Husband Clothes

Man, my husband was getting on my nerves SO much last week, I could barely even blog. Every post started and ended with “I want a divorce,” then I had to delete them. Because this blog is to help me handle things with humor, not with anger. But as you know, in marriage, sometimes there’s anger. And other times there’s humor:)

ANYWAY, in the midst of all of my anger, I kept thinking “Man, I really want a divorce. Like tomorrow.” Can’t list all the reasons, because then I’ll get mad again. But mainly they were because my husband is not really taking care of stuff, which is forcing me to take care of way, way too much stuff. I am working from 9am to 9pm myself right now, having a baby in 6 weeks, have a 7 year old at home from school, taking him and his brother to lessons for stuff, plus husband still working from 9am to 2am each day…I really need my husband to pull his own weight. And he can’t seem to….plus he was getting an attitude when I get testy due to all of this. Sometimes he’s just so out of touch…

So I was really down and feeling quite angry. Then suddenly I made a horrible mistake. AND THIS WAS A STROKE OF LUCK THAT HAPPENED RIGHT IN TIME. We got my husband’s car registration stickers in the mail, but I forgot to give them to him.

So, he got a parking ticket for not having the registration. But not just any ticket. A ticket that requires him to go to DMV or a police station, get a signature from an official, and only THEN can he send the fine. Oh my. And this is all because there aren’t stickers on his license plate (the stickers I had on my desk for um…days? or maybe weeks???).

I apologized to him. His response: no response. As in, he acted totally normal and calm and nice. How could a person act calm and nice after getting that kind of ticket? I don’t know–perhaps we should all ask my husband.

Also, we had a little chat. Before the parking ticket, about his attitude at my testiness over him not pulling his own weight. I told him he needs to get back in touch with reality and cut me some slack. There’s NO WAY I have the energy to try to keep my tone nice and dainty as I remind him of crap for the millionth time right now. In addition, I explained, I need HELP, so he needs to start acting like I’m almost 9 months pregnant and STOP acting like I’m Hulk Hogan or something.

Low and behold, I think he understood. We went to the park with the boys and my husband OPENED MY CAR DOOR FOR ME. I almost fainted. And then felt really super relieved. It’s sooooo good when things seem bad, but suddenly your spouse listens and understands and responds. Wow. I am having such a nice day because of that.

Last weekend was the first weekend we got to see my husband in over a month! And, ironically, the weekend was HORRIBLE. Saturday was pretty uneventful. My husband slept till 3pm, which was extremely irritating, but I was able to do my work without his help, got it all done, and moved onto Sunday.

Sunday we had much to do. And I had told my husband this on Saturday night. We have to get things arranged for the baby–he’s due in 6 weeks. As many people know, but apparently my husband does NOT know, women who are 8.5 months pregnant are not supposed to climb on high ladders, lift heavy things, or mow in 105 degree weather.

Hm. I just posted a whole long story about why I had to mow yesterday while my husband sat inside. It wasn’t interesting, and despite that my husband is a wonderful man, that story would convince you otherwise. Therefore, I’m going to let you know up front: He wanted to mow for ONCE but insisted on doing it at 6pm.

But see , I’m 8.5 months pregnant and had a trillion things I needed my husband’s help with yesterday, namely going to Costco by 6pm (when it closes)–with husband, per mucho heavy lifting. So, it’s not in any way going to work out to start mowing at 6pm–not even in a parallel universe. It’s not even going to work to mow at 3pm. And as we all know, MY HUSBAND CAN’T DO A DARN THING BEFORE 3PM.

So I got REALLY pissed off, and mowed at 12. I can’t even talk about it any further without breaking something really expensive that my husband owns. I almost divorced him on Sunday over this. I am not sure how I thought that’d work out with the baby due in 6 weeks, but somehow I felt it would be fine.

ANYWAY, my husband now claims that I didn’t explain the Costco 6pm,  million errands I needed his help with thing (though I clearly remember explaining it about 5 times before I mowed in a REALLY loud voice–even all of our neighbors heard it, that’s how loud my voice was, and I was yelling about it as I mowed. So I’m not sure how my husband missed that. After all, he was sitting on the couch in the living room, which is divided from the yard only by a screen door, which is very easy to hear through.)

But in his defense, he did BELIEVE he intended to mow at 6pm and he does BELIEVE I failed to explain why that wasn’t going to work out.

Whatever. The lawn is now mowed. We are not divorced. That is a miracle, but it is true. I am still kind of fantasizing about moving to my Granny’s house and having a homestead with a big garden, cows, pigs, chickens, and never seeing my jerk husband again. And marrying a really hot country guy who ALWAYS mows and NEVER wears a shirt and who …

Sorry, gotta stop. I now need to write one additional post, which will include a somewhat hideous photo (in my opinion), and which unfortunately also relates to the lawn.

Look out. Sometimes I get psychological. Ha ha. That may not be a real word. Okay, I get um psychiatric (?). Or perhaps I get psychic. Or neurological. Or neurotic. Sorry, see, it’s almost 1:00 am. I really should not be posting at this hour–I start telling jokes that are weird and scary. So, I need to tell you about an interesting but sad psychological phenomenon. Then I need to skeedaddle on to SLEEP before things get too crazy.

I have a friend who is a wonderful person–I’m talking near saint. But she was married to a narcissist. The word “narcissist” is simply a label for a certain personality type that is mean and controlling–but in specific ways. This isn’t name calling. This is just a personality type that is real and very difficult to deal with, whether in friendship, marriage, work, or any other situation. This post may be helpful to other people who are in close contact with a narcissist.

I have run into narcissists from time to time, but rarely, thank goodness. You have most likely met at least one or two in your life. They are usually very smart, funny, and seem GREAT at first. HOWEVER, the key trait of this personality type is that they leave nice people feeling mean, confused, and constantly questioning themselves even when they have done no wrong (but have been wronged).

The closer you get to a narcissist, the more you begin to walk on eggshells around the person. He or she starts telling you what to do and how to do it, and when you try to express your own opinion, this person not only can’t register your (or anyone else’s) opinion, but tries to make you feel stupid for having an opinion. They are impossible to argue with because they are controlled by the need to be right rather than by logic. They tend to use lies as “evidence” and get confused while arguing. They can NOT agree to disagree and will argue about the same stuff for years no matter how clear it is that they are wrong. (Normal people also do this, but not nearly to the degree a narcissist does.)

Should you work with, be friends with, or HEAVEN FORBID be married to a narcissist, this post may be handy: How to Deal With Impossible People. It’s SO funny, though dealing with this personality type is anything but funny.

There are two important morning routines in our home: 1) My husband NEVER wakes up earlier than 8:00 am, though he needs to wake up by 7:30 am. 2) If I wake up early to take a shower, so as to free the bathroom up early, my husband miraculously WAKES up, DARTS out of bed, and NEEDS to get in the shower IMMEDIATELY. 3) In either and all other scenarios, my husband is going to be late to work, and this is “my fault.” This infuriates me and causes HUGE arguments in a usually peaceful home.

This morning, I got in the shower at 7:15 am–there’s NO WAY my husband’s getting up at that time. He sets the alarm at 7:30 am, and sleeps WAY beyond that.

But no matter to me. I’m up early, in the shower, today my son’s getting to school on TIME, baby! Yeah. 7:30 am. I’m enjoying my freshly cleaned, flower-scented hair, taking my time in my relaxing, warm shower….then suddenly BOOM BOOM BOOM.

Hu? Someone’s up? But that can’t be. It’s only 7:30 am. No one else in the house will be up until at least 8:30 am, maybe 8:00 am, but definitely not NOW!

I open the door, and my husband’s looking at me AALLLLLLL irritated. He says, “I need to take a SHOWER. I have to be at work at 9:00 am. Now I’m going to be LATE.”

My response in a very unkind voice: “DEAR, it’s 7:30 am. You haven’t been up this early in SEVERAL YEARS. Yet suddenly you’re going to be LATE because I’m in the SHOWER? DOESN’T MAKE SENSE.”

See, if he HAD a morning schedule, we, as in the other THREE people in this house, would be happy to accomodate him. After all, his getting to work by a reasonable time does allow us many fun and necessary things in life–we recognize that (but then so does MY money). The problem is, there is no morning schedule. It’s what he wants to do whenever he’s finally able to get his behind out of bed. And if it happens to be early for the first time in years, oh my, well I guess we ALL needed to work harder to ANTICIPATE THAT.

While I usually get over my husband’s lapses in judgement pretty quickly, I’m still highly annoyed at him for his buggy eyes blaming me for his tardiness this morning. I have my own tardiness to worry about. I’m tardy to take my son to school at least once a week. Do I look buggy eyed at my husband and ask him why he’s in the shower? NO, I don’t think I do. I think it’s time he cut out the morning blame routine and planning his morning schedule like an adult.

Years ago, I was a chain smoker with no hope of ever quitting. I was otherwise normal and in good health–I ate right, exercised, all that good stuff. Looked darn cute–sorry, I think the 10 years ago factor gives me bragging rights at this time, does it not? But I had a habit of smoking that I could NOT kick.

Then I met my husband. At first, he acted all okay with my smoking. See, this guy’s a sneaky one. From day one he knew he was going to force me to stop smoking. I only learned about this three years later.

The first wise move was not hinting about the issue until AFTER marriage–you know, when I was already totally trapped. At that time, the lectures started. By the way, my husband NEVER raises his voice. But he has this almost evil way of being brutally persistent and thoroughly unbothered by negative responses to his persistence.

SO, I’d begin to smoke, and he’d start rolling his eyes, fanning the air and groaning aloud. I’d run out to the balcony and start chain smoking due to the stress his antics caused me. He’d follow me out to the balcony (see his traps, and how I fell into them? marriage, balcony, and so on), and continue the lectures. Lectures about lung cancer, lectures about heart disease, lectures about smelling like smoke…

I would yell at him to stop, but I was on a balcony so, not comfortable to do so too loudly or too long. Finally, I’d go back in. Usually by this point, I had smoked at least 5 cigarettes due to stress his antics caused me. But the magical effect was that it was TOTALLY UNSATISFYING due to the lectures. (See, smokers smoke to get a break from reality. That effect is squashed when someone is annoying you and won’t go away.)

That wasn’t all. He also did very controlling things, such as steal my cigarettes out of my purse. So I’d go for a smoke break at work. No cigarettes. Pretty much, someone’s going to die when stuff like this starts happening. But he’s stronger than me, plus he didn’t care about my threats. As I said, his persistence approaches evilness. Later, he caught on when I’d check that my cigarettes were in the purse BEFORE leaving for work.

He started taking the cigarettes out of the box and replacing them with random objects. My very, very favorite was a hotdog. That’s right. I opened my Marlboro Lights all ready for my grand smoke break, the great calm-me-downer, and there are no cigarettes in the box, but there is a hot dog in the box. Folded in half, so as to fit in the box. Yes, that’s very scary. I almost called the police.

But police or no police, these little tricks had a very important effect: cigarettes became an unreliable source of pleasure. I could no longer count on them to be there for me. I was aware this was my husband’s fault, and there were many ways that I outsmarted him and his little tricks. But all in all, he made smoking unpleasurable and unreliable.

That is the true story of why I was able to stop smoking.

My husband and the ALARM CLOCK are getting ON MY NERVES. He thinks it’s my responsibility to make sure he wakes up at 7am. I used to try, but it’s impossible to wake this man up. He gets up no earlier than 8am. The alarm clock goes off every 10 minutes for an entire hour. That’s the way it’s been for years.

I used to care if he got up on time. But now I don’t. For a while, he seemed to get this. All was good. He was waking up late, of course, but not talking to me about it. Perfect.

Recently, however, he reverted back to the old “I was late to work today” with buggy eyes looking at me like I’m supposed to respond with … an explanation. But I didn’t respond because I don’t care. The next day, he moved it to the next level and acted all panicky when he got up late: “OH NO, it’s 8am? I can’t even take a SHOWER. And now I’m going to be LATE for WORK” (while staring with buggy eyes). Keep in mind, the alarm clock was not turned off. It went off very loudly every 10 minutes from 7am to 8am. Just to be sure I asked, “Why are you telling me this?” He said, “So you’ll help me GET UP next time.” Then for the millionth time I explained that I have tried and it’s hopeless, and he needs to just go to bed earlier.

So, yesterday when the clock went off for the 3rd time, I mumbled “Get up” in my sleep or something. Low and behold HE GOT UP at 7:30am. Wow. Total shocker. He took a shower, got dressed, all ready to go on time.

I thought, “FINALLY he’s on time. Maybe he’ll leave me alone now.” But NO. Instead of feeling proud of himself, he looks at me with the buggy eyes AGAIN and says, “See, when I get up early enough, I get out of the door on time.” He’s so lucky he’s so much stronger than I am. I think I said something that included very mean curse words. But it’s a fuzzy memory (thank goodness) because I was juuust tired enough to go back to sleep.

PS. Oh my GOSH. I was so excited to see the poster’s comment on bed-shaking alarm clocks (in comments below this post). I thought this was a cruel joke to get me all excited, then sad, but they are REAL. Here they are, should you need one!!!!

Not to have a competition for whose mother-in-law is the meanest, strangest, or craziest, but let me know if this could make me the clear winner nevertheless. (I’ve never won anything–so I’m hoping this might change all that.)

My mother-in-law is from a different country. That country is very mountainous and therefore quite closed off from surrounding countries (and the surrounding world in many respects, which explains many stories on this blog.) In that country, the people are highly educated, but only the richest have enough money to travel abroad. This means, the people there do see foreign countries in the media, magazines, and tourists, but they trust their own customs and regard many foreign ways as “strange” or “incorrect” (rather than “different” or “interesting”).

SO, when my mother-in-law visited for the first time, I knew she’d never eaten fried shrimp. As a nice gesture, I fixed a grand dinner consisting of 2 pounds of fried and breaded shrimp for her, along with many other foods. It was great, not to toot my own horn.

Well, these shrimp had tails. My mom-in-law was popping the whole thing into her mouth, tail and all. For the sake of her stomach lining, I delicately tried to say, “Um…We don’t really…usually…eat the tails.” Trying to soften the comment, I added, “I think they might upset your stomach, probably that’s the reason.” (And not, for example, because it makes you look like a freak.)

At the time, I was just learning that my mother-in-law is extremely defensive and hated me as my husband’s non-native wife. So, I wasn’t aware that I would be attacked for trying to be helpful.

But I quickly learned. She gave me a VERY agitated look and replied: “My dear, I eat what I want how I want.” Then she very deliberately opened her mouth and dropped another entire shrimp into it tail and all. And proceeded to chomp on it and fake smile at me.

In her book, she really told me off. As you can imagine, I SURE FELT FOOLISH. (tee hee ha ha.)

I don’t know about you, but I get blamed for some ODD things.  Here are a few examples from this week:

1.) Not watching the YouTube videos my husband sends me via Instant Messenger. He sends like 5 of them a day, and then checks up on me to see if I’ve watched them. If I didn’t, he starts with the irritated comments, “Oh, well that’s too bad. That was REALLY funny.” or “Hm. Then when I tell you about the newstory about Russia, don’t start asking a ton of questions–it was all there in the YouTube video.” (Uhhhhh, sure thing.)

2.) Broken lemon tree branch. We have a lemon tree in our yard which was almost dead when we moved in, but I nursed that baby back to health. (Important detail: my husband never sets foot in the yard–including to lay the sod, mow, or water the lawn, all of which I did/do single-handedly and felt/feel very proud of myself for.) However, I never had a lemon tree, so I don’t know when to pick lemons. Well, recently, a fairly large branch got too weighed down by numerous huge lemons that apparently grew too large. And the branch broke off and fell in the yard. This was very sad for me but…hey, learning experience.

Out of the blue, my husband, who couldn’t care less about the yard or plants in it, got soooooo annoyed. “Didn’t you know you needed to pick the lemons? Why didn’t you just go pick them? Now this whole huge branch broke off!” Why he cared about this branch is beyond me. Why HE couldn’t pick the lemons, and this was all my fault, also beyond me. Nevertheless, this WAS TOTALLY my fault.

3.) My husband can’t log into his webhost server, so I must have changed the password. People, I can barely even tell you what a webhost server is. (See, I don’t even think I’m calling it the right thing–is it webhost? Webserver? Or just server???) I  don’t even know what company my husband uses as his webhost server. Nor do I know his password. Not to mention, I really don’t have a lot of extra time to be logging into other people’s webhost server things, as I have like 8 jobs plus a family to care for!!!

YET, he couldn’t log into his server or something yesterday, so he IM’s me: “Did you change my webhost server thing password?” My reaction was, “Hu?” He continues: “Well, I can’t log in. You must have gotten onto the ftp and changed it.” My reaction: “Hu? I don’t know how to get onto your ftp. No. I didn’t change it. I have no idea how to do that.”

He did not believe me. Then he used FEAR to get me to change his password back! He says, “Well, your email is linked to this server, so I guess you won’t be able to use it anymore.” Finally in about 2 hours the server thing got fixed. Thank GOODNESS.

PS. Good deal for techies–lasts until April 30th: Get 10% Cash Back with Paypal on CompUSA.com!

Hi. I made this interesting discovery. Apparently guys read my blog. I was a little surprised at all of the REALLY nice emails from guys about how mean that my husband forgot my birthday! Wow–thanks. SO, I made some joke posts to guys in the past. Now, I decided to write a real post to guys. And on a very critical topic: why your girl is mean to you.

Guys, the bad news is, there are probably many reasons why your wife or girlfriend is mean to you. If I met you or at least saw a photo of you, I could probably name at least 10 of the reasons within 5 minutes. BUT, since this isn’t the case, I can only tell you the probable reasons she is mean to you based on my experience of having known many, many girls in relationships. And from a few relationships of my own. Here we go:

1. You don’t listen. She tells you things that are really important to her a million times. You keep doing the same annoying stuff. What is she supposed to do, jump for joy? (Yes, I realize you have heard these words–you should have listened, then you wouldn’t need to read this.) What to do: Listen. This doesn’t mean “open your ears and hear her.” This means DO something differently. Obviously you can’t do everything she wants–by the time you get to the stage where she’s fed up with you not listening, there is a very long list of things she wants you to change. That’s fine.

Just change the important one or ones. Which is this? This is the thing that when you do it, she no longer reacts with words. She either begins to slam things, yell (but not about the thing, just words that don’t really make sense, but still convey a very angry message), or gets super silent with a really red face and just kind of goes from place to place trying to get away from you for a few minutes. When this happens, try to ask yourself “What thing has she mentioned did I do right before she started [insert behavior such as slamming things]?” If you can stop doing that thing, she’ll feel that you have listened. At least for a while.

2. You ignore her. (This involves #1 because it’s one of those things she keeps saying that keeps happening. But it’s still an additional and very important issue.) Yes, I know–when you are ready to spend time with her, she’s doing her stuff. Well, still. She needs attention. You must figure out how to give it to her if you want her to be nice. Remember: Attention doesn’t mean 3 hours a day–she’s WAY too busy talking to her friends on the phone, taking care of children, or shopping for that kind of time commitment. We’re talking 10-15 minutes of sitting with her when she seems to need your company. What to do: It’s SO not hard–basically say–hey, let’s TALK! Don’t worry, this means something totally different to her than it does to you. To you, it’s doomsday. To her, it’s pleasure island.

When she sits down, do NOT stare at her blankly. Write down these questions and refer to them (sneakily) if you need to: 1) How did your day go? 2) Did you figure out what to do about that problem you mentioned the other day? [When she asks which problem, you’re going to need to be prepared–think about this one in advance. I can’t give you any definites, but common problems tend to be problems with an annoying acquaintance, boss, or coworker. For stay-at-home moms, another stay-at-home mom or a discipline issue with the kids.] 3) As she tells you the answer, do NOT tell her she handled it incorrectly!!!! You have NO idea what you’re talking about. Just say things like “oh really? ” or “hm, that was an original idea.” also a really good one: “oh, that would work in a lot of scenarios.” Trust me, this will take 15-12 minutes, and she’ll be really happy. Also, this may feel fake–trust me again, this is what your girl is doing when you’re talking about your job. She doesn’t really care about all aspects of your job that she pretends to care about, but she wants to make you feel important. It won’t kill you to do the same.

Now, you could have this issue: you sit down to talk, and she immediately starts griping about #1–I know, this is probably one of the reasons you hate talking. That’s understandable. Try saying, “Hey, I know these things are really important. But I just want to be with you and hear about your day. Tell me how you…” then continue with above suggestion.

3) You create so much work for her, yet do so little work. I know, some guys do work and help. The problem is most guys THINK they do, but really they don’t. See, she yells about your towels and clothes on the floor–why? Not because she wants to be mean. Because she’s tired, and picking up these things is extra work. Plus, the only reason she HAS to pick them up is because you didn’t. Not fair. Sorry, simply not fair. What to do: Listen to the work you create for her, and stop doing it. If you ask, she might start yelling. So, choose a time while she already is yelling about it, and try to listen for key words rather than totally tuning out: “towel” or “fingernail clippings” or “DISHES.” I know, the yelling goes on for a long time and about many various topics, all kind of in a stream. BUT, if you can pick out those important key words, and then stop creating one or two types of unfair work, you’re on your way to having a great week next week!

Wow, that took a lot of explaining. I don’t like super long posts, so I will sign off now. I will post more along these lines soon. Also, I realize there are many things your girlfriend and wife need to change. I’ve changed over 9 years of marriage, so I might be able to tell you how my husband helped that happen. Soon.

This post is mainly for the guys out there. I got my first Guy Feedback that I am mean and materialistic! You are probably saying it in a joking way, as in “you’re so mean” being sarcastic code for “you’re sooooo tolerant and nice based on what I read on your blog.” If you ARE serious, though, you should enjoy this post. (And ladies, I already know you will because it’s about men and how they are about their cars.)

Well, I guess I am kind of mean sometimes…but more on that later. However, being materialistic is definitely NOT one of my (numerous) vices. In fact, like many women, I get nice stuff for everyone except myself. AWWWW, did I make that sound sad? Because it’s not at all sad. In fact, I LOVE it. I refuse to get myself stuff, and I brag about it. I like old stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I look nice in public–hair fixed, makeup on, etc–BUT I prefer old stuff for most situations. Also, I don’t have lots of stuff! As little as possible. Sometimes I get dirty looks from people who think my used furniture is strange or that my crashed up car is ugly. Guess what. I don’t care because I save money, and I enjoy it.

My husband, on the other hand, is somewhat materialistic. He’s not horrible about it BUT he has two huge things–his car and a gargantuous TV he forced me to buy. (By “forced,” I mean that these expensive things cut through the essence of my soul. Yet, he kept lecturing me for weeks about why he really “needed” each one. And I am way too busy for lectures, plus they annoyed me and put me in a bad mood, so finally, I gave in).

Again, this post is for guys. I know exactly what will sway you–pictures of cars. Now, look at the photo of my crashed up 7 year old car on top and my husband’s nice new BMW on the bottom. Then go ahead and tell me: Who’s materialistic now?