Regarding voice mail - I do text my H all the time, however, there are some times you need to leave a voice mail message, like when I’m driving and I need to get some info to or from him. I do not text and drive or text and read and only voice dial in my car…really don’t like to talk on the phone in my car but sometimes I have to (yes, I could pull over). So, yes, he does need to listen to my vm so I don’t have to repeat again what I said and maybe leave out something important because I’m frustrated I’m having to repeat what I’ve already left in detail on his phone vm. Can you tell it’s getting to me now!
My home phone emails me a recording when someone leaves it a vm and I can listen to it at my convenience. I never seem to get the various Drs. and various service contractors to call the right telephone numbers even though I give them my cell, they end up calling the home number.
I am definitely the one who does the nagging about stuff that H does over and over. Occasionally he calls me out about leaving every TV on in the house - which is my only fault.
I wasn’t going to comment because I figured they are only little things and I should count my blessings but then I walked into the kitchen and saw that the dishes that had been in the sink he rinsed and stacked next to it. Not in the dishwasher but on the counter. Why? How much harder is it to put them in the dishwasher than on the counter ABOVE the dishwasher? I would have been less mad if he had just left them in the sink. So I angrily and loudly put them in the dishwasher and ran it. He was oblivious to what I was trying to say.
Then he walked in here to tell me that he had put jam on the grocery list. Yes. I know. I can read. That’s the point of a grocery list.
@mom2collegekids: “Before we married, he PROMISED that if I cooked, he would do the dishes. It took him 30 years to finally make good on that promise! Progress. lol”
Yeah, I’m still waiting for this one to make good on the “If you have the kids, each night after dinner, I will bathe them” promise. Mind you, at this point they are old enough for us to remind them that one day we will need them to change our diapers. (BTW, your comment to my breathing response is like therapeutic insight, yet terribly funny.)
To the parent whose kids beg to be spanked instead of lectured: that is hilarious.
H gets to spend a lot of free time on his hobby. If one knows the way their spouse grew up and what ‘stuck’, one can figure out why certain things makes their spouse happy. Hobby makes H happy; he did similar hobby as a youth. It dominates his conversations with me, but it makes him happy. Sometimes he over-talks it with the kids too and I have to shut that down.
We all have faults, but when one is complaining, complaining - is that something someone wants to respond to positively? H is the complainer, but he has about quit. Two ways I got him to quit - first would say in a soft voice “if you were talked to that way, would it motivate you to do XYY?” I also would say “I am doing the best I can.” Then when that stopped working “Well, when I die, you will have $XXX,XXX life insurance, and you can do what you want”. Since I am a stage III cancer survivor, that does get his attention.
H gets reminders from others we know that have divorced, man very unhappy about very significant things, or very difficult relationship situations. Some of the problem is his dad needed training and never got it - mom took on way too much and put up with way too much, either silently or some passive-aggressive jabs she would sneak in w/o the dad even realizing he made a fool of himself.
Overall, H does recognize in pieces that he has it pretty good with me. Kids are great. I am not argumentative, I keep myself attractive looking and a happy outlook. I do most household chores, and don’t say anything when H leaves things out for me to put away (subconsciously I believe it is a bit either attention seeking or wanting me to ‘take care’ of him). I have done well with managing our finances (it took our male financial adviser mentioning how great of shape we were in at three different meetings before it sank in for H, and H finally realized that although I spend money, I am not an over-spender).
I have had to make transitions that have me being less superficial about the way the house looks. It needs de-cluttering, then will be easier to clean. Working on it but have other things more important to me.
He controls the remote. I have seen more car shows than I ever thought possible.
He eats Cheerios. I loathe Cheerios. The smell. The sound of him chewing.
When he goes into our room, he turns on his bedside lamp instead of the overhead light, and when he leaves the room, leaves that light on. If I go up to bed before him, I have to deal with his stupid light. It’s a king size bed and too far for me to reach. (Ha)
I went to input the password to the wifi at our new vacation place. It wouldn’t work. Why? Because he’d written in all caps and that what I typed. Silly me! I forgot he’s an engineer and EVERYTHING is written in caps, even if it is lower case.
31 years and still (mostly) happily married
I was on the receiving end of the criticisms with former fiancé, so I keep quiet about things my best male buddy does. I praise him for doing clean-up, for picking up a few grocery items or take-out food, for helping me with iPhone and computer glitches. He tells me how beautiful I am and what a good cook I am, neither of which are true. He helps my friends/relatives when they need something. :-SS
Okay, I’m starting to wonder if my DH is one of those who has another secret family stashed away somewhere.
I used to get really upset about the dishwasher thing at 5 in the am because I felt like DH was being passive aggressive (annoyed that I’m able to sleep in). I finally just got over it and I don’t even hear it anymore.
I call DH “Mr. Clean,” but one thing he never does is put anything INTO the dishwasher. Can’t quite figure that one out.
DH is a talker. He thinks every vacant pause in a conversation gives him the right to blabber and blabber, even if its not relevant to the conversation. To make matters worse, he’s a loud talker. Yes, he’s that guy in a restaurant whose voice (and conversation) can be heard by all the other diners. I’m constantly saying “shush” to him. I don’t think our private matters need to be picked up by everyone around. Sometimes I think he’s got a hearing problem and he doesn’t realize how loud he can be. He loves to work with his earbuds in and the music cranked up.
My husband goes out of his way to avoid calling me by my name and has never explained why.
If absolutely necessary, he will refer to me by my first name when speaking to others, but he has used my name when speaking to me less than 20 times in a 39-year marriage.
I will probably die without ever knowing the reason for this.
Perhaps he had a bad relationship with someone with your name. He fell in love with you in spite of the similar name. Too bad he use a nickname for you.
What does he call you? Honey? Sweetheart? DH was the only guy I dated who called me by pet names. At first I was embarrassed by it, but I gradually began to like it in spite of myself.
For some reason this reminded me of that Seinfeld episode where he doesn’t ever refer to his girlfriend by name because he doesn’t know it. He didn’t catch it at first and is embarrassed to admit it to her. One day she sighs, embraces him, and says “Oh, Jerry!” He replies “Oh…YOU.”
I have to say I can see how this might be a little puzzling to you.
He doesn’t call me anything – which is not conspicuous now that we are empty nesters and was similarly inconspicuous before we had children. After all, if he’s speaking to someone in our house, he must be speaking to me because nobody else is there (except on rare occasions). But when our children were living at home, it was bizarre. That was the era of landlines, and when he would answer the phone and the call was for one of them, he would call the child by name. But if it was for me, he would yell “Phone for you” without giving any name, which confused the heck out of the kids until they figured it out.
I’m not sure whether he had a bad early experience with a person who shared my name or whether he’s afraid to call me by name because he might use the wrong name (perhaps the name of someone he dated before me or someone he fantasizes about). It’s also possible that it’s an ethnic thing. We are from different ethnic groups, and my first name is one that is not traditionally used by people of his ethnicity. So he may feel weird about being married to someone with that first name.
Pet names don’t come into the picture. He doesn’t like them. In fact, he used to criticize me for calling our children by pet names. He thought it was silly (which is not unreasonable, I suppose).
I don’t really mind this strange phenomenon much anymore. I’m just dying to know the reason why, and I don’t think he will ever tell me.
I asked him once, many years ago, and he evaded the question.
I haven’t asked again. I’m kind of afraid of the answer. If it’s something like, “I might accidentally call you by the name of my second cousin, whom I’ve had a crush on since we were teenagers,” it could be difficult for him to tell me that to my face. (And in fact, he did have a crush on his second cousin when they were teenagers.)
I’d kind of like to find out the reason why through a third party. That way, there would be no embarrassment, but my curiosity would be satisfied. But the trouble is, the only other people who are really aware of it are our children (who are now in their late 20s). They’re not likely to ask their father something like that.
OK, so taking some of DD’s stuff to her tonight (100 mi away) - I wanted her to take it all when she moved into spacious apt (with at least one extra empty closet), but she is the type that can’t handle when she feels she is on overload. So now that she wants her winter stuff, I told her she can sort through it all at her apt over time and she is fine with that. So I have bins that I looked through and stacked to go into the vehicle (which I cleaned the mats etc) - H knew what I was doing but he stayed in his man cave so I would do all the work. He had time to get his fun run in but I ran out of time.
This is a day after my B-Day, when he didn’t purchase what I asked for - just had me ask again about it on my B-Day (he made a disparaging comment about me not using the item; it is under $100 and I know I will use it - a DVD player so I can watch movies by my exercise equipment - that TV doesn’t have cable). He has really been a jerk about that. Last C-Mas DD and H tried to get something I would want (instead of just asking me; I could have had the DVD player then). I wouldn’t have bought the item they chose, but I am using it.
The one best gift item was a lap top that I use all the time. I had wanted it; H thought I would hardly use it…sometimes I think his brain is on another planet.
I guess he wants me to play the game of asking him weekly on a lull from his hobby talk (which his hobby takes up about 20 hours a week, no kidding).
Men can be very selfish.
I asked to go to a movie for Valentine’s and he was a real jerk; I got very upset. So after going to his man cave for a while, he decided yes we should go. It wasn’t like a guy wouldn’t like the movie (American Sniper). I wanted to see it on the big screen and in our nice theater. Of course he took any joy out of being with him with his asinine behavior.
This week he talked about wanting to see The Martian. I looked up the times and asked him his preference; we went on my B-Day after I went on-line and bought the ticket (we saw it in 3 D in the very nice theater, the day after the 3D showing opened). I enjoyed it, but these kind of things are a bit demeaning. As another said, I am often treated like the secretary. I also put up with hearing a lot of conversation about his hobby. Most of my conversation is updating him on the kids.
H also suffers some from low self esteem - he often acts like I am ‘talking down’ to him. I have to be very careful on tone and words.
I worked with a guy who loved to complain about his wife. He always referred to her as “SHE” or “THE WIFE” in a condescending tone of voice. I never heard him use her name once. He was not a pleasant person.
