Over my many married years on this planet, there is something that I’ve been quite slow to figure out. Apparently, on a regular basis, I’m an inconsiderate asshole. This behaviour of mine rears it’s ugly head quite regularly. If I was to plot it out, I’d say that I’m an inconsiderate asshole for a couple of days each month - around about every 28 days or so.
It’s something I began to notice early in my married career, and it had certainly followed a pattern ever since. For most of the month, I seem to do pretty good, but then apparently I slip into this inconsiderate mode for a couple of days. I wouldn’t even notice this myself, but my wife is good enough to point this out to me in various ways during this time.
Why sometimes she is even good enough to wake me up at 2:00 in the morning to give me the opportunity to explain why I"m such an asshole, and just how I am planning to improve my behaviour.
I had sort of gotten into this routine and had developed a sixth sense, but over the past few years (as we hit our '50s), I’ve noticed that my assholish behaviour is not as predictable. I seem to be inconsiderate at random times - it is no longer cyclic in nature. Recently, if you can imagine, I peeled the carrots for dinner before the potatoes. The horror! This was clearly indicative of the fact that I did not care about our relationship.
I wonder if anyone has been in a similar situation, and if there might be any advice forthcoming about how I can improve my clearly inconsiderate behaviour.
Never pull a perfectly good, new, clean wicker basket out of the waste basket with the intent of donating it to the church rummage sale.
This is obvious to most people, but I’m some sort of subhuman automaton, and the worst companion in history. It sounds like you might be, too, so I thought you could use the tip.
It’s interesting that you used the term “married career.” I was describing my last relationship to someone yesterday and I used the phrase, “relationship career.” Whether consciously or unconsciously, I think I recognized that the relationship (like a career) required a great deal of work. Sometimes I made compromises that I thought were individually ridiculous but would be good for the relationship as a whole. I loved her though and I wanted it to work so I tried to make that happen.
In the end, that particular career didn’t work out so I’m not the best person to be doling out advice on the matter. I can however, sympathize with the nature of your ‘carrots before potatoes’ problem. Horrible as that offense may be, I don’t think it’s a deal breaker for the relationship. Keep your head up. You have my best.
What a coincidence; my boyfriend is also a complete tool a couple of days each month! I suspect he and you must have been born that way and unfortunately there is no cure. Poor creatures
Advice: That stuff at the bottom of the steps, which may or may not be yours, is for you to take up the steps and put away, even if you didn’t use said stuff or know where it goes.
Not doing so is one of the first signs you’re planning to leave the marriage.
Just a tip: If you’re placed in charge of bringing the kids to daycare just-this-one-time, refuse. It probably won’t win you any husband-of-the-year awards, but the net result will be better. You’ll get to work on time. Your infant son might not care after a few minutes that you’re gone, but your 3-year-old daughter will never forget or forgive. Then after you spend 20 minutes getting her settled down and make it to the door with her crying, kicking, physically-restrained, and shouting, “Daddy! Take me home! Take me to work with you! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! NOOOOO!,” try not to take it out on your mostly-stay-at-home wife who didn’t wake up early enough to make it to her routine dental appointment, bring the kids to daycare and make it to work by 11am for the part time professional job she does once a week that provides almost zero income but keeps her resume active.
When you go immediately to the dentist’s office to swap cars so that she can have the one with the car seats to pick up the kids after work, avoid saying things like this:
[ul]
[li]Don’t ever ask me to do that again[/li][li]Go to daycare and fix the mess you created[/li][li]Quit this nonsense job and contribute fully to the family by either working full-time or staying home full-time because this part-time bullshit isn’t helping anyone.[/li][/ul]
Actually, don’t worry about that last one. You won’t get the chance to say it before you’ve been reminded of your lot in life. Do take care not to run anyone over as you drive maniacally out of the parking lot.
If you don’t even care enough to figure out what you’re doing wrong then I’m not going to tell you.
As you go though your late 40’s/early 50’s you will find that you have become insensitive to temperature when close to your wife. Sometimes you will refuse you give up body heat then, moments later, your will turn up your internal furnace to the point that you are trying to kill your spouse. Why are you so mean?
I think your problem is that you’re out in the wide world all day enjoying yourself, and you don’t understand how hard it is to be at home. Try doing more of the day to day household chores when you get home from your fun day, such as cooking, laundry, vacuuming, dusting etc. Only don’t do too much of it, because that would be insulting, and imply that your wife is a slob and can’t do these chores herself.
I leave the proportion of how much you should do as an exercise to the reader, because I don’t have a friggin clue.
Clearly you don’t have a clue. You should do as many of the household chores as you capable of, in your usual inept style. Those chores will have to be redone anyway, by someone who has a clue, but you will have shown that you at least are willing to make the effort, comical though it may be.
This is how you fix the bitchin’ about chores and such. Stay home one day, and do all the chores. Start at 8:00 AM, just like you would start at work. When you finished all the chores by 9:30 or so, look at your significant other, tell her/him to shut up about “working all day” around the house and how tiring it is, then go to your job. Trust me, this works.
I do this every Saturday that I have free where I plan on working on a hobby/project. I start at 7-8am and usually quit around 12 hours later bitching about how I never finish my hobby/project because I’m too busy cleaning the damn house that was left dirty all week.
Then on Sunday I do some work on the project, and by 2pm she has managed to dirty the floors, put toys on all available floor space, leave every light on in the house, pile laundry in every room and dirty every counter space.
Removing my tongue from my cheek for a moment, neither of us have figured out how to run a proper zone coverage pattern. We’re great when we can run man-to-man, but anytime the junior team has a power play, we’re doomed.
Euphonius, you should try some tranquilizers once a month, when you notice yourself behaving so badly. Hell, slip some in the coffee for the whole family.
Well, I’m in my 50’s, live in the Northeast, have just come in from standing on the front porch for 5 minutes because someone has turned the heat up to 70 degrees, and I find I STILL live with an Inconsiderate Asshole!
Don’t worry - the random phase you are going through will pass. After a couple of years of random asshole-ish behaviour, you will again settle down into a stable pattern, one which will give you the confidence every day of knowing exactly where you stand and what your behaviour will be like.
