Neagrm

Thanks for the good link about anger, JT. I appreciate the feedback people have given. All these things are inter-related and it really makes me think and look at things I need to be aware of as I read all your responses.

The reminder to look at the good things in the relationship; sometimes that is soooo difficult especially when it seems the negative is slapping you in the face.

Just a little thing, but it's big in its symbology: I sit here in my chair with my laptop (which my husband gave me and maintains for me) and I am looking at a long row of beer glasses he has collected. They were in a cupboard in the kitchen. Several days ago he had an impulse to take them out and line them up on the top shelf here in the living room. He told me he was going to do something with them;take them downstairs. Fine.

The glasses with their myriad colorful logos sit there still, two weeks later, staring me directly in the face, LOL! That shelf holds a lovely antique Seth Thomas clock inherited from great-great grandparents. But now there is a colorful, glassy row of beer souvenirs from every brewery he has visited, hiding the clock because the glasses stretch from one end of the shelf to the other.

My H is gone on a fishing trip. Do I "help" him out with his idea of taking them down the basement? Or do I just leave them there, as I have for several days, and wait for him to stop procrastinating?

I am not a "nagging" wife; that's not my style. But I know a woman who reads her husband the riot act for little things and he toes-the-line. Should I be more assertive and ask him about it? Then throw a tantrum if he doesn't act? Why do I have to sit here and see those glasses cluttering a lovely shelf?

Letting go...letting go. I wasn't paying any attention to them before because he said he was taking them downstairs and I knew he was busy and got side-tracked. But now it's like a blatant statement constantly there in the main traffic area of the house or main sitting/relaxing area, saying, "I drink beer for a hobby! I collect brewery glasses and have made a ritual out of it! And don't you forget it!"

It is my problem now. A constant reminder of his recent problem with drinking; of his desire to go to Oktoberfest (in September at a town nearby); of the ritual he has created around drinking. Even if I "ignore" them, it is a subconscious visual image of a major problem.

I tend to be low key in general and don't get angry much. Maybe I should? Ah well, anyway, the things people have said about letting go, focusing on yourself, and about anger and resentment and detachment, detachment, detachment -- it is all helpful and I am working on it.

I need to detach. But where is the limit between what are healthy boundaries and what is over-compensation? A therapist said to me once, "Your desires and expectations are not unreasonable. You are human and what you've said is not out of line."

Yet, if you have no expectations then you won't feel like you've lost something you deserve. The therapist said, "When you have an intimate relationship with someone, or when you live closely with another and are raising a family, it is reasonable to have certain expectations of each other."

I thought I was expecting too much, but he said I wasn't. Now I forget what else he said after that, lol. But I do know that you cannot expect what the other person cannot give. I have adapted so much over the long years of our marriage, by giving up expectations.

I've forgotten my original point and am getting off on tangents and rambling so I'll stop now. I've decided I'm going to find a box and put those glasses in it and take them downstairs and put them in my husband's room. Then I won't sit here looking at their tacky decoration and it'll help him out too.

Thanks all for listening to me go on and on,
Nea

Gabe

Nea,
It's your house too. I would have packed those suckers up in a heartbeat if they were bothering me. You doing that has nothing to do with him. It has to do with you and your serenity. I bet that Seth Thomas clock looks great now, with all the clutter gone.
Hugs,
Gabe

Lorelai

Nea -
Great post - very thoughtful.

I'm like you - pretty easy going. I can throw a fit occasionally but not very often.

I think the important thing for me to remember is that it doesn't make any difference whether I yell at him or not. It isn't going to determine whether he decides to face his problem or not.

I have decided that the heart of my problem was not the expectations I had of him or of marriage. It was expectations I had of myself. I was disappointed in myself for not respecting myself and not taking care of myself. Bottom line for me is - some people will treat me the way I allow them to treat me.

I'm glad you moved the glasses. Like Gabe says, it's your house too.
I'm glad you're here. Looking forward to getting to know you.
L