Husband refuses to remove spider.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m very much afraid of spiders. Phobic, in fact. I did a training for spider-phobics a while back, but I’m still very afraid of them. There’s always the initial "GAAA–Whrgll-SPIDER!!!-reaction of my animal brain everytime I see one. Only with the utmost of willpower I can prevent myself from turning into a blubbering mess.

So you can picture my response when last night, just before I went to bed, I was in the bathroom and mid-pee I discovered a big honkin’ spider, just a foot from my foot, sitting motionless on the bathroom floor.

It was the same spider husband had told me he saw there a week ago. I hadn’t seen it since then, and had hoped it was one of those spiders that move on.

But this spider wasn’t the moving kind. Or it had come back. Anyway, it was sitting there, big as a house and getting bigger, a foot from my foot.

Somehow, someway, (must have been that willpower, plus the fact that the spider sat a bit crumpled up and very still) I managed to finish peeing and to return to our bedroom.
“Honey” I said in a tense voice, "there’s a spider in the bathroom. Would you please go and remove it?

Vacuuming spiders myself isn’t an option for me. Spiders killed on my account come back to haunt my dreams, inflated to twice their size with my guilt. And this one was too big for the old glass and card removal method.

My husband isn’t afraid of spiders at all. He is, however, fond of his sleep, and as we had just made love and he then put out the lights in our home and come upstairs, he had just lain down and was ready to doze off.
“No honey. That spider will still be there in the morning. Now let me sleep.” “But this is really important to me and will just take you a couple minutes”. “No, sorry.”

Recognizing a lost cause, bone-tired myself, and hoping the matter could be dealt with tomorrow, I went to sleep as well. There are, after all, two doors I can close between the bathroom and my bedroom. Besides, the cats were on our bed.

Morning comes, and sure enough, no spider. Not that spider sure has proved to be the hidign kind instead of the moving kind.It is lurking somewhere to jump out at me when I’m mid-pee again. Or with guests. Or holding lots of breakables. Or holding the baby. That one scares me the most. Now I’m on tiptoe the rest of the week.

So thanks for nothing, honey.

2

I’m sorry to hear about your hubby’s lack of support on the arachnid front. I sympathize; while I have no issue with spiders and 99% of insects, cockroaches send me over the deep end.

gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahmustscrubbrainfromthinkingaboutcockroaches

3

Now see, I worked that clause into his vows on our wedding day -

I faithfully promise to love you… yada yada yada… kill all spiders… blah, blah, blah… til death do us part.

I have the same ick-factor when it comes to the creepy-crawlies. Ugh!

4

Sorry, that’s a deal breaker.

5

If he didn’t deal with the spiders, I don’t why why I’d keep him around.

He KNOWS this, so he deals with 'em.

Try this: You are afraid to remove your clothes, ever, because you feel so vulnerable with this spider hanging around waiting to ambush you.

6

That would have been an effective response to his answer.
Tired or not, he would have been in that bathroom stomping the spider, and even bringing you the mangled body to prove it!

7

That wouldn’t work. He’s Dutch.

8

And that means what?

9

Already got the sex = don’t need to perform the task.

Besides, give the poor 8-legged bastard a head start.

Fair’s fair.

10

I sort of skimmed the last part and missed part of a sentence. This is how I read it.

It gave me the impression that your worst fear was to wake up to find your spider serving tea to your guests using your best china while cradling the baby with its little spidery legs.

11

I have taken note of this idea and will attempt to sneak it into our vows next spring. :slight_smile:

12

Future sex wouldn’t have been an effective bargaining chip at that point, because just after a man has had sex he feels like he never needs it ever again. That feeling is gone by the next morning.

13

I prefer the aerosal can\cigarette lighter method of arachnid removal.

14

::mentally counting legs::
You know, it could actually do that. If it were person sized, which is to say, just a little larger then its current size. (It got bigger in the retelling). But in order to survive that image, I had to make it a very friendly cartoony Disney spider. Otherwisenodo’tevengothere

I like the vows idea.

Update: my husband gave me an handwritten IOU later this morning. It promised he would remove any spiders, next time. Even if he were sleepy. Althoug he wished to note that my fear of spiders was utterly irrational. (That got him a “Gee, ya’ think?”-eyeroll from me).

In other news, the spider is still missing. :eek:

Rilchiam, yes, there’s a cultural difference. Doper Marinee, has remarked on it too, and she is born in the USA and married to a Dutch guy that she followed here to live in the Netherlands.

15

Oh. My. GOD. If insects are not removed, how do you know they won’t come back?! And the bathroom is THE most vulnerable place to be.

I also thought you meant that you were afraid the spider would be holding the baby, hosting guests, etc. ::shudder::

16

Yeah, but I don’t have time to do a search. Can you just give me the gist of it?

17

Did you tell the cats? Mine would have raced to the spider and caroled about the hunt for an hour after. They may not remove spiders, but are usually thrilled to eat them.

18

Yeah, but *what *cultural difference, exactly?

19

All due respect, but I must disagree. The BED is the most vulnerable place to be. Cause that’s where spiders hiding inside your pillow crawl over you while you’re half asleep. Specifically, that’s where spiders run around on your buzzcut head. And half-wake you because it feels like a draft. And then the horror hits like rabid Muhammad Ali on PCP, exponentially intensified by the fact that the rational part of your brain isn’t there to tap its metaphorical foot and contemptuously tell you to chill and remind you the itty bitty bug won’t eat you (even though by now, Mr. Cortex should have rationally grokked that it’s not helping)

No, no relation to any recent event in my life whatsoever, why would you think that ?

20

“Remember that sex we were planning on having ever again?”