dear me,
all this performing for your husband, for other people, it has to stop. what’s clear is that as soon as the husband is away, you stop doing a bunch of things. when he’s here, you plan the meals (mostly) and usually try not to have fish two nights in a row, for example. why? because of how it looks. the good wife does this or that. nothing about the fact that the guy likes fish and when i go out of town the most exciting part for him is he can have it every night without me nagging him with: pork, fish, chicken, beef, vegetarian.
dear me,
arranging yourself to ‘look’ like you’re productive right before he comes home from work is nutty. he is not judging you. you are judging you. he truly doesn’t care. he doesn’t nag that you’re unproductive. that’s your shit. you project your shit on to him. (how nice it must be to be married to me.)
dear me,
all that fussing and angsting about a clean house, and his mess, and wanting clean surfaces. he’s been gone for 48 hrs and what have you done? worked. slept. ran. eaten when hungry (versus ‘preparing the meal’ like it’s some kind of scene in a play about married bliss’). no cleaning in sight. no meals in sight, either. slept late, breakfast at 11 a.m., lunch at 4:30 pm, and dinner at 10:30 pm is sticky rice and mango (yum).
all of the performing to try to look like some kind of person? he doesn’t care, there is no one watching, and there is no relationship meal planning police coming to inspect.
dear me,
delegating things empowers the other person.
dear me,
you’re pretty lazy. that’s ok. just don’t ride him so much when he looks lazy. admit it, sometimes you look around trying to FIND something to be cranky about. admit it.
dear me,
you being sober means that you have the ability to see some of this stuff, whereas when drinking, you didn’t/couldn’t/couldn’t be bothered.
dear me,
the only person you’re trying to impress is yourself, and you’ve put the bar so high that you can’t please yourself AND no one else is judging you, and your mother isn’t watching you. it’s just you. and if you get to set the bar anywhere you like, maybe set it somewhere where you can feel happy about what you’re doing most of the time. there is no ideal person/wife/partner/business owner/sober penpal. there’s just people being people.
dear me,
you should make him go away more often, so that you can have more revelations. you should have more alone time. clearly stuff gets clearer when the noise is removed.
(remove the booze, and then everything gets easier).