Biorhythm issues in managing time/relationship

[Chicken lady]

Well, a lot of things work once, we’ll see.and that was mostly housekeeping. I still don’t know what to do about connecting more.

we still ended up mostly just sitting in the same room for an hour doing different things not really talking to each other and then I got tired and went to bed.

ps. I don’t know where you live, but it is real winter here and the parks are very cold and snowy -

[Gardnr]

I'm a morning person, waking between 2 and 5 depending on my work-releated stress level. This is my me-time. I go to bed at 8.

Hubby wakes to a 0540 alarm at which time I get in the shower for work. He goes to bed 10-1130. This is HIS me-time.

My first thought about your desk? Hubby bought it for you enabling you to be near him rather than downstairs. It IS your workspace so it is going to look like a workspace.

Clutter? I don't do clutter so when I come home everything goes to it's place right away. Like you, I do errands enroute to home. I stand at the counter, go through snail mail, stow in it's place or into recycle bin, put away any groceries or errand items, return cloth bags to my car (I don't accept plastic bags). Daily this takes less than 5 minutes. My briefcase goes in it's designated place and when hubby comes home, his goes to it's designated place as well.

I do cook but our negotiated relationship is I cook or do dishes but I don't do both. Hubby prefers not to cook. He doesn't always do dishes right away, but when I rise in the morning the kitchen is clean and the dishes are clean and in the drying rack...I'm happy to put them away and have a clear kitchen before my coffee is done brewing.

I understand the feeling of "we're roommates". I liken these tired or working evenings to toddler play in the Growth and Development psychology. It is called parallel play. We're in the same space, each doing our thing. We've learned that we feel this is time spent together and we are happy with this. We can stop for a quick conversation. We can stop for a long conversation. Sometimes we are silent for 2 hours and we're comfortable with that, understanding that we both have intense jobs and sometimes silence is what we both need to restore and refill our souls. But we're together and feel intertwined and available immediately to one another.

I think perhaps you're at a new stage of your relationship and you get to navigate a mutually satisfying and acceptable way of "being"? I don't want to grow old with anyone but hubby and we're approaching anniversary 39 (and just 57yo). So we have decades together in front of us. I have no doubt we will come across many more negotiations as our daily lives change. Talking about every little thing will help us get to the end and happy to be there together!

I realize you are the introvert whereas here, I am the extrovert. I don't think hubby would have raised very many of the conversations/negotiations we've had over time and that may challenge you even more.

You CAN do this though

[Tammy]

I like what Gardner said.

We too are married since a young age (19 and 21) and it’s been 37 years. In the beginning we were joined at the hip. Then we had 25 years of kids in the house. Since the kids all moved out it’s a completely different dynamic. We are happily parallel as Gardner described. Some evenings we barely speak. Sometimes we have long talks. We go to bed at different times quite often. We go to social things alone about half the time. No need to do everything together. We have even vacationed separately a few times when it worked out better for our personal schedules and interests.

I like it this way. I don’t need him right beside me. If he were always there it would be annoying.

We met when we were still kids. We’re extremely independent now and that’s a good thing.

I remember when this transition started. At first it felt wrong - as if we were growing apart. I asked him if he was seeing someone else. He was hurt that I would even ask - we’ve been mutually monogamous the whole marriage. I explained that I simply wanted honesty - I wasn’t mad or anything. Then we realized that it was simply that the kids had moved out and were not used the silence.

Now we laugh about my astounding question.

[Teacher Terry]

I think you should schedule adult fun bed play on the weekend during the day when you both are relaxed and not rushed. One night a week dinner together at the dining room table with no distractions so it’s like going out.

[leslieann]

I LOVE putting the piece of candy on the closet shelf to both remind and reward you for getting your coat hung up.

That's just brilliant.

[Chicken lady]

So today, I managed to put my coat and shoes away without a piece of candy. But I threw my school bag on the couch. I left everything else in the car.

Dh actually beat me home tonight, and he was sitting on the couch on the computer and had not restarted the fire and i
1) was really annoyed
and
2) actually THOUGHT oh! This is how he feels when I do that.

so I tossed my bag on the couch and sat next to him and wrapped up my computer only school work for the day. He eventually got up and warmed up leftovers and made a fire and I munched my way through an assortment of “things in the fridge that look appealing” (dh says I eat ingredients, not meals)

i’ll start a conversation about items 1&2 at a later date when it will not seem accusatory.

gardnr, thank you for that way of looking at my desk. I hadn’t really thought about it as something bought to help me be where he is, but it does do that, and an easier and cheaper solution to the “work all over the couch and floor” issue would have been to insist that I work at my desk - which would have been a fixed, probably isolated, point even if we moved it somewhere else.

maybe it is possible that we are spending as much or more time interacting as before and it just doesn’t feel that way - without the kid interruptions, there isn’t that feeling of “ok, we’re finally alone, I need to talk to you about a,b,c & d....”

we have always had mostly different and seperate “fun “ activities - plus dates. We are still doing the dates, but sometimes we include the in town married set of kids, because we like to see them. But we don’t go out more often.

the idea of needing to schedule “adult fun...” makes me sad.

[Teacher Terry]

I don’t think scheduling adult fun should make you sad. You are both super busy and what’s wrong with being proactive? Enjoy it while you can. My husband got prostrate cancer at 49 despite many medical things we have tried it’s been physically impossible for 10 years. We would love to be able to schedule it.

[mschrisgo2]

CL, this is so interesting to me! I, like you, would get home Hungry and tired and frazzled... Unless I had a banana or apple on the way home, then it was better, but I still couldn't sit down, or I literally wouldn't move for an hour or more. So I disciplined myself Not to sit!

For years I did my schoolwork, correcting/grading/planning, on the floor at a large coffee table with papers spread around me. It worked very well for a long time. Then I got a puppy. Floor space belongs to the dog (now dogs, plural, 3 of them). Anyway, I never really put it all together in my mind, but that was when my "homework" got really hard for me - > when I couldn't work on the floor any more. I needed to physically group papers, that made my learning groups, and from there I planned my next lessons. But it never worked well when I had to use the table (and chair)!

In those days, I had coat hooks right inside our front door. Not particularly pretty, but very useful! And my everyday shoes went under the bookcases right next to there, too. And that had to change when Puppy came...

I still drag stuff home and into the house -- and don't put it away. Right now there is a 30 lb bag of dog food sitting in the corner of the kitchen... and a week's worth of "mail" that needs to be shredded on my desk... and recycling tha needs to go to my car...and 2 jackets in my car that should have come in... Sometimes I feel like I spend all of my time moving stuff around. I want to just SIT, and have a house elf come in and put everything away!

[Gardnr]

We too are married since a young age (19 and 21) and it’s been 37 years. In the beginning we were joined at the hip. Then we had 25 years of kids in the house. Since the kids all moved out it’s a completely different dynamic. We are happily parallel as Gardner described. Some evenings we barely speak. Sometimes we have long talks. We go to bed at different times quite often. We go to social things alone about half the time. No need to do everything together. We have even vacationed separately a few times when it worked out better for our personal schedules and interests.

We never had kids so it's always been us. It was amazing to me through my 40s how many people asked me how we stayed married. What did we do?

My response: what have you done while raising kids, to nurture and grow your marriage?

I was continually amazed at the "nothing" answers (which appalled and astounded me) so then my response was: You need to build your relationship as if you just married again now that the kids are out of the house.

And like Tammy, I go on vacation with my older sister to places in the US that hubby has no interest in. Or I add a few days to a work conference: NOLA last year, Boston in '17, Sedona in '10........he's a homebody. I always ask him first if he wants to go to ......

Communication leads to compromise.......and is essential to long-term happiness.

[Chicken lady]

So, we were actually much better about making time for ourselves when we had kids. Regular babysitters or kid exchanges... we knew it was important not to just be mom and dad, and we stole any moments we could get. One anniversary, I convinced him to let my out of town friend and her kids come visit even though it was our anniversary because “it was the only weekend that worked and I hadn’t seen her in so long..” and then I told him I had scheduled this thing for the kids that “we needed his help for” so he wouldn’t make other plans, and then when she arrived I told him “you have 30 minutes to pack while we catch up and I show her where everything is, and then we’re leaving for a bed and breakfast.”

now, “ALL” the time belongs to us, and so we let it go by without making an effort. I’m reallymore worried about the “connecting” time than the “adult fun” time. When we are connecting, the other follows.

but also, before I was tired most of the time because I just accepted staying up late and dragging myself out of bed with too little sleep between 6 and 7. (When dd started high school, it would have been great to get up with her in the morning, make her breakfast, and send her off, but I never did it because I could never get to bed at a reasonable hour. Instead, I ended up saying “you want to go to high school, the bus comes at 6:15. Be on it.)

we’re having a nice relaxed weekend, but we were out very late last night, and i’m Not “getting anything done” and i’m off schedule again. I need to find something physically demanding to do this afternoon so I will be tired enough to go to bed 13 or 14 hours after I got up.....