Just about every friend I have says they are feeling a little down and out all of the sudden.
Are you one of them? Or do the Winter months cheer you up? Just feeling normal?
Do tell.
Please?
With a cherry on top?
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Well, does FREAKING out at your husband that all the joy is sucked out of your life because you work and then have to do housework all night count? That is where I am at.
As the one-time target of many such a freak out, all I can say is that it's not much fun for anyone, and that ONE potential strategy for de-escalation is to be accepting of a slightly-less fastidious level of house cleanliness than you may recall from the days of one's stay-at-home mom and spic-n-span/Mr Clean days. And it might also help to negotiate what that standard is going to be in advance, rather than simply (as you describe) coming home at the end of the work day and freaking out because YOUR standards haven't been met.
The so-called "second shift" is a HUGE source of conflict in the lives of couples -- and not just straight, married middle-class couples either. So it's not just that men and women have different standards of cleanliness (the old stereotype); rather, in ANY relationship someone is going to be Felix and someone is going to be Oscar, while the gendered proprietary interest many women still feel toward home and hearth, and the discomfort many men feel about "straying" into unfamiliar territory (and getting freaked out at) shouldn't be discounted either. It's not just a lame excuse. It's the traditional double-bind of being assigned a new responsibility without also receiving the commensurate authority. Sex, Money, Housework, Child Rearing, In-Laws and "Outlaws" -- those are the "big-six" sources of domestic conflict I was taught about (somewhere) in seminary. If you can simply find the common ground and compromise on the differences....I know, I know...there's no negotiating with germs....
I dont get down durring the winter, but it does irritate me when the roads are to icey to drive on. But i'm a home-body, so maybe I dont get winter depression is cause I like staying home?
4 comments:
Well, does FREAKING out at your husband that all the joy is sucked out of your life because you work and then have to do housework all night count? That is where I am at.
Too funny, goodwolve. I can totally see myself doing that. I don't get blue so much as really grumpy and (admitedly) bitter over all the expectations.
As the one-time target of many such a freak out, all I can say is that it's not much fun for anyone, and that ONE potential strategy for de-escalation is to be accepting of a slightly-less fastidious level of house cleanliness than you may recall from the days of one's stay-at-home mom and spic-n-span/Mr Clean days. And it might also help to negotiate what that standard is going to be in advance, rather than simply (as you describe) coming home at the end of the work day and freaking out because YOUR standards haven't been met.
The so-called "second shift" is a HUGE source of conflict in the lives of couples -- and not just straight, married middle-class couples either. So it's not just that men and women have different standards of cleanliness (the old stereotype); rather, in ANY relationship someone is going to be Felix and someone is going to be Oscar, while the gendered proprietary interest many women still feel toward home and hearth, and the discomfort many men feel about "straying" into unfamiliar territory (and getting freaked out at) shouldn't be discounted either. It's not just a lame excuse. It's the traditional double-bind of being assigned a new responsibility without also receiving the commensurate authority. Sex, Money, Housework,
Child Rearing, In-Laws and "Outlaws" -- those are the "big-six" sources of domestic conflict I was taught about (somewhere) in seminary. If you can simply find the common ground and compromise on the differences....I know, I know...there's no negotiating with germs....
I dont get down durring the winter, but it does irritate me when the roads are to icey to drive on. But i'm a home-body, so maybe I dont get winter depression is cause I like staying home?
Post a Comment