for fucks sake…

UGH.
Sorry for the misery.

Friday should be a happy joyous time.
When I’m able to actually leave home and get out among other members of humankind, I try to be extra nice on Fridays, for some reason.
Maybe it’s that ingrained “TGIF” mentality, even though I don’t work anymore because of the disability junk.

I tried putting myself in your situation, wondering what on earth I would say to someone who has the gall to DEMAND things I have no intention of giving.
The more I thought of it, the more it reminded me of people who expect me to be able to physically/emotionally deal with tasks I can NOT DO.
If it’s someone I don’t know, I can usually explain the truth of the situation, and they’re ok with it.
But if it’s a family member or someone who really should know better, and they keep harping on it…. wow. What then?

I think once people get into “NAG” mode, they stop being rational, and they stop listening to anything except the most basic of concepts.
So I guess I’d have to just keep saying “No” repeatedly until they got the point.
I’d have to step up and grow a pair (which I hate doing), and keep saying “NO. No. no.”
If they keep going, I’d say it again. “No. no. NO.”
If it keeps up a third time, then that would be it. “I’ve said no, and you don’t seem to understand. There’s nothing else I can say. Goodbye.”
And then I’d have to hang up.

I’d feel like a *****, and I’d dread the moment when I’d see them again.
But if it really is that hard to be around them, I’d start considering whether this relationship has gotten so toxic that maybe I need to leave permanently.

I’m not saying this is necessarily what YOU should do; I’m just thinking and realizing that this would be what I’d have to do for myself if it reached that point.
If someone is making you feel like you need to aim a gun at your brain, that might be a relationship you need to separate yourself from, even if it’s just a temporary split.
It’s better than your skull having a permanent split.

Random thoughts that popped into my head…

I remember when I was really young, it bothered me that my dad didn’t seem to want to help out around the house. I knew it was unethical to expect household stuff to always be the woman’s job, even though I was too young to know the word “unethical”.

These days, he’s completely different.

He does part of the cooking. So does she. They trade, and when neither of them feels like cooking, they go out for dinner.

He does part of the cleaning. She does what she can, although her health isn’t very good. But they both share the chores. It’s nice to see, and I was surprised when I first realized it was happening.

I think there are two things that made him start thinking differently:

1) He retired. He worked very long hours for many decades at a tough job he absolutely HATED, but he did it anyway because he wanted to be able to provide for me and mom. After he retired, all of a sudden there was all this TIME on his hands.

2) He got prostate cancer. They had to operate. It was serious, and he feared the worst. The surgery was a success, although I think it scared him enough to give him a new perspective on things. When he was still in recovery, he said something that still makes me cry whenever I think about it (or type about it). Instead of saying he was glad to have a few more years to live, he said he was so grateful he had a few more years left WITH MOM.
He valued his time with her, more than he valued his own life.
It’s very rare to find a marriage like that, where your spouse really loves you more than themselves.

So for a few years there, she was still working at her job, whereas he was retired and staying home with all this time on his hands.
That’s when she really started noticing things were different. He would surprise her by cooking breakfast, or making a sandwich for a snack, or bringing her a dish of ice cream, or a little candy bar he’d saved as a special snack while they watched TV together.

It’s so sweet to see.

I guess my point is that he HATED the suggestion that he should do any of those things back when I was a kid, but now he enjoys it as a way for him to express how much he loves her.
His perspective changed over the years. Not from nagging, but from the different perspective that extra time and a walk with death can bring.

None of this would have worked if he hadn’t love her to begin with, though.

So I guess maybe that’s what’s different about your own story.

If the two of you don’t love each other enough anymore (or if you never really did to begin with)… then maybe it can’t be fixed.

I don’t know.
And I’m sorry for the long comment.
I just needed to “remember” that, for my own sake, I guess. To remind myself that once in awhile, people can change, and there are still some rare marriages out there that really do work.

I honestly hope you’re able to find a solution that works as well as possible for both of you.
Thank you for listening, assuming you actually read this far.

(And also feel free to eventually delete the earlier version of this comment that went to moderation because I used the “p” word)