Communication

The other night I watched 'He's Just Not That Into You' with my husband. I'm a sucker for most romantic comedies, even if they're not very good. This one wasn't bad. I'd watch it again. I even got a little teary eyed during the part where Ben Affleck shows up and does the dishes, etc. for Jennifer Aniston when her dad's sick. When it was over, my husband declared it "a terrible movie" and launched into a complaint about the fact that Ben Affleck exists. I said the movie was alright. It was entertaining even though some of it was ridiculous, the main girl's insane, and the other one's having some sort of nervous breakdown. And, although I'm not a fan of Mr. Affleck myself, I really liked his character in that movie. He's honest and sincere, and he did exactly the right thing -the single most helpful thing he could do, actually- when his girlfriend was upset and needed him. It was so sweet and thoughtful, I said. My husband just scoffed!

But the next day a strange thing happened. He called me at work and left a message (!) saying "I went to the store and I got soy sauce and Pull Ups. I repeat, I got soy sauce and Pull Ups. That's all." That by itself is pretty big news because just that morning I had mentioned in passing that I had made a recipe for dinner the night before but it hadn't come out right because I realized half way into it that I was out of soy sauce. It's important to note that, since we work different hours and my husband is, um, way too hungry when he gets home to deal with complicated reheating procedures (not lazy, hungry), he doesn't eat what I eat. When I cook it's for me & the kiddo, not for the Mr. So him buying soy sauce for my dinner was awfully nice. Buying soy sauce AND Pull Ups without even being asked to was over the top! Plus he left a message, which he never does.

And it doesn't end there. When I got home after work the stove top was cleaned, the dishes done, and 2 loads of laundry done, too! They weren't folded and one load hadn't made it out of the dryer, but still. He had even done a separate load of whites! I don't ever even do that, not just whites. And to top it all off I later noticed that the window in the bathroom was open so I stepped up onto the edge of the bathtub to close it and I smelled bleach. He had cleaned the tub! With bleach! Amazing.

All this from the same guy who, a few weeks earlier, had laughed at me when I said, "Before you leave for work could you make the beds and clean up the house?"
"Clean up the whole house," he chuckled, shaking his head. Then, seeing the look on my face, he added, "I guess you don't understand how hilarious that is."
"But I'm serious," I said, really seriously. "I clean up the whole house every day. Why shouldn't you do it sometimes?" He just looked exasperated.

I should mention that my husband and I have been having some serious communication problems lately. We have not been meshing well at all for the past several months. He has gotten way too comfortable with leaving all the house & family & responsibility stuff to me so that he can go out and have fun, and I have gotten way too comfortable with blowing him off and doing everything myself because I just don't want to deal with the argument or make the effort to include him in something when I know he'll just drag his feet and I'll feel like I'm raising 2 kids instead of 1. It has taken me awhile to realize that this is why I sometimes find myself feeling mildly disgusted at the sight of him. He's a grown man, right? Why is he acting like a little boy? We needed to talk, obviously, to work it out. So, I keep trying to talk about it and he keeps trying to avoid talking about it by suggesting things for us to do instead.

The movie was one of the things he suggested. I had sort of reluctantly agreed to sit down and watch it with him instead of downloading the pictures from our West Texas trip, or reading my new book, or drawing, which all sounded like more fun than watching a movie after a day of staring at the computer screen at work. But I don't want to be disgusted by the man I'm married to so I joined him on the couch. The movie was fun. We laughed, we complained about the irritating insane girl, he drooled over Scarlett Johannson, and I admired Ben Affleck's sensitive man-ness. If we had watched this a couple of months ago I probably wouldn't have bothered to argue if the movie or any of its actors had a right to exist. I hadn't hit on the idea of trying to fix the problem yet (I was too busy ignoring it) so I probably would have just rolled my eyes and gone to bed with a big, irritated sigh wondering why my husband has to makes jokes about everything. And then in the morning I would tell him to clean the house and he'd roll his eyes and wonder why I'm so demanding. Later, I'd come home and the house would be a disaster but the lawn would be mowed, and I would get good and pissed off because why the hell can't we just communicate?! Didn't I ask him to clean up the house? Who had said anything about the lawn?? Something's always getting lost in translation.

But romantic comedies...that's a language everyone understands, apparently. All those times I had told him I needed help around the house had gotten me bupkus! I just came off as demanding without being able to explain why what I was asking for was important. Men are visual creatures, they say. Although I didn't (and still don't, really) know how to communicate what it is that our relationship needs, it seems that something about seeing the idea in action and then talking about it helps. Suddenly it means something when there's a visual aid. Weird. But useful. I'll have to try that one again sometime. I guess Ben Affleck's existence is not a complete waste after all.

Office Time Wasted: about an hour and a half of typing time.