Creating My Husband
I’m sure this is a pretty standard issue in most marriages.
I want to be able to determine my husband’s priorities. LIke, completely. Totally. I want to be able to dictate where and when he does things, and make him want to do things that I want him to do.
For example (you didn’t think I’d leave you hanging, did you?) he’s out back right now building a garden. I kid you not, he has wood and soil and starter plants…he’s all about it. His father is a pretty great backyard gardener, so I’m not surprised. But there’s this writing work he’s supposed to be doing for me at some point.
Here is where we differ in priorities.
I’m having a birthday party on June 28th (are you coming? You’re so invited! Email me for location info!) and he wants the backyard to look lovely and be done with the garden and all the deep cleaning he’s doing so people don’t come over and wonder how we don’t all die of cholera.
But I want him to be doing the writing work because my number one priority is to be debt free by the time the girls are both in kindergarten. At least down to being debt free with a mortgage. See, I’m flexible!
The sick, sick thing is that his priority is me, and my priority is the family finances. So I’m in this awful place where I feel like I can only push so much, because he’s not even behind on schedule for the writing work!
Guess who is behind in their writing work? Guess who is missing a deadline as I type this blog entry…
Yeah, it’s not him, I’ll tell you that much.
Maybe I’m focusing on him so I don’t have to look at the work I need to be doing and just…well…don’t want to. Both projects put me in a less than desirable place. I don’t know if I can do one project as well as it needs to be done, and the other project…let’s just say it doesn’t pay that well. I’m too old for prestige projects. You know, the ones that give you little money and big bragging rights. I don’t want bragging rights, I want money.
Gosh…I sound really horribly, evilly greedy financially driven, don’t I?
Maybe just a tad bit ungrateful too.
Perhaps it’s that I’m still hanging on to the barely perceptible undercurrent of bitterness that was the first four years of our marriage where my husband didn’t have a full time job. Maybe I’m still living in the place of fear that we won’t be able to pay our next electric bill. Maybe the food pantry visits aren’t far enough behind me to see myself in a new light.
How can I transition from being scared all the time to being secure in the place I’m in now?
How do I stop feeling poor and scared and like I’m scratching to get to a place where I can relax? When does the relaxing actually occur? I have this sick feeling that there will always be some other out of reach goal I set for myself in order to throw my poor nose into yet another grindstone.
It seems that no matter what I accomplish, no matter what new thing I learn how to do…every time I choose not to work (because in my world, relaxing is choosing not to work) I feel overwhelmed with guilt and a horrible sense of shame that I’m not doing everything I can for my family and my future.
How can I change my perception of myself on a deep enough level that I don’t hate myself when I’m not working, and never feel like I accomplish enough during the times I do work?
I wish there was a bell curve I could reference and know for sure. Am I doing better than 80% or am I in the lower 20th percentile? Where am I?
Gosh, I’m introspective today. All because my husband decided to build a garden.
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6 Responses to “Creating My Husband”
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Yep – I’m a Joiner!
You are in the upper 10%. Seriously. You aren’t being foreclosed on, you have food in the kitchen and $ in the bank. You are a-ok. Even people living on a dollar a day get to relax.
((hugs))
sometimes it’s difficult to let go and enjoy the present feast when one has been so deeply effected by past famines, whether financial or otherwise. All part of our being human.
Maybe consciously finding ways to carve out relax time would help you meet your deadlines.
themommykelly’s last blog post..Princess Point of View: After All
I relate to what you are saying on so many levels. This is going to sound far out, new-age freaky, but live as if you have enough money (I don’t mean spend beyond your means, I mean, in your mind, accept that you have *abundance*).
It’s sort of like “The Secret” or Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization, but I have found that it really does work. Especially in cases where what is “blocking” you is your own fear. You don’t want to operate from a place of fear, but from a place of abundance, and goals, and doing things out of love.
Or maybe I’m just rambling cuz I haven’t had my coffee yet.
hey… heard a NASTY rumor that you’re going to Blog Her…
See you there?
Heather @ Desperately Seeking Sanity’s last blog post..Will it always be this way?
Nope. I was going to BlogHer…but then we decided paying off the car would be a better option.
So next year is going to be conference year.
I’m also missing BlogWorldExpo.. .I just want to be able to have fun at the events and not worry about budgeting every minute and every drink and every entree.
Have fun!
bummer…
i wanted to FINALLY meet you!!!
Heather @ Desperately Seeking Sanity’s last blog post..A whole lotta random…