I feel kind of detached from things today. I lost my rag with Adam last night, he had been doing something he is very good at, pretending to listen, hearing nothing, then doing exactly what I thought would happen. It was one of those final straw moments when I simply lost it and made him listen to me. As adorable as he is, like a lot of people I have come across in this world, listening and remembering a two acts that are little other than pretence. For weeks, I had been asking him to fix the curtain in the bathroom and one of them in the kitchen. They both had the same problem, they had come away at the top of the track so that they didn’t shut properly. It happens all the time, as they are awkwardly placed windows and just opening and shutting twist and pulls the material lose unless you are gentle with them. Because of this, I have always shut them up for the winter by pinning them shut, so that there isn’t any chance of them sitting wrongly and letting cold air pour into the house. We have lived here for just over 15 years and this has been done every winter, by me. Last year, I had been asking him to do it but got fed up waiting, so for my last time ever, I went climbing and did it myself. You would have thought after that length of time, that even without doing the actual work himself, he would know just what needed to be done. That was what he thought, I knew otherwise and tried to give advice before he started, but got shot down, so I shut up. This is after all, the man who can’t remember what happened the week before in his favourite TV programs, so I knew it was going to go wrong and it did.

I have never minded anyone telling me to shut up if they then do what was supposed to be done, but being told to shut up, then for what was to be done, to be done wrongly, well, I get angry. We spent an hour, with me going over all the silly little examples of the same sort of things that have happened since Adam took over caring for the house. He has an unerring ability to take a ten-minute job and turn it into a two hour one. He then moans about how long it took, that is after having spent all day getting angry that he will have to give up part of his day to doing it. He won’t allow me to give him advice on how to cut the time right down, the next time it needs doing. So each task that appears, turns into the huge feeling of dread for me, as I know that we are heading once more into a drama that doesn’t need to be, but I am now totally unable to avoid. From changing the sheets to DIY, it is the same. It has caused a growing feeling that as my health has dwindled, he is more and more ignore what I say. If I had 8 years ago asked him to do something, it would have been done that next weekend and wouldn’t have taken four weeks of constant reminders, for him to even start on it. Worse still, recently, I have felt as though he half listens to anything I say, if even that. Within an hour the other day of telling him I had moved the bowls back to their normal cupboard, he emptied the dishwasher, guess where the bowls went.

I know I sort of lost it last night, but I had just had enough. I might be disabled now, but all these jobs were ones that I had down to a version of speed dial. No thought required as they happened on auto-pilot and didn’t disrupt my life at all. Oddly, not being able to physically do them myself, has turned all of them into a total nightmare for me. I can’t even now quietly go around after him fixing them, I don’t have the physical ability any longer. I guess that’s why last night I flipped and he went off to the bathroom, to try and fix what was wrong, something I still had to tweak this morning. He is also going to have to return to the kitchen one as light is coming in, which means so will the cold. That was actually my first piece of ignored advice, that I wasn’t allowed to give. To get it done before dark as the light guides you.

It is really hard when you love someone, to see them repeatedly struggling with something, that you know doesn’t have to be a struggle. It’s even harder when you are the reason they are even having to be doing any of it in the first place. I do understand that he has his own ways of doing some things, I totally accept that, but when it is something he has never done, why can’t he see, that when I have the knowledge, using it is an advantage, not something to be ignored. But no, he huffs and puffs all the way through and is in a bad mood for hours, while I sit there having to put up with it and feeling growing guilt with every second. What does that achieve for either of us? It is rare that I get angry, even rarer that I lose it and start shouting, but this was only going to get worse, inline with my health. While I can pull the knowledge out of this stupid brain, I wish he would use it. There will be a point when the required facts won’t be there, well at least not at the point it is needed. Then things can only be worse for both of us.

I feel flat this morning. Like someone has been bashing me over the head with a pile driver all night. Getting wound up as I did, doesn’t do me much good either. I’m struggling to even find the right words for any of this and that’s not like my brain, it usually happily provides more than I or anyone else is looking for. I didn’t think that I would, as the normal after events of anger is lying awake going over and over every word, but I slept well. I could have even slept on past the alarm, but as you know, I can’t do that. Adam has gone off to work, after last night having to double check that when he came home that the locks wouldn’t have been changed. I used to think that was a joke, but no, he does still even after 17 years, think that I might just do that to him. That’s another reason that I rarely get angry, but something had to be said and it was. I have tried hard to remember if I have had occasion to even mention such an event before. I think I am right in saying that it has happened only once, we’re just not normally the sort of couple who fight, but we are still human. I think the fact I slept well confirmed that it felt at least to me a valid point to explode. I maybe should have said something sooner and not let it build up, but I have always been that way. Placid until I reach the end of my tether, then I let loose. They say it’s good to get these things out and aired, well both have well and truly been done. That to me is one of the glories of marriage, we air our differences, say what has to be said, then work together to solve it, so that it works for both of us.

Please read my blog from 2 years ago today – 05/10/2013 – Finding the strength

I seem to be running on low again today, just the simple act of getting from my chair to fill my lighter, moving a distance of 3 feet from here to the draw then sitting while I filled it before returning here, has drained me. I am noticing my arms lately feeling….