This comic has been making the rounds on facebook and has started a lot of conversations that I have been a part of. I like it. I don't think it's fully representative of every couple's lives, and obviously every family is different, but I do think the general idea is correct the grand majority of the time.
Here's how it's NOT representative of my family's life: If I were to "ruin" something because I was doing too much, my husband would not say "What did you do? What did you ruin?" He would jump up and say "What happened? Are you okay?" and try to help fix it.
Here's another way it's not representative of my family's life: I have a partner, and my partner is helpful. When I get home from grocery shopping, he usually (unless he's in the middle of something for work or doesn't hear me come in) unloads the groceries with me, and takes everything out of the bags.
But here's how it is representative:
I go to the grocery store once a week. There are things I get weekly, like jelly and eggs and salsa, even though I don't eat jelly or salsa, I know that C goes through a lot of it and it's almost always empty. I go through a lot of eggs, so I just pick them up. Before I go, I ask "is there anything you know we need?" and 99% of the time, he says no.
The next day I find out we're out of chicken nuggets. And butter. And bread. And Capri Sun. And milk. I rarely if ever use these items so I don't know when we're out. We don't go through them weekly so I don't just get them. Now I have a second trip to the grocery - yes, he could go but he doesn't and I generally like the grocery shopping and I do all the cooking and like certain brands etc so it's on me. Also, I work outside the home and C works at home so it makes more sense for me to include the trip on my way home. And that's fine ONCE A WEEK.
Here was my day yesterday, which I think gives a good representation of real life occurrences:
I had a meeting out of town, so I left home at regular time. I do not do morning kid school readying, that is all my husband. I usually make school lunches for the week on Sunday to help him out, but I didn't Sunday bc we were out doing fun stuff, so he had a little more than usual but I still didn't help. I got myself ready (after he woke me up because that is our dynamic. I can't hear a morning alarm ever).
I drove 2 hours to work. I worked. I drove two hours back.
My mom needed to give me something, so I went to her work to retrieve that and talked to her for a few minutes.
I went to the grocery store. While I was there, I texted my husband (working from home) if there was anything we needed while I was there. He said no. I did remember chicken nuggets because we were out last time I tried to feed the kids chicken nuggets.
I came home and we unloaded the car together, and put away all the food. I took out shrimp to defrost for dinner that night. He had a load of kid laundry running (!!!) so I got our joint dirty laundry out of the bathroom and added all dirty laundry languishing on our floor or my dresser (I fully admit this is also a joint problem) and put it in the hallway on the way to the garage door, so when it was time to change out the laundry, our load could be put in.
Then I started a hardboiling eggs while listening to a podcast.
While my eggs were cooking, C and I had a conversation about the tent he ordered and the boxes that it came in, and we thought it was funny that Francine camped out in one of the boxes. He picked up the first empty box to put in the recycling and then set it down again on the fireplace to discuss the cat. There it stayed.
He then got all the baseball stuff together for the kids (They aren't home on Mondays so this falls to us completely) and took the laundry out of the dryer (that I washed on Saturday) and put the load he did in the dryer. He then walked past our hamper no less than five times. I could have said something about that hamper of clothes. Maybe I should have. I'm not fuming about it but I just DON'T UNDERSTAND. It's your own hamper. You know why it's there. It's certainly not clean clothes.
He left the house about 5:20pm, to pick up one of Spencer's teammates and meet at the field. When he left, I was looking up new sports glasses for S because he sat on his (sigh). While he was on the way to the field I texted him and asked him to put his own glasses on S so we could see how that width looked on him, because I was having trouble visualizing it and knew the size those glasses were. I know he saw the text because he responded to another part of the same text. But I didn't get a response.
While everyone was gone, I started a load of laundry. Then I started to make lunches for the kids for the rest of the week so it's easier on morning routine. I couldn't find all the plastics we use for the lunches bc the tops were shoved up with the leftovers tupperware, and that cupboard was overflowing. C had complained a couple days ago that we had too much tupperware and it was falling on his head. So I stopped making lunches to reorganize the plastics so they were properly stowed. Back to lunches. However, C had finished both the bread and the lunch meat and didn't take any out of the freezer so I couldn't finish that task because I had to do it. I stripped our bed and started another load of laundry.
By this time, I was thoroughly annoyed so I went for my evening run. It was awesome. I went 5.75 miles, I ran more than I walked and overall, it was an excellent run. I was in a better mood when I got home.
Back home. Put that last load of laundry in the dryer, BSd on the internet a bit (mostly responded several times related to this comic) and scrolled through instagram. Started dinner (shrimp and mac and cheese for the kids, shrimp on salads for me and C). C texted at 8:40pm with a picture of Spencer in his glasses (too big, good thing I didn't order) and that they were on their way home from baseball practice.
I had just finished making dinner. Made sure the bathrooms were ready for kids to shower and plated dinner.
C got the kids showered in respective bathrooms (this is mostly them with us barking at them to get moving because they dawdle getting undressed and spend most of the shower singing and dancing or practicing their baseball in the shower.) Then we all sat down to eat (about 9pm). I'm the last to sit and first to finish, as is my way. I half-cleaned the kitchen while I was plating dinner, but C finished the kitchen cleaning and the kids put their own dishes in the dishwasher (after "gentle" reminders), get 10 minutes to watch the baseball game on tv and then head to bed. This is an hour past their bedtime but I've started being resigned to the way things are on baseball practice nights. I make salads for myself for lunches and then reclean the kitchen afterward.
All the laundry is finally finished, so I sort through and make a pile of C's clothes, leave all the kids' clothes on the chair, and fold and hang my own stuff. Usually I'll either a) fold all of it and make the kids put their own away or b) fold mine and C's and make the kids do their own. While I do this, C made himself a bowl of cereal and sits next to the laundry to eat. This time I've decided I'm only doing what's important to me, which is my own clothing folded and hung and I matched all the socks for the kids and myself. I am a rare person that feels real satisfaction by matching socks and REALLY hates unmatched socks in a drawer, which is what will happen if left. I pick up the dry sheets and take them to the bedroom to make our bed, and C follows (without me asking) and helps remake the bed while complaining that we have too many pillows (they're all his, I use one pillow).
By this time it's after 10, so I take a shower and get ready for bed and mess around a little more on the internet. I meant to do some work but in my haste to get to my mom I left my work laptop in the work car, so now I have more to do the next day. I am getting really frustrated by the men on the internet who are telling us THIS IS NOT HOW THINGS ARE MAYBE IT'S YOUR FAULT YOU SET THE EXPECTATIONS. A good male friend who is single and childless inadvertently puts me on edge (probably both our faults). C fell asleep watching the baseball game and mid-argument (seriously, it wasn't a ruse), I realized I never ordered Spencer's sports glasses (now 11pm) so I go back to doing that.
By 11:45pm I'm in bed with a book but I can't concentrate on it and go over what needs to be done for work (that stuff I meant to do today plus tomorrow's stuff, and when is my next out of town meeting? Wednesday. It's Wednesday) and remind myself that there's baseball practice tomorrow again and what I'll be making for dinner - did I put that meat in the fridge to thaw? And this is the last week of school, is there anything I'm forgetting there? I didn't read and now I'm on edge so I take my nighttime anti-depressant and an added sleep aid, abandon my book and wait for drowsiness to hit me so I can get up tomorrow and get back to it.
***
It's not that I don't want help. I don't NEED help, but obviously I overwork myself and I have to force myself to take time for myself (hello running!) but here's the thing: in order to get help, I would need to list out every detail of what is needed to run our lives smoothly, and add to it every time something pops into my head that we need and then I'd need to outline exactly how things need to be done, and exactly when they need to be done. I need to be able to let go of my personal arbitrary timelines that don't matter or my personal way of doing things which is easier said than done AND I realize is my problem and not my family's. I'm coming around to doing this with the kids but I have a hard time with what I feel is training/teaching my husband to be an adult because I'm not his parent. I don't want to say "okay everyone is ready and we should go to Target" and him say "okay, we'll go in twenty minutes WE'RE READY NOW WHY CAN'T WE GO NOW WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH JUST DOING SOMETHING INSTEAD OF PLANNING TO DO IT WHEN YOU'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING IN THE SPACE OF TIME THAT YOU'VE PUT IT OFF?
Here's a final example which I don't know if it highlights the difference between men and women in general or just me and my husband, but whatever. I say: We need to do the laundry on Saturday. If I'm the one doing it, I start a load during breakfast. In an hour, I change it out and start another load. I search through the rooms and make sure I've gotten every stray sock and every pair of gym shorts. In another hour, I cycle another load. I keep doing this until all of them are done. Then I fold it all. I don't always hang the couple of hanging items because I HATE to hang, but I move them to my dresser until I can't stand it anymore and anyhow, they are out of the living room. I'm not claiming I do laundry perfectly. I match all the socks and put the singles in the single bin (yes, I have a bin).
If he's the one doing it, he thinks "okay, I should have the laundry done by bedtime." He goes about his day, and around 3:30 he starts a load. Around 5 he starts another load. If it wasn't put in the hamper (this includes the clothes he discards next to his side of the bed), it doesn't get washed. It all gets dumped on the living room chair. He hates to fold, so it sits there for a couple days until he has the kids fold their laundry and leaves the rest until I get to it. Occasionally he folds our laundry and hangs his own.
Obviously, the answer is somewhere between our systems. But I don't know how to reconcile it and I don't know how to get things out of my head and into the general pot of things that need to be done. And I've written way too many words on this subject and there are things that need doing.
