Monday, May 30

Dan In Charge

Dan has a lot of good qualities. He's funny. He's clever. He's good with the kids. And he always has good intentions.

After my surgery, Dan decided that he was going to take 10 days off work to take care of me. He would do all the things he would normally do, and he would take over the things that I do. No problem, according to Dan, because I don't do very much anyway (rolling my eyes).

I knew that it was going to be difficult the morning I got home from my operation. Dan announced that Bethie was mad at me because the house was cold that morning when she woke up. I was a bit surprised because I hadn't been home the night before because I was being gutted. How could I be responsible? Dan said that when I had left for work on Tuesday morning, I had opened the windows ... and I never came home to close them. The temperature had dropped over night. Therefore, the house was cold. And it was my fault. It is rather unfortunate that the four other people that live in this house lack the ability to close a window when they get a little bit chilled.

Dan said that I could sit back and relax because he would do all of the cleaning. I popped into the laundry room and noticed that he had done two loads of his own laundry, and none for me or the children. At 7:30am, I said "Can you please wash some PJs for the children as they don't have anything clean to wear tonight?". I reminded him once or twice throughout the day. At bedtime, I said "Did you wash the children's PJs". Dan was most offended and said "Yes, I did!". I asked him where they were. He had just thrown them into the dryer. Again, this was my fault. I had only nagged him to wash the clothes, and I had completely neglected to nag him about drying the clothes. Sigh.

As it turns out, it is absolute agony watching Dan "clean" and "take care of the children". He's really not as competent as I had once thought. Also, he finds it to be exhausting. At one point, he had to go and have a nap leaving me to referee the children's constant fighting. Upon hearing that, my Mum came and kidnapped me. Thank God.

But Dan is awfully good to step it up and "take care" of things. Did you notice when I described some of Dan's good characteristics that I didn't say "empathetic"? Yeah, that was intentional.

Dan lacks empathy.

72 hours after my surgery, my husband looked at me with such concern in his eyes and said, "How do you feel?". I replied, "I hurt". And he said, "STILL?!". Yes, Dan, STILL!

The point is, too much "quality time" together is becoming too hard on our marriage. I got angry and shouted at Dan that I was going to get in my little red car and drive to my mother's. He said, "You can't". I thought he was saying that he wouldn't let me drive because I am still in quite some pain. I thought he was concerned about me, and all of the other drivers on the road. I thought he wanted me to stay because he now saw exactly how he has failed me, and wanted to make it right. Because he loves me. So I said, "Why not?" hoping to elicit all sorts of lovely compliments because it was clearly time for him to start laying it on thick.

My love, my protector, my care taker said to me, "Because I never bothered to renew your driver's license. You had surgery on your birthday so I didn't think there was any rush".

Three more days to go....

7 comments:

Wrath Of Mom said...

Dear Dan, I bet Boston Rob would totally wash AND DRY the kids pajamas. I'm just puttin' that out there for you to think about.

-Nan

Yabut said...

I hope my son is doing a better job looking after things for his wife, who also just had major surgery.

The Kidnapper said...

What about the Mother's Day flowers burning on the front step; the cherry pits stuck to the chesterfield; the dinner prepared-oops- nothing for the patient to eat; the 3hour naps (no naps during the day after 36 months, not 37 years!); good decisions- "but the girls wanted ice cream for breakfast"; only his laundry being done; hogging the remote so you are left with treehouse all day and horror movies all night; and best of all "I'm too tired, I'll do it later"

Twins Squared said...

Oh hang in there! Yes, men are not the best at nurturing nor domestic matters. Hopefully you will be bouncing back soon and don't kill each other first!

Anonymous said...

This is soooo funny! and soooo true! Men are from Venus.

Bibliomama said...

I'm afraid I don't share Nan's optimism about Boston Rob. My husband is pretty good at picking up the slack when I'm out of commission, but I don't think most husbands are great on the empathy front. And laundry? Forget about it -- not that it matters much around here, where laundry and regular clothes have become pretty much interchangeable.

TheFitHousewife said...

It's funny that husbands this we sit around all day watching TV and reading magazines! However, I know for a FACT that that is what they would do if they were home with the kids all day! Lazy bums.

Best of luck on your next few days of "recovery" ;)