Domestic dispute
James and I really got into it this morning. And over the dishes, of all things.
As it stands right now, I tend to do most of the housework. James is working longer hours than I am, so I try to help out by cooking dinner and cleaning up. Generally, I don’t mind doing it. We’re a team, and we each do our part to make the household run smoothly.
But for some reason this morning, I don’t know if I just woke up grumpy, but I was really resentful. Every morning we come downstairs and he gets on his laptop and I clean up the kitchen (we won’t mention how much easier my life would be if I could just muster up the energy to clean up the kitchen the night before — that’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax). And every morning, just as I’m finishing up, he comes over and says, “Oh, do you need help?”
I wasn’t going to say anything, but this morning he could tell I was annoyed and wouldn’t leave it alone. So I finally told him I needed help. He said he’s told me I just have to ask for it. I reminded him that the last time I asked him to bring me dishes from the living room, he blew up at me, saying he was busy and working.
So we yelled and fought and I missed swimming because he wouldn’t let me leave without some sort of a resolution. We were actually late to work.
It became such a big deal, to me, at least, because as I was washing dishes this morning, a vision of slaving away in soapy water for the rest of my life flashed before my eyes. Tomorrow is May 1. Tomorrow we pick up the keys to our new place. After tomorrow, we will no longer have a housekeeper (that’s a long story — I housesit, the owner employs a housekeeper, but she’s paid to keep up the house, not clean up after us, so I still end up doing a lot of cleaning). I am so not resigning myself to being a household drudge. This is not how our marriage will be.
At the end, he realized that sometimes when I ask him to do something, it actually does matter if he does it right away or in five hours. And I promised that I would try asking for help again instead of letting the resentment build.
This is probably the third or fourth time we’ve had this fight. I really hope we are getting closer to resolving this issue.
