I’m not ashamed to say that for the past week or so, the grind of being a work-at-home mom was getting to me. I was angry and tired and just ready for someone else to step up and take the wheel while I took a nap in the backseat, you know? I was tired of cleaning the house every day, and working until 3 a.m. and cooking three meals a day and taking care of the kids all day. School is looming on the horizon and I just really wanted some help before my workload got heavier.
So who did I take my frustrations out on? My husband. He came in the door one day this week and felt the wrath of everything I had kept bottled up inside. Poor thing. Didn’t even see it coming.
But instead of walking away feeling like I had gotten something off my chest, I felt worse. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings “” I just wanted him to bring me home some flowers or to bring dinner home one night a week. In short, I wanted him to make more of an effort to help me manage this household. I instinctively knew that fussing like a lunatic wasn’t going to help matters, but I lacked the energy to add a little sugar to my message to help it go down.
So I just laid low. Decided not to talk much until I could figure out how to alleviate some of this stress off my back. And wouldn’t you know, I learn the greatest lessons when I’m just chitchatting with my kids.
I had my breakthrough earlier this week as I was scrambling to toss some clothes on the kids so we could run an errand. I rummaged through my daughter’s dresser, looking for a shirt, when I noticed her top drawer was broken.
I pushed on the loose screw, trying to move it back in place. It wasn’t budging. “It’ll be fine. I’ll have Daddy look at it when he gets home.”
Well, as you can probably guess, the rest of the day was busy, busy, busy and I didn’t get a chance to tell him.
The next day, I get a shirt and I remember the darn drawer is still broken.
“Why didn’t Daddy fix it?” my daughter asked.
“Because he didn’t know it was broken,” I said without thinking.
And then bam! It hit me. The greatest of epiphanies. I didn’t expect him to just know that the drawer was broken. I would have to tell him.
For all my husband’s good qualities, being a mind reader or emotion evaluator are not on that list. He pretty much assumes everything is fine unless I tell him otherwise. So I must learn to tell him when things are indeed “otherwise.”
It seems so simple, but I really struggle with this, having to work to get my needs met. I just want to relax. Now I gotta tell someone how to help me so I can relax? Extra work. Don’t feel like doing it.
So since I know my husband is not a mind reader, it falls on me to make sure we stay on the same page and work together to keep the workload as even as we can. It’s a task that will have to stay on my to-do list, and I guess that’s okay if the end result is that we argue less and love each other more.
Tell you me, BMWK family. Do you have trouble asking for what you need in your relationship?