“I could do your job easy.”
All I had said to bring this about was I get 2-3 hours sleep less a night than he does. It makes it hard on me. And it does. Last night was an oddity because I stayed up late to finish reading a section of a book I’m into right now. I don’t get much time to read, so I called it an early day yesterday and sat down to read. It had got so good, I stayed up long past the time I should have. I was tired, and feeling more than a little guilty because knowing I’m more likely to oversleep would only bring about a bad start to the girls’ day, and I don’t want that to happen. They don’t deserve to be woken by a frantic mom saying, “It’s late, and we have to hurry.”
I was feeling guilty for taking the time to read. I knew by spending that extra hour awake I was pretty much putting the decorative bow on the package of rough day tomorrow.
Somehow, in his mind, that translated to “you have it SO much easier than me”
What?
He starts by telling me he would trade days with me anytime. Even the days when he doesn’t have to cook and just sits upstairs doing paperwork or running errands.
Never did I say he didn’t work hard. I said that doing what I did (reading) makes the next day harder on me. I did not say “You should feel sorry for me you slack ass bum. You couldn’t do what I do in a day if you had 3 helpers.” Nothing like that. But you’d think that’s exactly what I said.
“I could do what you do. I’ve done it before. Done it well.”
Never did I say he couldn’t, but I think if he planned to really do what I do, he might require knowledge he doesn’t possess – like the name and location of the kids doctor, and various other tidbits he’s remained oblivious to. While I’m grateful for him stepping in to take care of things when I had my surgery and he took a week off, at the end of that week I had laundry piled in a basket that needed ironing because it wasn’t folded right away, not to mention the mountain of it still waiting to be done (or the fact that bathmats and towels had been washed with clean clothes). But I hadn’t asked him to do what I do. I wasn’t asking him for anything actually, simply stating that I shouldn’t have stayed up so late because it’s hard the next day.
It’s not the first time he’s said those exact same words. In fact, it’s been said often enough over the years (me tired simply must equal he’s more tired, me sick – he’s more sick) that I’m beginning to realize he really thinks that. And it’s not that I want him to think, or even that I believe myself, that I work harder than he does. It doesn’t mean I don’t work hard though. It doesn’t mean that what I do is meaningless. It doesn’t mean that I’m less valuable.
But for some reason he seems to think so.
When I told him to go away, he laughed at me and said, “What do you mean, “go away”. Just what I said, I’m not talking about it anymore.
It hurts me. Makes me feel invisible to him.
Every day I do my very best to keep up. I make the beds, keep the bathroom clean, do my best to keep up with laundry so that we have clean clothes. Every time I do laundry, I refold every single shirt on his shelf because he takes a shirt (every blessed one is the same, only the color varies) from the bottom of the pile and just flips the others over. I dig his socks and pants from underneath the bed, empty his pockets, save his scribbled notes that are important because he’s never going to remember where he put them. I take care of 6 dogs, scoop litter boxes for 7 cats, homeschool Jacob, do all payroll and tax reports, state forms, and employee records, I make a trip through the house with a garbage can to pick up trash that gets left sitting wherever because nobody knows where the trash can is, I gather their dishes and take them to the sink to be washed because if I didn’t we wouldn’t have a clean glass in the house and there’d be no room left on bedside tables. I clean, scrub and disinfect because it means a lot to me to make a good home for our family and I want to be helpful in business stuff because already he spends very little time at home. I spend an hour and a half each morning trying to wake up the now 7 year old little boy that I’m responsible for his education because he didn’t go to bed until after midnight because on his way to bed he stopped to play balloon volleyball (or watch tv or something) with his dad – jumping and laughing hard and loud enough to wake one of the girls and then breaking a glass in the living room.
I do my best. I do a lot. Apparently that isn’t enough. And somebody else should be doing it because even a monkey could do it better.
Besides, I never said I do more. I should know better than to stay up and make time to read a book I am enjoying.
All I had said to bring this about was I get 2-3 hours sleep less a night than he does. It makes it hard on me. And it does. Last night was an oddity because I stayed up late to finish reading a section of a book I’m into right now. I don’t get much time to read, so I called it an early day yesterday and sat down to read. It had got so good, I stayed up long past the time I should have. I was tired, and feeling more than a little guilty because knowing I’m more likely to oversleep would only bring about a bad start to the girls’ day, and I don’t want that to happen. They don’t deserve to be woken by a frantic mom saying, “It’s late, and we have to hurry.”
I was feeling guilty for taking the time to read. I knew by spending that extra hour awake I was pretty much putting the decorative bow on the package of rough day tomorrow.
Somehow, in his mind, that translated to “you have it SO much easier than me”
What?
He starts by telling me he would trade days with me anytime. Even the days when he doesn’t have to cook and just sits upstairs doing paperwork or running errands.
Never did I say he didn’t work hard. I said that doing what I did (reading) makes the next day harder on me. I did not say “You should feel sorry for me you slack ass bum. You couldn’t do what I do in a day if you had 3 helpers.” Nothing like that. But you’d think that’s exactly what I said.
“I could do what you do. I’ve done it before. Done it well.”
Never did I say he couldn’t, but I think if he planned to really do what I do, he might require knowledge he doesn’t possess – like the name and location of the kids doctor, and various other tidbits he’s remained oblivious to. While I’m grateful for him stepping in to take care of things when I had my surgery and he took a week off, at the end of that week I had laundry piled in a basket that needed ironing because it wasn’t folded right away, not to mention the mountain of it still waiting to be done (or the fact that bathmats and towels had been washed with clean clothes). But I hadn’t asked him to do what I do. I wasn’t asking him for anything actually, simply stating that I shouldn’t have stayed up so late because it’s hard the next day.
It’s not the first time he’s said those exact same words. In fact, it’s been said often enough over the years (me tired simply must equal he’s more tired, me sick – he’s more sick) that I’m beginning to realize he really thinks that. And it’s not that I want him to think, or even that I believe myself, that I work harder than he does. It doesn’t mean I don’t work hard though. It doesn’t mean that what I do is meaningless. It doesn’t mean that I’m less valuable.
But for some reason he seems to think so.
When I told him to go away, he laughed at me and said, “What do you mean, “go away”. Just what I said, I’m not talking about it anymore.
It hurts me. Makes me feel invisible to him.
Every day I do my very best to keep up. I make the beds, keep the bathroom clean, do my best to keep up with laundry so that we have clean clothes. Every time I do laundry, I refold every single shirt on his shelf because he takes a shirt (every blessed one is the same, only the color varies) from the bottom of the pile and just flips the others over. I dig his socks and pants from underneath the bed, empty his pockets, save his scribbled notes that are important because he’s never going to remember where he put them. I take care of 6 dogs, scoop litter boxes for 7 cats, homeschool Jacob, do all payroll and tax reports, state forms, and employee records, I make a trip through the house with a garbage can to pick up trash that gets left sitting wherever because nobody knows where the trash can is, I gather their dishes and take them to the sink to be washed because if I didn’t we wouldn’t have a clean glass in the house and there’d be no room left on bedside tables. I clean, scrub and disinfect because it means a lot to me to make a good home for our family and I want to be helpful in business stuff because already he spends very little time at home. I spend an hour and a half each morning trying to wake up the now 7 year old little boy that I’m responsible for his education because he didn’t go to bed until after midnight because on his way to bed he stopped to play balloon volleyball (or watch tv or something) with his dad – jumping and laughing hard and loud enough to wake one of the girls and then breaking a glass in the living room.
I do my best. I do a lot. Apparently that isn’t enough. And somebody else should be doing it because even a monkey could do it better.
Besides, I never said I do more. I should know better than to stay up and make time to read a book I am enjoying.
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