I admire the bouquet of flowers that currently sit on my end table next to my favorite chair and I'm reminded of the fact that I had brought flowers home for myself more times within just the two months we were separated but still sharing an apartment than he bought them for me in our entire 19 year marriage. I even remember him commenting about more flowers when he saw a bouquet in a vase on the island where I enjoyed my morning coffee.
But this post isn't really about flowers. It's about the lengths I had to go to get him to show up for me in even small ways. I may never have gotten him to buy me flowers but I did find a few ways to get him to occasionally show up for me.
I was tired of managing all his emotions. I was tired of managing the logistics of our life. I was tired of trying to subtly influence the decisions he made that affected both of us to get him to actually accept my input without hurting his ego. And although I didn't understand the extent to which he drained me, I on some subconscious level knew I needed to pull back for my own survival and somehow get him to step up a little.
One way I did that was to get him to fill up my car. I felt so clever especially as it kept working. I had at least two diesel cars in a row during a time period I commuted over 60 miles round-trip daily and never once touched a diesel pump. Whenever my car got low on fuel, I would suggest to my now ex-husband that I put some "good" (road) miles on his car by taking his to work the next day. I knew he cared so much about his car and his commute was city miles that are harder on a vehicle. So I wasn’t surprised when he agreed.
I felt a little guilty as I told my therapist this story because I had manipulated him to get what I wanted. But the reality is I shouldn't have had to manipulate my husband to show up for me as a partner. I shouldn't have needed to go to these lengths to pull him away from his self-absorption to consider me for once and to do his share of life with me. And even in the way I did it, I bargained using something that fed into his selfish pleasures.
Another way I did that is in the shared housework. I knew he had higher cleanliness standards than I did and so I knew he wouldn't be okay just letting it go. So I was less quick to get to the dishes. I didn't rush to get the bathrooms cleaned every week. I stopped vacuuming. Although, he didn't usually use the word, I knew he thought I was lazy and sometimes that bothered me. Sometimes I felt guilty. But I was so tired of all that I was carrying.
When I go back and read my journal entries, I was surprised to learn that I did almost all of the housework in that first apartment after we got engaged. And so much of the furry of cleaning and cooking fell on me each time his parents came to visit after we were married. I had forgotten how the imbalance had started. So there was a time it was tipped completely against me with almost all of it on my shoulders.
And even in my "laziest" period, although the dishes and cleaning might have been 25% me/75% him, the laundry was 90% me, the emotional labor was 90% me, the trip and social planning was 95% me, etc. on top of his expectations that I constantly admire him, validate him, and manage his emotions for him.
Interestingly in the last couple years of our marriage when I started putting boundaries around how long I would listen to his complaining, how much I would manage his emotions for him, how much I would help him manage his mother, and how much I would tiptoe around his ego as I advocated for decisions that were in both our best interests, I started doing more dishes and cleaning. So at every point of our marriage more disproportionately fell on me even as he looked at me as lazy, even as he demanded more, even as he blamed me in the end.
Even coming up with an accurate valuation of our assets and debts and a fair division of them fell on me as we navigated the divorce he wanted for reasons he couldn’t bother to communicate to me. The imbalance permeated every single phase of our marriage no matter how much I tried to pull back and set boundaries.
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