The BF came back home last night after his volley-ball game all cold and shaking; his eyes all red as if he’d been crying. “I thought you were going to break up with me.” he said into my neck after I’d wrapped him in a blanket.
We were talking earlier in the evening; about his stresses and my stresses. My concern and worry that we haven’t gotten our groove yet with living together, and the hurt I was feeling over his drunken comment. I may have (okay I did say) that I was unhappy living with him because I didn’t feel comfortable in my own home. I always feel the house is disorganized and messy and this is directly related to me not wanting to have sex as much as we used to when I had my own place (my own space that was organized, neat and tidy). I know this really hurt him because I know he makes an incredible effort with the cleaning and that he feels nothing he does is good enough for me (which is true – I never seem to be satisfied).
I’m also trying to accept the fact that I am overly controlling with my environment because I feel I’m heading into a life where I will have very little control: A trailing spouse who is not legally allowed to work in the country we’re moving to. In my mind, I get that. In reality, I obssess about things around me that I CAN control.
Meanwhile, this is directly affecting my relationship, it’s stressing me out, and it’s stressing the BF out. How do we break out of this cycle? I have no idea how to NOT control and obssess about my surroundings. These are things in my life that I can control and when they are organized I feel I have control over other aspects of my life. Does that make sense?
The BF and I agreed to buy a filing cabinet tomorrow morning and to file the mountains of paper lying around the house. So, that’s a step. I will make a cleaning schedule that he can follow (having a list, and being able to cross things off is better than me nagging), so that’s another step.
What I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that we love each other and we’re not ready to give up. If the cleaning schedule doesn’t work, we’ll pay for a cleaning lady. This relationship is worth a million times more than $80 every two weeks. I’m willing to work at this, even if it means I need to seek therapy for my weird need to have everything ‘just so’. The truth is this relationship is hard work; but I’ve never met anyone who I was willing to work so hard with.
Maybe it’ll take a couple years for us to get our ‘groove’; but what’s a couple years compared to the rest of our lives?
5 Comments
May 23, 2008 at 11:06 am
you know, if it makes you feel better and less stressed to have things more organised and tidy, then do as much as you can yourself, and like you said get a cleaning lady. It’s not worth messing things up for but it’s not something you can just change becasue as you said, it’s something you do to cope with the stress.
if he’s not into the cleaning, so what… i’m sure there are things he’s into that you aren’t. set time aside for yourself to do it, say a saturday morning until lunchtime and get things sorted, once you set time aside for you to do it and get into a routine and get places to put everything (filing cabinet is a good idea) you will feel much better about it all xx
May 23, 2008 at 2:17 pm
This is really good, positive stuff, love. I’m relieved to read it. And I agree with Pinky about taking practical steps to easing the stress for both of you. xox
May 23, 2008 at 6:00 pm
just talk to each other in a rational manner BEFORE you start to feel annoyed and stressed.
the only times the girl and i argue is when we are stressed about other things.
May 26, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Glad everything is more in perspective – and that you’re both mature enough to find a way around the problems you’re having. Living together with someone else is never going to be a simple transition but you’ll soon learn to accommodate each other.
May 29, 2008 at 9:14 am
[...] a little update to my baby steps; the BF and I bought a filing cabinet, but never got around to filing. Something else came up (I [...]