May 28, 2012
I have always professed to believe that the only healthy relationship is one created by two full, healthy individuals. I have a physical reaction to the term, “my better half.” Imagine gagging.
As Alanis Morissette says in her song, “Not the Doctor”, “I don’t want to be your other half, I believe 1 and 1 make 2.”
Except, 2 might mean 2 people only able to do half the chores.
Not to be a martyr, but it often feels like I do more than my half. Does that make me Hubby’s better 2/3rds or 3/4ths?
Hubby will be the first to admit he has never washed clothes. The story – 27 years later – goes that he purposefully messed up a load of wash, everything was pink, so he would never have to do laundry again. The few times I have held out and not done his laundry, he has dug dirty clothes out of the basket and put them on his body. I will not say he wore them, because I was unable to call his bluff, so codependent am I that I believe his disgusting smell is a poor reflection on me.
Hence, I have always done the laundry.
I have also mowed the lawn, fixed the plumbing, painted the house, and killed or removed any vermin from the house or close proximity to Hubby. I used to think this made me a feminist. Well, I am rethinking that assessment and wondering if I’m not just being taken advantage of.
Take for instance the dish washing in the house. Okay, the dishwasher has been broken for over a year. It has not been fixed because A – if we have to replace it, we will also have to break out the tile floor (this I’ll save for another blog) and B – a dear friend was astonished that “with only 3 people in the house” I had need of a dishwasher.
Anyway, Hubby and I had been taking turns doing the dishes, but taking turns turned into him doing the dishes and me redoing the dishes. I explained several times that he could not wash glasses after pots and pans. These directions did not sink in. Maybe it was manipulation… it worked.
I now do the dishes happily. And if this bothered me, I probably wouldn’t still be happily married. Because 1 and 1 make 2 and so does 1.75 and .25.
Lest, you think I’m a martyr, while doing the dishes recently I was watching Hubby mow the lawn – he has taken these duties over because I didn’t even want a lawn – and wander around the yard trying to look busy so I didn’t put him to work in the house. I watched him wander over to a fruit tree.
The fruit tree was leaning west. I had pounded in an old shovel handle and tied the tree to it. The tree still bent west, like praying to Mecca, but it was good enough in my mind. A little praying never hurt anyone, or anything for that matter. Apparently, it was not good enough for Hubby, who got a proper steel fencing post and retied the tree so that it was standing up at attention. I think I saw it salute.
While I was washing the final greasy pans, I thought about my “good enough” tree care and Hubby’s “good enough” dish washing.
Okay, okay, so maybe 1 and 1 make 2 happily married.
This week I will do a few more “good enough” jobs to be sure Hubby is a full 1 in our addition equation.
