimise the coins by providing £55 in notes and £1. And, week in week out, I am the one at home and get this done.

I have had this debate with my wife before where She, on the other hand, feels it necessary to exert some control by giving more coins and fewer notes!!

So, today, She is home and I see about ten £1 coins piled up. 'We should get rid of our change. If she won't use a bank account, I am under no obligation to provide her notes.'

I mean, this is just petty. The person being paid is a cleaner - she does not earn much. Do you have to be inconvenient and load her down with coins? Petty, petty, petty ...

She asks me the other day whether I am playing golf on Sunday. Yes. 'Well, I'll go to Canary Wharf for shopping.' I can feel and see that she is unhappy - presumably upset that we are not going Christmas shopping.

But we have also spent almost £7000 going to Costa Rica for the Christmas holidays and her 50th. And I have transferred the £600 that goes to our individual accounts from our joint one every December

Anyway, I cancel the golf and tell her we are going shopping. Mood visibly lifts. 

Child.

191: Petty - but drip, drip, drip ...

 A couple of friends of my family - one of whom is also related to my wife - were due to visit over the weekend; one on Saturday and one on Sunday. I had asked her permission for both knowing that she would want to be involved.

I had also resolved that I really could not be bothered to cook and would get food in. But suddenly she decides to cook and, of course, I don't say no. But I know the stress ahead - everything last minute, kitchen a mess and stress (taken out on me / us) everywhere.

And that is what happens. I go to pick up the guest at about 6:30 on Saturday evening and the cooking has not even started. I come back and there is spilt milk all over the cooker. The plan was to watch the World Cup football quarter final together, Had I been cooking, all would have been done and dusted and ready to eat. 

Now, I could feel guilty about her cooking away while I watch the football but I don't - it is poor time management again and being a hero. We finally eat at 9 which was not the plan but the food is good and all is fine.

The next morning, I clean up half the kitchen and go to the gym. I come back and I can feel the tension. She asks me to unpack a new toaster she has bought. I go to throw away the bag and am told she wants to keep it to send other stuff back. I start to fold the bag prior to putting it away and am told that I am not doing it correctly! And so it continues, one petty instruction after another.

In the meantime, the induction cooker hob now looks to be permanently marked thanks to her - I can imagine the reaction had that been me!!! But I say nothing.

Today is Monday and I had been to the corner of Oxford Street and Regent Street to give blood for NHS Blood Donation and was relating the story - so I was conversing! 'Where exactly on the corner?' I confess I get annoyed and say 'what does it matter - you don't know every shop.' 'There is no need to be rude,' she says. Which is true but this need for irrelevant detail is irritating.

However, what I don't say is that it is a bit rich for her to talk about rudeness when our son and I have to put up with much worse every single, fucking day. She truly does not realise the effect she has on people.

190: The Job

 About two years ago now, she started a job at a small school.

I had always considered that M. was more enamoured about the idea of a job and its benefits than putting in the hard yards. But the role is tough, the school is strange, and she has buckled down over the last two years or more. She has bought herself a new car with the first year's earnings.

But there has been a lot of complaining throughout - when there was a boss who was completely hands-off and now when there is a boss who is clearly a micro-manager. The last few months mostly what I have heard is how she should get more holidays out of term time and what are her rights and so on. 

I had always believed that you needed to be doing really good work before getting frustrated and give the organisation every chance to recover the situation. But, yes, there can be bad bosses. The conversation, however, has not been about how she did a really good job here and there and was not rewarded - it has been about 'I work through lunch and so I should have more holidays in lieu.' Justifiable actually but narrow.

Today, she has gone to resign and blame that partly on racism - ironic given how often she judges others on playing 'the race card.'

And, actually, from the entries linked, it is surprising that she does not get on with a micro-managing, non-trusting, bullying boss - because that describes her as well! I have generally got on with hands-off bosses as they gel with my character. 

Anyway, I am being supportive and listening and not giving advice. I know from experience that sometimes there is no recovering the situation and crap bosses are crap bosses and it is best to move out. 

I did think about suggesting to her that she should not resign but basically work the minimum effort and continue looking for another job while in a job. Noting that, as the main earner, I would never have had the luxury of walking away. And she clearly does not remember her friend who took a job when her husband was made redundant and took a good while to find another role. This friend complained bitterly about her environment but put her head down and worked and still does so.

But, firstly, perhaps I was just never brave enough in my life to leave and, secondly, I do not want to be accountable in any way for her decisions - I have never been in the past and never tried to influence but always support. Yes, if I can leave her, then it is easier if she is in a job, or everything gets a lot more difficult, I suppose. Precisely because of that, however, I felt that my motives would be conflicted if I advised her not to resign.

So, I stay silent and wonder.

(and I have written about amnesia. In searching for the older entries, I come across other entries - Confidant: 73 - Yet more challenges to my value (dear-confidant.blogspot.com) and Confidant: 161: Trying - just trying (dear-confidant.blogspot.com) that remind about the anger and unhappiness that has rained down on me over the years. I will stay only because of pity and or duty - but that is not what she would want, right?)

189: Bursting into tears - don't know why

The other day I was watching an old episode of the West Wing where CJ Cregg goes home to Idaho and sees her father suffering from Alzheimer's. Suddenly, and this has happened twice in the car as well, I burst into hacking tears. I don't know why. Today (December 2nd) is my mother's birthday and the 6th is my father's death anniversary. On the 20th I turn 54 and I will become older than my beloved cousin. 

I wrote to my cousin's husband that I feel a lack of love around me. Who can I melt into? Who can actually just hold me? We were not that close emotionally, but I could with my parents, and I could with my cousin - with no words necessarily being said. Now, there is no one. Yes, friends would give me that comfort, but I would not want to burden them - they have their own lives. 

And, in the end, what does it matter? We all travel alone.

A few incidents:

She organises a trip to Brussels with her friend and gets the wrong month for the train and hotel bookings. They luck out and do not have to pay extra and now it is a funny story - but. boy, if I had been the culprit! 

Obviously, I do all that needs to be done at home in terms of shopping and washing - tasks I am not trusted with when she is home!

One morning, she specifically says before going to work, 'don't run the dishwasher, there's plenty of space for dinner things.' There isn't, there's a bunch of stuff in the sink, but I don't argue. At the end of the day, she spends an hour and half re-arranging things and there are as many glasses and things left over in the sink as there were in the morning - and I have to hang around because I cannot clean the rest of the kitchen until she moves away from the sink! Annoying in a petty way and I point out that her hour and a half of delay made no difference whatsoever other than stressing both of us out. 'You don't know how to load the dishwasher,' was her response.

The following weekend she is laid up in bed with a virus. I do everything again - quite rightly - but, given that it is winter, I put some of the clothes into the tumble dryer. 'You should not have done that. If you are going to do that, you need to let me know. His sports clothes don't go into the dryer.' (They had not and there was nothing wrong with any of the clothes I had put in.)

And, yet, while I am upset at the tone and the anger, ten minutes later it is all sweetness and light. Is that real, can it be real?! How can you be so nasty to someone whom you are nice to less than a half hour later? I confess I cannot turn anger off and on like that.

Bollocks.

188: The Dangers of Amnesia

The last week or so has been good. The environment has been calmer, almost fun. She went off to Brussels for a weekend with one of her mates and had a good time - the sort of thing I have been recommending for months.

Couple of weekends ago, she was out getting her hair done or something and I had gone to drop our son off at a school game. I could have done the weekly shop on the way back but of course I am not qualified to do so - being incompetent and all.

So, time goes and procrastination happens, the tension and time pressure builds. I have done what I need to do and am watching some TV. This clearly makes her angry as has chores to do - I have offered to help but I am not good enough to be be of any help!

Desperate for something / anything to have me do, she says, 'The garage desperately needs cleaning and there's loads of stuff to take to the dump,' in that crotchety, angry voice.

I had actually tidied the garage and it was fine - but I did not argue. I went downstairs and picked up three small items for the dump - her 'loads of stuff'. I confirmed with her that this was all there was. But I didn't mind - actually it got me out of the house and away from her for a little while.

This is petty I know. But it grates and the volume picks up until it begins to weigh heavily. And then comes a week or two of peace and I begin to forget - and consider myself silly for thinking the thoughts I do about leaving. But, as she herself has said to me many times, true characters do not change.

As she was leaving for Brussels, she appeared to say that I could fold the clothes that were hanging on the rack? 'I am allowed to fold the clothes - have I been promoted?!' Trying to make a point in a fun way.

'No, you have not. You put the clothes in the basket, but you can fold the racks. You have not been promoted to folding clothes and loading the dishwasher.'

Nuff said really. All about control and making the other feel incompetent. Cannot forget.

187: Taking the steps to the cusp

The Saturday just gone.

From the previous week she had been telling me that she would be going out to a recital on the Saturday evening. No problem.

Come Friday evening, she has had a bad week at work - more of that later. She has been going on incessantly about this recital.

We go to Parkrun on Saturday morning, and I say that I know - as a man - I am just supposed to listen, and I have. But a colleague once told me that in 30 years of work he could look back on maybe three years where all was good - enjoying work, being valued. I was just starting off my work life at that time and found that to be extremely depressing. Now, in my thirty years, I would say I have had maybe 7 years. So, frustration and all that is part and parcel, and you have to go with it. It was a reasonable conversation and the day progressed.

It was also our son's first day of half-term holidays, and he was, of course, on his PS4. Suddenly she gets into one of her rants about too much time on that and he has to do something else and so on and so on. Separately, I say to her that it is his first day of holidays ... 'but you will be working in the week, and he will play all day.' He is a conscientious bloke overall - even if he does play too much on the PS4 - and does not play in the week during term time and did pretty well in his summer exams. From next month, he will have two hours of driving lessons on a Sunday and probably sport on Saturday morning and so, along with homework, PS4 will reduce anyway.

'It's a nice day and we should have gone out. But I knew you would not be interested.'

'This is not on me,' I respond. 'For the last week you have been saying that you will be going to a recital, then this morning you said you would meet a friend. Neither of those happened through your choice and it is not possible to adjust constantly and instantly to your needs.' And I said it loudly - hopefully my son heard.

But then I found a film at the cinema that none of us was really interested in and asked my son to come with us - explained to him that sometimes we have to do things for others and thanked him for his understanding.

This sort of thing is not new though - see towards the bottom of the 2012 (!) entry.

As for work, yes, her boss is difficult. But she signed up for 52 weeks and now all I hear is how she should be allowed to take time off in lieu of half-hour lunch breaks. And how, physically, she cannot cope.

I have sympathy but this is a new boss. Be good, build a relationship and then look for flexibility. And as for the physical discomfort of getting into a new car and driving for thirty minutes each way - good thing she did not have to commute for one hour and a half each way for decades.

I had always considered that she was good with the rewards of work (money) but objected to having to do it. Some references I have seen from younger days basically say that she turned up - no initiative, no going the extra mile. 

I desperately hope I am wrong as my leaving will be easier if she is working well and earning. But I am almost there - do I wait for her 50th in January '23 or not?