I've neglected my blog a bit - and it shows. Its all for good reason, though (kinda.)
Keith's been gone all day over at his friends house playing video games and I've been working on random things here and there.
Things are a big weird between us at the moment. He hasn't even been home from Iraq as long as he was IN Iraq yet already he's taken over everything and changed the way that I've done everything for those 5 months he was gone. Its frustrating.
I thought that all that junk people say about when their men come home was a load of rubbish. No way would I get mad because he's put the towels somewhere that I haven't been putting them - that's dumb. Its insane that couples would fight over what day to do the grocery shopping! But for the most part its kinda true.
When you're forced to adapt to a foreign situation and not given any transition time - you quickly develop your own way of doing things. When you used to share housework you now do it all yourself and you find your own routine of things that you become comfortable with and maybe even enjoy. Then when your man (or woman I guess) comes home it all gets blown out of the water.
Maybe you enjoyed splurging on a caramel mochiato from Starbuck's once a week, but now you can't. It could be that you enjoyed doing the grocery shopping without a list and just getting things you liked, but you can't anymore. Perhaps you even stacked the dishes in the sink a certain way before you actually washed them, but now things are just all helter skelter in the kitchen. These all seem like small trivial things - but its hard not to take it personally when your significant other throws out your way and demands a different way.
It makes me miss the days that when I didn't want to cook I'd eat a bowl of rice with tons of butter and a couple spoons of sugar. I am so so glad my husband is home, but at the same time I resent him for changing everything that I worked so hard to put in order in his absense.
I don't want to say he doesn't respect me - because I like to think he does - but I think that maybe he doesn't think about things. He doesn't know how it was for me here at home because he wasn't here. He doesn't understand why I get frustrated when I ask him to do something and he doesn't do it. Well its because for 5 months if I wanted something done I had to do it - and now that I have someone to help I expect it to be done when I ask. Only because I am used to it being done right when I wanted it done because I did it myself. At this moment I am seeing just how complicated this whole matter is.
Even though I:
cook every night
Do the dishes
Make sure he takes bills with him to work so they get paid
Check account balances so that he doesn't overdraw the checking (he does it a lot)
feed the cat
do the litter box
wash the clothes
vaccum
pack his lunch (which sometimes involves cooking/packing a breakfast as well)
He just makes me feel like I'm useless. I'm the one who doesn't work so I should be just living it up at home while he's gone all day. That isn't how it works.
I quit my job on his advice. They weren't going to allow me to have the 15 days off immediately following Keith's return from Iraq and Keith said "Fuck 'em. Just quit." so I did. I quit my job. This is the job I took after hearing him bitch for 6 months (roughly) about how he feels he has too much responsibility and I don't. The job that he still reminded me almost daily that his job is harder than. The job that I would come home from and STILL do almost all those things listed above.
I haven't had a job since the 2nd week of September (he came back the last week of that month.) And even though while he was still in Iraq and promised me that 'this time' it would be different. This time he wouldn't belittle me and make me feel unimportant. This time he promised he wouldn't make comments about HIS money or things I'm not allowed to buy because HE thinks it isn't needed. It only took about a month for all those promises to be forgotten.
Day in, day out I am in this house. Sometimes I walk into the village to buy a pasty or some tobacco and papers - but that only happens once or so a month. I can't be arsed to walk the mile to the village if its raining or too cold. I just won't. Anyway - I'm always at home. I guess always being at home and having no interaction with the outside world apart from an occasional phone call, Ventrillo, or SL is his idea of heaven.
I've gone off on a huge tangeant but in a way I don't really mind. Its all stuff that's bothered me that we have either discussed a half million times - or I just don't have the energy to have a 'discussion' about. I'm just frustrated is all. We've done all this before - and now we're doing it all again.
He thinks I'm being immature in thinking that he's being controlling. I think he's just being more of a dick for clamping down even harder for no apparent reason. I can't spend a few bucks on a burger from Burger King cuz its a waste of money. BUT he can pretty much do whatever he wants because its his money (he reminds me that its his money any time I talk about buying something.) Am I just being immature? Afterall he's the one who works so technically it IS his money -- but don't I earn some of that by doing all those things in that list? I mean, that's sometimes a full 8-12 hours of work a day.
I don't know. I just know I'm frustrated with how things have been going. I feel like I'm kind of ignored in the equality department. Granted, last time I didn't work I expected Keith to do half of everything here at the house. I don't expect him to do that now - but I do expect to be treated equally. I don't like feeling that I'm less of a contributor just because I don't leave the house to work. I do work. if I didn't we'd live in a mound of filth and he'd never eat or have clean clothes.
Bah.
Men.
