Any tips anyone for a happier relationship? I love my dh, he's a really good person, and we've had wonderful times together, but we're in a bit of a negative cycle at the moment and I want to jump out of it. I'd be grateful for advice and views.
To start with - mea culpa too - I'm not Mrs Cheerful, we've moved to a new country for his job and I never really wanted to be here and don't like it much. I was down for a while because I didn't have a job, and then (now) got a job that I hate, which is not much better, though at least it's paid!
So I'm in that miserable cycle where you feel like you're at the bottom of a hole and can't get out. Does anyone know what I mean? Every day is a bit of an effort, like low-grade pmt. So on top of that, he's stressed out by work. We get up at 6.30 latest as I need the time to get everyone ready (3 primary school children).
He never gets home before 9.30pm unless I call to say someone's had an accident or something, so we have approx 1hr before I want to go to bed as I feel even worse if I don't get my sleep. I never complain about these long working hours, I know that's the way it goes with the sort of job he's doing, and I've accepted that. But it's still quite hard. He always wants to talk about the mortgage or tax arrangements or something, and that's all our time on horrible admin. So we hardly ever do things together or even go to bed at the same time. Stupid example, but we started watching a really good old box set DVD series together the other night. The episodes are really long, so episode 1 finished and it was about 11.45. Time to go to sleep right? But then he watched the next one while I was asleep and has carried on without me! Grrr.
We also keep falling out over holidays. He seems to think that I am the holiday organiser, though I loathe organising holidays (or anything) with great passion, as I have explained in detail a million times. He does nothing to organise them, can't decide where he wants to go until the last minute when it's really expensive, then holds up all the arrangments with much sucking of teeth over the cost. It's dreadful, Gah!
Everything's a row or tense at the moment. Dumb things like it annoys me that he always steps out of the shower without drying at all, soaking the bath mat and floor etc, which dries with difficulty as our house is so cold. I try in the most polite ways to say 'It would be helpful if you dried before stepping out of the shower, so as not to soak everything' and he gets cross and imperious and says I'm being 'invasive'. But isn't it also invasive to leave me with a bathroom that's soaking, with skidmarks in the loo, dirty socks on the floor etc? Likewise I'm apparently being a really tiresome nag when I ask him not to fart in bed or pick bits off his toenails in bed. Please give me an honest view - is this really fusspot-like? (Assume that I'm not particularly fastidious, just prefer not to lie in bed with someone who is picking their toenails and farting).
What shall I do, wise ones? I don't need to make a stand, he's a good person, but we're in a rut. I called him yesterday at the office to say I was fed up and we had to do something constructive. We agreed we should go out once per week and do something like get a theatre subscription, so we have more different kinds of things to do that come round semi-automatically. We also agreed that we would find a place to do ballroom dancing (which is sort of how we met/got together). But we've just had another really tense conversation.
He's terrible about doing that competitive tiredness/business thing too, like emphasising how much he's doing about the mortgage renegotiation etc. It's so pointless - I do all the children stuff and work full time too, plus managing everything that's house/food/whatever. He works long hours and does stuff like the mortgage renegotiation. I'm sure if we were in the right place we would spend more time appreciating each other's good points and hard work, and much less being irritated.
What to do??