Thinking

It's a lazy Saturday morning, D is at work, and I am sitting around in bed thinking about various things.  First on the list:  gifts.  Next weekend marks our first wedding anniversary, and the day after will be 9 months of sobriety for D.  This past year has been one of the craziest of our lives, but also one of the best, because it has brought us so much closer and happier and saner since we started our roads of recovery back in September.  I want to get him something more than just a book or a game like I would for a typical birthday or Christmas. Additionally, not two weeks later is D's birthday, and buying gifts in succession like that has never been my forte.  I'm currently trying to conspire with my family and his family for all of us to chip in on a larger present that I know he'll enjoy--a new game system.  He loves video games and has especially gotten into them since he no longer uses a home computer for entertainment.  We'll see how that one works out.  

Other thoughts:  I am currently working on improving my communication skills, including being a better listener, but also (and more importantly for my own recovery) being less afraid to voice my wants and needs--even if they might make someone else upset.  One of the most pressing issues where this particular point has become a problem lately is the area of household chores.  I do them.  Honestly, I do most things around the house--grocery shop, cook, clean, vacuum, pick things up, laundry, mow the lawn, do the yardwork.  I do them, mainly because if I don't they simply don't get done in a timely fashion.  It isn't entirely D's fault--when you work 60-80 hours a week like he has been lately, there just isn't much time when you get home at 8:00 at night to do things like this.  What has become more and more annoying, however, is the fact that when D does have free time--on the weekend or when he has a day off--he wants that time to be free time for him to do what he wants.  On the whole, I don't have a problem with that idea, since he works much more than I do and therefore has much less time to himself, but I am becoming frustrated by the fact that when I have time off, I do the work, even if I don't feel like it at the moment.  I do it because the lawn cannot go another day without being mowed due to impending rain, or because there is no more clean underwear available without my doing the laundry, or because my anal-retentive self just cannot stomach the dog fur on the floor for one more second.  D always tells me he will help and do things, that I should sit down and rest and he will get to it later--but later just doesn't happen as fast as I want it to, and so I end up doing everything anyway.  

Seeing this pattern, I realize that part of the problem is my own expectations--I define when his "later" should be, and when his definition doesn't meet my expectations, I give up on the idea and my codie self just takes charge.  On the other hand, he is also (for the most part) unaware of my needs in this area because I have not been good about communicating them.  And so that is my goal for today--to communicate the fact that I need him to help out a little more so that I am not stuck doing everything, and to accept that just because he may not do everything to my standards does not mean he cannot do it all just fine.