Saturday, January 9

Today I am grateful for:

R, the barn owner, is willing to hold River for when the vet comes later this week (getting his teeth floated). There can only be one person in the barn at a time, so this just makes sense.

Today was a tough day. Earlier this week, I came across a box of stuff that looked like things my husband packed in a hurry when we moved . It looked like things from his wardrobe. Things he might have been looking for (some nice belts, his change jar, etc.), and some things that could likely be tossed (the papers).

I asked him to go through it and see if he could put away these items in his wardrobe again, and toss what he didn't need, so that we didn't have to have a box in the hallway upstairs (where it has been for over a year now).

The upstairs is storage for my craft stuff, sheets and towels, our DVD collection, jackets and luggage, and my clothes. This box looked like things that could be used right now, and didn't need to be stored.

He blew up at me for asking him to put it away in a more permanent place. I didn't ask him throw it all out, I didn't tell him it couldn't keep being stored, but I wanted some decision on what to do with it.

He threw a giant, entitled hissy fit. This is NOT about the stress of Covid or work. He's reacted like this before whenever I ask him to go through his stuff and make decisions about it. He puts things in a box, and never looks at it again, and if I don't make him go through his stuff once in a while, he thinks its just fine where it is. Even if it's just sitting in a box by the front door, or in the bedroom, or where ever. Only he doesn't use it or need it or even look at it again for years if ever again once it is in a box. He has a box of video games that he hasn't played in 15 years (though I'm happy about that. He went through a period of being addicted to gaming.) but he won't get rid of them either.

He has a garage/workshop the size of the main floor of our house, but he gets angry if I suggest he store things in there, because there are mice. Okay. Fine. He feels like he doesn't have anyplace that's "his".

This is something that comes up over and over again, whenever I ask him to put anything of his away. He says that I'm "controlling the whole house". We bought all of the furniture together, and worked out where things would go in the house together. The whole living room is dominated by a giant screen perched on top of our nice old roll top desk (that he picked out), with cables tangled all over the place, but that doesn't make him feel like he has any say in the house.

Right now, there is nowhere that makes sense for storing his miscellaneous stuff. We have an empty basement that we can't even use yet, a giant mud room that would help (but it is only a frame right now), but they aren't ready. Only the upstairs right now, but I am trying to make it into an organized space. Fewer boxes of misc. shit.

There is a good-sized closet upstairs that has our jackets and luggage in it, and after he quit hyperventilating I asked him if we could just use that to store his stuff. I just wanted it off of the floor in the hallway. So now, whenever I come across something of his, I'm not EVEN GOING TO MENTION IT. I'm going to just chuck it in that closet and he can...likely never look at it again.

Get this; even after he agreed that the closet would work, he whimpered that "the box would annoy him" because when he has days off, he has to put his back pack from work away in that closet. Somehow the box would make that less fun.

He didn't want to put these things back in his wardrobe because once the addition is complete, we would have to move our wardrobes into the addition. We may not have a finished bedroom in the addition for another year. Maybe two. So he would rather put his box that has some pants and belts and his change jar into storage where he can't use them.

The long-term solution is to build a room in the basement that he can do whatever he wants with. He can store his stuff that doesn't belong anywhere else, and I don't have to deal with it either. That might be a year or two away.

So basically that ruined my whole day. He acted like a whiny child, and I was forced into a "bad person" role that I didn't deserve.

I still had to go to town and get a massive amount of groceries. I made a decision to be extra kind to everyone I met; the cashiers, other shoppers, anyone. My husband may have shit all over my day, but I wasn't going to let that spill out onto anyone else. I told people how beautiful their hair looked. I let everyone get by me in the aisles with kind words, I joked with a sweet kid at the check out who was obviously having a rough day, and I cheered for him when I found out I was his last customer for the night. I thanked another person for trying to help me find the kind of eggs I was hoping to buy (no more in the back). I was kind and patient when the person ahead of me had a price check, and 50,000 items to bag. I told her not to hurry, I had all the time in the world.

So, THAT's what I'm grateful for. That in my heart, I can still be kind to people, even when someone else tries to make me into a bad person.

When I came home from getting groceries, I talked to him at work, and let him know that this isn't going to work for me anymore. We could EASILY have talked about storing his stuff in that closet, and not have to go through histrionics and anger and defensiveness on his part. I am not evil. Sure, he's all sorry and reasonable now, but what's he going to do the next time I need him to deal with a box of stuff? WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY?

I am just tired. It doesn't make sense to me that the person who comes with me to see River, who helps me so much with the animals, who cooks supper and does dishes and a million other kind, thoughtful things can be completely unreachable when something hits him the wrong way. I literally cannot get through to him with any kind of reasonable attempts to build dialogue or problem solve together until he has had a good hour of freaking out at me first when this happens. Sometimes it takes HOURS. Then, when he finally calms down, he wants it to be like "we're all good, nothing to see here". Like he didn't grind me up and spit me out like garbage for the last hour(s). THEN I have to pin him down and get a real apology out of him. He will try over and over to weasel out of it by saying "I'm sorry you feel that the box was bothering you" or "I'm sorry we had a fight" instead of a REAL apology "I'm sorry I hurt you by reacting that way about a reasonable request".

THEN, he's all reasonable. He's sorry. He will do better next time.

What is so hard, is that this is just likely going to happen again. At some point, I will ask him to put something away, or to get his chainsaws and jerry cans out of the garden shed (I use it for GARDEN STUFF, not as over flow for his garage). I will ask him to pick up a pile of scrap metal off of the lawn. Or to remove the old ceiling fan that's been in one of our vehicles for a year. And he will do the same damn thing again.