Having recognized that my main conflict with Daniel is scarcity versus abundance is useful, but it’s not getting me out of the conflict, and that stinks.
Today, I came home from Budokon, all revved up and energized, and found Daniel still in bed (it was noon) idling on the iPad, and Milo searching for cheap toys on Amazon (just like I search, obsessively, for cheap shoes). I’d been gone an hour, and in that time, my little household was in suspended animation. No homework done, no instrument practice, no household chores advanced or completed.
This caused an incredible spike in anxiety for me and a realization. Daniel’s abundance — laying in bed on a Sunday morning as people are wont to do — looks like my scarcity. I believe that his abundance of time and relaxation is predicated on my scarcity of sleep and leisure, particularly on the weekend. I realize that I had just come back from an hour’s workout, which counts as leisure. But I couldn’t get it out of my mind that Daniel’s rest, and Milo’s, would mean more work for me later. It’s the fable of the grasshopper and the ant, but they got married. (I do appreciate that the Wikipedia page I’ve linked to gives all kind of complicating alternative versions that make the ant look at worst morally bankrupt and avaricious, and at best a total pain in the ass.)
And it often does. Or I see many opportunities to define it that way. Daniel buys too many clothes for Milo — and I have to figure out how to make them fit in drawers and how to pack up last year’s excess for Goodwill. Daniel buys too many books, CDs, DVDs (yes — I know, it’s all supposed to be on our laptops and iWhatevers by now) — and I figure out how to store, stack, and sacrifice counter space for them. My biggest fear for the future is that because Daniel eats badly, doesn’t exercise, and generally neglects his health (abundance as indulgence and unwillingness to make an effort), my later years will be confined and circumscribed by caring for him. Which I will do, and learn from, but I fear being unable to leave his side, to travel, to go away for a weekend of yoga, or to visit Milo if (when!) he lives elsewhere.
I see more zero-sum abundance than shared abundance. That’s awful.
I don’t at the moment have any good insights about how to move forward or even about the possibility of thinking differently. Daniel called me out on coming back home and immediately upending the peacefulness of the morning, and he was right, and I’m struggling with that — with my own limits and non-transcendence and non-learning. Other things have transpired that make me pissed at Daniel, and so a path to a new idea is blocked at the moment.
I worry about us at times like this. I worry very much about how we appear to you, readers. This is temporary, but it’s ugly to look at a relationship, even just at the relationship in this moment, and realize that there is not much shared abundance.
In fact, writing this I realize that I am generally threatened by the abundance of others. It’s why some other people’s second children, or third, throw me for a loop. It’s why my sister in law scrambles my circuits so very much — I find her aggressive abundance absolutely terrifying. I suppose it’s better that I know this about myself than that I not, but right now, again, I don’t have any kind of interesting take on it or feeling of repose or any sense that this is the work I have to do. It just feels crummy.
Another Door 
I had a similar conflict with my sedentary spouse this weekend (couch, not bed), so I am in no position to find your situation ugly. I sense it is as old as the bourgeoisie, at least. My frustration comes when I realize that I am the only person in the household bustling and choring, and I begin to ask the children to pull some of their weight. The family joke right now is that I find something for you to do the second you sit back down.
The “solution” I’m playing with is twofold:
1. I am trying to sit first, bustle second. This is hard since I like to have a clean space before I relax, but if I tell the troops, “at 3 we will all spend 20 minutes instilling order,” I allow myself to defer as well.
2. I am asking my husband for small, containable, achievable contributions to the order-instilling. Yesterday I made everyone help to reorganize the play area in our little office. All the small bits–legos, game pieces, plastic soldiers, etc–that had been scattered in baskets and under bookcases we gathered into a pile, and my husband’s job was to find what was meant to be garbage in the pile. B/c I was the one sitting on the floor already elbow-deep, he seemed willing to join in.
The larger question–of abundance itself–I will reserve for a more abundant time in my week!
xo
Having read your blog for a while now, I have seen you comment several times about the abundance of stuff Daniel has/purchases for himself and Milo and you feel a need to make room for these items. You have also shared with us several times your fears of having to take care of Daniel when he is older because he perhaps hasn’t taken good enough care of himself… I can see these are deep worries/problem areas for you. It seems to me you really want to have your space in many ways.
You want to have physical space for your stuff. You want to have time for your interests/yourself because you worry about others not getting the chores done or the other things that need to be done while you are out, you worry they will then fall on you. (and they very well could fall on you). So, it sounds like you are looking for more support/help so that you have more time for yourself. Also, you want an old age that isn’t entirely burdened with the care of another so you can enjoy yourself. I think all these things are fair.
I do not see you and Daniel in a poor light at all. I see you both as human, with your own strengths and weaknesses. I have had more than my share of relationship issues, so I know how these things go.
I also see that you seem to be faced with the problem so many women are today – the idea of how to balance work, home, personal time, chores, working out, etc. It feels at times like we are supposed to do it all but not complain when we aren’t getting what we need for ourselves. That we are constantly supposed to be accomodating others.
But, on the same hand, I am the “go go go” one of our relationship and Ross often questions me on what will happen if a particular chore doesn’t get done. Will anything bad happen? Why does it matter to me so much? Can I prioritize what’s truly important from what I just want to check off my to do list… Therapists have also made me question this. He’s also noted to me how the first words I often speak when I walk in the door are negative ones – about how something isn’t done, something isn’t cleaned up or something isn’t in the right place… His point to me was that one it ends up being a bummer to him when I come home and two something will always be slightly off/wrong/not done when I come home, so perhaps I should focus on what’s good. I felt it was a very valid point – to try to enter the house with optimism – to start the evening off right.
I am slowly adapting, changing, on this. Lately, I have actually been coming home and leaving the house with Ross to take the dog on a walk since we still have daylight and other such things… but it has been SO hard because those things that “need” to be done do feel important to me and questioning my own intentions/desires can be hard for me.
Anyway – this was a LONG ramble but hopefully helpful. You are right, naming isn’t fixing… but fixing can be a long process…..
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