Just Another Post of Bitching About How Shitty My Life Is

I've been trying, really trying, to be compassionate and understanding. It's what my therapy is all about these days, and for awhile it really seemed to be working--my relationship with J. really seemed to be on an upswing. I felt hopeful and optimistic. Then J. got depressed and it seems all the progress I thought we made went out the window.

I still want to be a compassionate person, so I'm still trying. But damn, it's hard. I've been sick, more or less, for the last two weeks and still, J. has done little to nothing to help out around here. A few examples: While J. worked Saturday morning, I watched Bubba and did all the laundry--at least five loads. It got backed up waiting for things to dry so when J. came home I asked if he could keep it going. This meant he would need to dry and bring up two loads of laundry. Nope, he didn't do it. I even had to rewash a load yesterday because it had gotten sour. I didn't complain or bitch. I just did it and stomped around so he'd know I wasn't pleased. He didn't even say he was sorry.

The only other thing I asked him to do this weekend was clean his shit stains out of the toilet on Saturday before the babysitter (that he'd hired so he could go to the casino with his friends while I did Girl's Night) came over. Said he would; I ended up doing it Sunday night.

Awhile back, I nagged at J. about a hundred times to not leave his meds right next to the edge of the counter where Bubba can get them. Finally, I had to tape a bright orange sign on the counter next to his meds saying "Please Place Meds Away From Counter Edge." Now he's good about that, but he leaves lighters all over the place. So now I've had to nag at him a million times not to do that, and he still does. Today I found one on the floor next to the couch. I suspect it fell out of his pocket, but jesus! We have a two-and-a-half-year-old for crying out loud! On a similar note, yesterday Bubba grabbed J.'s razor off the counter and tried to "shave" with it. No harm done because I caught it in time, but now this is something new I'll have to yell at J. about. He does shit like leave the computer charger plugged into the wall but not the computer, so if Bubba happened to find it, he could easily electrocute himself. This is ridiculous. I should not be the only one thinking about Bubba's safety.

J.'s cell phone does not work properly. This is kind of a sore spot anyway, because when he got a cell phone (about 2 years ago now, I think) he decided he must have the new Razr phone, even though it cost him like $200 or something when he'd just borrowed $300 from me because he couldn't make ends meet. He also got it from a different provider than I have, so we can't call each other for free (he did this because of their "awesome" deal on the Razr.) Then, not too long after he got it, it began malfunctioning. Many times, it doesn't ring, so he doesn't know if I'm calling or not. I also cannot leave a voice mail message because J. has never gotten around to setting up his mailbox. So I can call and call and call and he may or may not realize I'm calling. At least 50 to 75 percent of the time I cannot reach him. Yet he still doesn't go get it fixed or replaced. Plus, he doesn't answer his phone at work if there's a customer in his office. So if there ever was a real emergency, my chances of reaching him are at around 25 percent.

J. is the primary user of our car, since I often ride the bus when the weather is halfway decent. The thing is like a garbage can on wheels. Old bags of fast food, empty cigarette boxes, lighters all over the place, the miscellaneous sock here and there, half-filled sippy cups full of old milk. It stinks and it is disgusting. I've cleaned it out myself many times but it ends up like this in a matter of days, and no matter how much I complain it does no good. And, in fact, Sunday night he bitched at me for leaving a shopping bag of stuff in the back of the car, which had been there for exactly 7 hours.

Likewise, his room--which I've talked about here before--is such a disaster that I can't sleep in there anymore, and I've told him this, but it makes no difference.

My dad actually had a discussion with me last week about how he notices that J. doesn't do a damn thing around here and that he was getting disgusted about it and wanted to give J. a piece of his mind. I managed to thwart that from happening, since I know it won't do any good, but I don't blame him. My mom and dad come out every Monday to watch Bubba, and dad almost always does some shit that J. should be doing, like taking back the recycling or doing yardwork, and J. just lets it go again. Even my dad is getting frustrated with it. To top it all off, whenever my parents do something around the house, J. gets embarrassed and says "they really shouldn't do that stuff. Tell them not to do that stuff anymore." Well, I'm not going to tell them, because I need some fucking help around here! I don't have the time or the energy to clean the entire house, do all the laundry, do all the grocery shopping, do all the cooking, watch Bubba AND clean the garage, take back the recycling, clean out the car, mow the lawn and shovel the walk.

I don't know how to deal with this. I've set him up with a therapist. I think it was helping him, even though a lot of their conversations seemed to be about movies and music; but recently he decided things were going "so well" that he would wait to make the next appointment. It's been about three weeks now and he hasn't gone. I pretty much forced him to see a psychiatrist and cajoled him to take medication, which he now does willingly...but it's just not enough. You have to want to change and it takes a little bit of goddamn effort. I'm really disappointed because things were going so well there for awhile--and now I realize that it wasn't a real change, just another upswing on the bell curve that is our relationship. I find myself wondering if I could have done better. I find myself wondering if I would be better off now if only I had had the self-esteem when I was younger to be able imagine that someone else could find me attractive. Now I pretty much assume that if we get divorced, I'll just be single forever...and truthfully, that doesn't sound so terrible.

Well, I guess I've just written another post "bitching about how shitty my life is" as J. would say. To keep with my earlier promise, now I will try to think of something funny or lighthearted to post. Okay, this falls into the category of dark humor...which happens to be my favorite category. I hope you find it as amusing as I did.

My bus friend, Martha, was telling me that her elderly father died in January. He was an asshole, so she was pretty much okay with it and relieved. Anyway, she said it was apparently a bad week in his town, because the funeral home was hoppin'. When she went there to find out when her father could be cremated, the funeral home director said: "Well, since you're not having a visitation or anything...we might be able to squeeze him in."