It has been a relatively quiet weekend on the board....So I hope that everyone had an enjoyable weekend.
Here it has been a weekend of highs and lows;
Friday-I had a backsliding communication event. We received our tax returns and though we briefly discussed how the money was going to be allocated....it wasn't a full conversation. Now that happened a couple of weeks ago...and when the money came in I was very focused on paying down debt and moving some into savings. So I started planning and guess what...never fully discussed it with my wife! So we had a couple of little discussions through out the day how I was being impulsive and not communicating properly. I guess it was one of those times that my ADD really took over. I was hyper-focused on what I wanted and not what we needed to discuss. So pretty low...but I realized that I made a mistake and we moved on.
Saturday-The wife went shopping....found some great deals and ended up buying $75 worth of clothes for $7...yeah...$7. When she returned we discussed some house repairs that need to be made and that I had bar backed the night before and made extra cash. So we went to Lowe's looking to replace two toilets (one old the other had a broken lid). So I talk to the manager about buying a replacement lid and he then tells me that I can't order one...so just take a new one out of box and replace it. So a free lid and I only had to get one toilet...yippee me. We then go and use my extra tip cash to get the kids some fish (our tank had only one fish left) which made their day. So then we come home...hang out for a bit...then head to another town looking for some boots (Tall black leather boots) my wife has wanted. We end up finding the last pair of boots (the only pair of boots in the store) on a clearance rack in her size...who would figure! Then it gets better....We buy the boots for $16 that were listed for $75....We grab some dinner with the kids (which was fun and filling)....Then on the way home we hear her song...and right after it comes a song I love...David Cook...Come back to me. So I turn it up a little and she looks at me....Says "I love this songs" and starts rubbing my arm....pretty cool.
Sunday-I install the new toilet, we go and purchase a new bed for my son (I didn't want to do it, but he has had the bed since he was two and it was in pretty bad shape...ok...disgusting shape), and then partake in some afternoon cocktails with the wife. Heavy flirting going on...feeling good. Eventually the neighbors invite us over for dinner. We get there and my neighbor gives me a couple of maxim he had. One article is about "How to cheat" and my wife starts reading it...commenting upon it.....room gets very, very, very, quiet...until my wife realizes it and mention how she should shut her mouth. It was very hard for me to keep my mouth shut and extremely disrespectful of her. But it rolled over and moved to dinner. She ate too much and came home not feeling well and very pissy....was being short with me and the kids. So I just ignored it...got the kids in bed and flopped in front of a movie. So the end of the weekend was really a downer....but overall it was a good weekend.
The only other oddity of the week was a new employee my wife hired. She is a tall short haired blond a few years older than my wife. Now my wife is starting to see that as a boss you can't be friends with your employees....just doesn't work well IMHO. So this new woman bought lunch for my wife three times this week. Thursday she commented that the new employee brown nosing was different...but a nice perk to being the boss. Which we laughed at. So my wife took her and another co-worker to lunch Friday (making up for the previous bought lunches by both of them)....during which the new employee asked my wife to go to the movies. I think it unnerved my wife a little bit. She is unsure if the the new woman is gay...but she said that it felt like the woman was pursuing her. I didn't say much...but it is odd that a new employee takes the boss out to lunch three times in a week and then asks her to go to the movies.
Thoughts on that last part Jack? I am not concerned at this point.....or maybe I am over concerned. I guess I am slightly confused....lol.
Well it has been two weeks...so time for an update.
Been busy with business stuff. A couple of small jobs out the door and a lot of proposals. Seems to be a continuing trend for the business...spend days writing proposals for nothing. A catch-22 of sorts. I need to write the proposals to get the work....but it gets very tiring and frustrating writing proposal after proposal.
The kids...I need help. I just cannot seem to get them to clean at all. So I am open to suggestions. I have tried the hardass approach (didn't work), being friendly and help (seems like I am the one cleaning), and a reward system. Now my consistency sometimes lacks....but after a week things tend to fall downhill with children fighting cleaning up their messes. I didn't sleep well last night and woke once again to kids stuff littered all over the house. It is frustrating as hell. Maybe I am just getting stay at home mom worn out. Just seems that every time I clean something....a child comes along making more of a mess.
My son started baseball this last week. He has played soccer since he was 4, but he decided to try baseball. So I got him a baseball glove and hardball. So with that our new habit is to play catch every afternoon. So far he is making huge strides and parents and coaches alike have noted that they can't believe this is his first season of baseball. (Note to above- he really isn't the mess maker of my two children at this point).
Wife-I guess we may be going through the smaller coaster of piecing. We have been spending some afternoons together and talking a lot. This weekend was deeper than usual..
She is reading a self-help book that comes with a work book. So she has been doing the writing assignments that come with each chapter. Pretty deep questions about essential self (the self we want/need to be) and social self (The self that is demanded by friends, etc).
Her break down of me is that I am her best friend and the only person she truly trusts and can be comfortable with. That she looks forward to talking to me and knows that she can count on me to turn to. That downer of course is that she feels no passion towards me what so ever. She also noted that I am one of the only "right" things she has ever felt in her life. She has also taken to calling me sweetie or babe again...
She did say the following sentence kind of defines her essential self;
"If it isn't perfect, it isn't right"
That is a tough one for me. How can one be perfect? I really think "perfect" is not achievable. There is always more perfect? So how do you live with a person who expects perfection? I am mentally flopping at the moment.
I know that I cannot make her world perfect....so why does it challenge me so?
I like the way you think Lost, have for a long time.
I belive you can strive for perfection...that should be the goal, but perfection is an ideal, beyond man.
From the web:
Surprisingly, a fine Persian rug will almost always include intentional imperfections. In fact, there's an old Persian proverb that says, "A Persian Rug is Perfectly Imperfect, and Precisely Imprecise". This notion of intentionally including slight and minor irregularities is derived from the religious belief that God is the only perfect being and that attempting absolute perfection would be claiming the position of the Almighty
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Pretty deep questions about essential self (the self we want/need to be)
Wouldn't this...SELF define who your friends were? And if that is true then...that should be the self demanded by friends right? Otherwise it seems to me...like someone is wearing a mask
And friendship is inheirently selfish. A friend wants times, and you want your friend's time.
Have you asked her about what she sees as...passionate?
Last edited by Jack_Three_Beans; 03/22/1004:26 PM.
Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn. - C.S. Lewis
Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B. - Jack3Beans
Listen without defending; Speak without offending - FaithinAK
I have to agree with the Persians about perfection...maybe a step further in saying that true beauty is not defined by the perfection of an object, but by it's individualistic imperfections.
Maybe the issue of perfection may be what defines whether our marriage survives or crumbles. I don't expect perfection from anyone, just that they try to the best of their ability to be all that they can be. As long as some one is trying to be better.....they are doing pretty good in my book.
If I strived for perfection in everything, wouldn't I then eventually find imperfection in the perfection I created? So could it be that my wife has this floating picture of perfection in her head. Say cooking....initially in her perfect picture I cooked once in a while...then after time once in awhile wasn't perfect enough. So then it was perfect that I cooked all the time....which soon turned into cooking a perfect meal all the time. Maybe I am just way off base and getting to close to her issue than just accepting I am not perfect...LOL. The weird part....is she just has this way about her that makes me want to be better than what I am.
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Wouldn't this...SELF define who your friends were? And if that is true then...that should be the self demanded by friends right? Otherwise it seems to me...like someone is wearing a mask
I think that you have hit on is where the self-help author is going. That you should let your "self" define your "social" person as opposed to the other way around. Yet as humans we let society define us. When my wife was deep in her MLC her friends would say she was the "center of the party", need to be around large groups of people, and was the party starter. Yet now, as before MLC, she says she much prefers to be alone or spending quality time with one person. So MLC helped her make a mask of her inner self.......Maybe that is really a way to understand MLC. Not an unveiling of true self, but instead a mask to hide the pain of the repressed inner self.
I am going to dwell on that! I do agree though that friendships are inherently selfish. Almost any relationship is.....but maybe that is why some people search for a lifetime for inner peace...so they can have a relationship with god or self that is free from want.
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Have you asked her about what she sees as...passionate?
I am going to ask. Off the cuff I think it would mean anything to her tied to yearning. We have plenty of intimate moments in deep conversation one on one. Beyond that though...I just don't know.
I usually try to go two weeks between posts, but this was a weekend worthy of posting.
Friday- During the day my wife contacts me....makes it a point that she wants us to go out for lunch. Have an enjoyable lunch, but here is the twist. Her co-worker comes along also....after lunch my wife mentions that she had just wanted lunch to be the two of us.
That evening when I leave for work....she mentions how she wished that I could stay home with her instead of going to work.
Saturday-We split the day up...she takes my daughter to the mall looking for boots. I take the boy to baseball practice and then we go grocery shopping. So we finish up our individual stuff with the kids around 5:30...I am beat from being up to 4 the night before and looking at the same for Saturday night...so instead of cooking....family visit to an Italian restaurant. Goes good, kids behaved, food is excellent....wife mentions that she has had a super day.
Sunday-I am completely wiped out (staying up to 4 is just not that fun anymore...LOL). That said, children don't understand sleeping in and wake us up. So I make pancakes for the family and then make a big batch of meatballs....yummy. We settle down for an afternoon movie and the wife insists that I sit next to her.....wow. Then a bigger wow.....wife tells me "For the first time in years....I really liked being home with my family for the weekend".....wow. Then we make a cheesecake as a family....unheard of a mere six months ago.
