Wow - you’ve got three kids under the age of five, and your wife wants to schedule every second of every day. My advice to her would be slow the hell down before she burns herself and everyone around her out. I’m going to take a wild stab here and guess she probably doesn’t sleep very well. Life’s a marathon, not a sprint, honey.
Her best friend, my mom, her mom, everyone really, says she’s Type-A and does too much. I give her time to lay on the couch when she wants, but she doesn’t ask often. She always says that the only time she’s got is when the kids are finally to bed. And this seems to be corroborated by the emails she exchanges in the evening with other PTA moms. She’s doing great things, and I love helping doing the website, or picture processing, or other things.
I really see the blowups over my mistakes or little things as occurring when she’s put herself under a deadline and things aren’t happenning fast enough or something gets messed up. It’s just that I’m a perfectionist too and I get angry at myself when I forget things or can’t figure out the bleed’in obvious.
Just this morning I got the middle child (MC) dressed again. The outfit was okay, but she had hung another one in the closet on the shelving. I missed it. I was looking at the hangers and getting an outfit, while MC was waiting in the bathroom. I was hurrying because he was waiting and I had to get the steam cleaner to get the poop and pea left by the cat that was locked in his room all nght. She just mentioned, laughing like me, that she already had an outfit hanging. And that was it.
I really take anybody’s comments to heart, especially the more I respect them. If she came in talking about the Flying Spaghetti Monster I would think seriously about it … for a second. When the argument has more reasonable elements, I think longer on it. Sometimes thinking is my weakness too. As has been said, “A mind is a terrible thing … to waste.”
I know Type A’s tend to develop health problems due to pushing themselves too hard and being too hard on themselves (ulcers, anxiety, depression, migraines, insomnia, etc.), but if you’re both happy and enjoying your lives, that’s what matters in the end.
All of this drama isn’t the majority of our lives. I just needed to get some perspective, thanks.
Some might wonder, “why put up with it?” Well, nothing’s perfect. But more importantly, these little bumps in the road are nothing compared to the LIFE I have. When times are troubling I just think of As Good as It Gets when Jack talks about why he changed - “You make me want to be a better man.” Life’s a never ending struggle, but this one is well worth the journey.