I want to say to H, "You garner for yourself nice things. Then you don't take care of your things. Once you have acquired them, you let them rust and pile up with your other things in dirty hoarding piles. It is what you did to me. Once you got me, you ignored me. I would say our relationship needed some attention but you would call me names for letting you know the marriage needed maintenance (as tho I was trying to tell you to do something you did not want to do and no one is going to tell you what to do). I and our marriage get no more of your thoughts and energy than those things in your hoarding piles.....forgotten rubbish".
Maintenance
Submitted by jennalemone on 09/04/2017.
I know this feeling.
Submitted by CaliforniaGirl on
I tried a number of times to talk to my ex about the effect that his behaviors were having on our relationship and the despair I was feeling because of it.
I tried everything. Including comparing it to the neglected cars that were sitting in his driveway, rusting and full of cobwebs...and various other things. (He had borderline hoarding issues as well) Hoping he would see...
He didn't. Instead he told me that "neglect is not what's happening here." I was dismissed, over and over. Plenty of blame too. I was always too impatient, too insecure, too this or too that. Or else I was "schooling him" or "always taking him to task on something" He just didn't get it. (smh)
There is a Louis C.K. quote... “When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t.”
Apropos, I think.
(hug)
I felt like that too.
Submitted by sickandtired on
I understand how you feel. Unlike the "things" my ex hoarded, I found it within myself to get him out of my life. Now he still controls his hoard of rusting junk, but he no longer controls me. I'm so glad you ladies realize that you are worth SO MUCH MORE than what you have gotten in these painful relationships.
Oh Boy
Submitted by kellyj on
Jenne...you just mentioned the magic word!! I mean, this is it, right here. Let me tell you the story of what it takes to get "out of this kind of mess"......it's a lot harder and more difficult than getting into it that is for absolutely positive!!!! ( whew ) Without a doubt. And, I mean this with all sincerity that I do understand this now...coming from both sides of this issue. If there was ONE word I had to pick....in a multiple choice quiz.."to describe the biggest challenge for people with ADHD." "Maintenance"......consistently inconsistent....is the name of the game. I think that was Melissa's husband who came up with that and I like it...."A LOT". And that relate directly to the word maintenance...in everything!
I've actually been in the process of going through every thing and gathering D's stuff up together. I also had an "ah ha"...moment while going through emails and had a hunch or idea. This was just an overall feeling.....as if you fell asleep in the corner for while and now you missed part of the play? LOL In reality....that is the "secret life" or parts of your life you don't share with your partner. I'm going to say, that everyone has a comfort zone I think within a reasonable range that anyone can easily understand the difference....more shy....or more assertive......there's a range and it's the same thing with things that I might automatically share with someone because I'm simply comfortable with it and have to come to my own peace with it ...or what ever? I've got some sound reasoning in there even as a rationalization. That's what a rationalization is after all?
But, I was thinking about all these things I've uncovered that I really didn't have a perfect solution for or simply having enough information to say. It just took me looking and then finding other unrelated things and then suddenly remembering something said...or in my case.......going back and re-reading the email exchanges we had before we moved in with each other. The counter on the email was in the 1000's of "days ago". Right there in front of you....just as it was that many thousands of days and it ended just the same as it started and I really had a chance to see what I said all the way "back then" ...and I'm "yes.....I did say these things "....and I was really clear and easy to understand and "maintenance' came up for this very reason. I know this about myself better than anyone. To the point in an example: Have you ever seen someone to a patch job on the outside of a house...where the one side is all weather beaten..and they fixed different things at different times but it looks like train wreck and it's continuously still falling apart. And it looks like Hell!! It looks like Hell because they only repaired one small area and trying to "patch it"....takes someone really really good...to do it where you can't tell. But even then....it's just a repair. This is me talking in my "at work voice" because this is what I know all too well. It takes 5 or 6 times longer.....and then adding in the 2nd time it fails meaning...the repaired failed and and now your repairing the repair. I make my living doing this...but that wasn't how I learned it or what I "do for a living".....it's absolutely essential....as the compliment to everything else but you learn to do it simply by making all those mistakes. And I mean.....over a long period of time. Many, many many mistakes to the point that you've made them all at least once...and others countless times repeatedly. Until it's just staring you in the face and you go....."I think, I need to do this differently". Why yes......that is what happens and then you know exactly...."what not to do". Period. LOL And after a while....it leaves you with what's left and what's left is avoiding the inevitable and predicting it ahead of time. That includes......"pick up and organize" as you go....to a certain degree which that's the caveat.....I can't say "I'll be as good as you " ever.......BUT!!!!! !/2 again of something is better than 1/2 of nothing. You will never "maintain"...if you don't make attempts and then fail. And if one thing doesn't work....you try something else? Until you get really good at seeing....what to do because the "don't do's" you know...and never do them anymore. They aren't even on the list...as a possible consideration. But this "my list " when "I" go through this in my head. I don't share this with everyone....but here I can. I know.....that if I do these "things" and there are many or many ways "not to do something" and I've tried them all....and then again....and they never worked but now I know why. There is only one way for me to do anything like you are talking about. Pick it up once.....set it down once. If it's a train wreck...you can't just pick through the rubble and expect to get very far and you just got to bite the bullet as they say....and just "rip off all the siding" of the house and put a fresh seal behind some brand new or even recycled siding for cheap...what ever......just tear off the old stuff and use brand new materials and be done with it. Instead of years of fixing the same repairs over and over....it looks like Hell all pieced together ...and be done with it. For a very long long time. Maybe your lifetime....if it's done right to begin with. But you still have to go through all of that...to get to where you want to be? You can do it either way.....but one is "cheaper ( in the long run ) , takes 10x less time ( in the long run ), has fewer headaches and unforsaken problems plus you can fix other problems you find when you are in there ( the house siding example ) and come out so much better off...then trying to do that a different way. And for me.....I already know better. There is no "later". NO. Not in something where I say....that's good enough, I fix it later when it breaks again but this is just a band aide. But you just put a band aide on it...and walk away thinking you are done.....for very long at least.....it's only temporary.
I could write a book!! But to say that this was something that I brought up early going the other wat now which is not the things you are saying or mentioning that I am very familiar with. Getting caught for what ever reason, and for reasons even out of your control.....the idea that you can do the maintenance later....there's just not enough ways I can say "no" on that one. And to get out of it and to make sure it doesn't happen again....I made it so I could do that...and avoid that ever happening again. I feel really badly for D in what I read and at the same time...she had a part to play here. Even seeing or coming to be with me was not in the realm that she had any idea what she was seeing or really thinking of what was possible. I could read it in her language and her language spoke about "ideals and dreams" and she even used the word "imagined" in there which was very telling indeed. What I did learn to do, in a very dramatic way....was to pick up after myself ( in the moment ) far better than I ever have before. But my dirtty little secret here is knowing that I have no other choice. I've failed at that house repair one too many times already and the only way it's going to happen for me....is to "do it right then" and never wait or say later. Unless there is a really good reason....I will never stray from that pattern of "never doing that'......but here it was..and many things were said.....and I did it anyway.....but saying so up front. Buts that's point....it doesn't matter what is said.....the actions speak for themselves at the end the day. I'm not doing too badly even now ...only in that I found or actually discovered that without thinking....I started to put everything back together the way I had it....for that very reason. I don't even think about ...I just automatically make it so...I won't have to do it as much, or as often but do it in a way to achieve the same results with a possible margin for error....at least it's consistent and not a roller coaster....even if it's a steady and consistent way of doing something to the best of your ability...and then having more and more things to maintain until there are too many to maintain, I got a finite limit and if I go over....that's my bad...for letting what I already know ( my limitations ) means "I can't"....just because you can.....but I'm the one who has to control that....not everyone else.
And Jenne...that more than anything else what I "hear myself" say repeatedly in many different ways ....it's not always about perfection and quality....and consistent level of maintenance is way better than one time on a Blue Moon....then suddenly you do it perfectly and it really looks great for a while. Until it comes back around again...since you were maintaining it as you needed to do it. What I was really trying to convey was that I realize....this is lot to ask of anyone to come her and put up with me and everything I've got going and it was a lot ......but there's not nearly ( not even close ) to what was there for me in those piles of projects and left over things that never got any maintenance to them. U've ways to maintain these things I have, but it really took a lot of planning and equipment to do the job. I have to be able to do thins in certain ways..and those ways require tools to do them on a professional level which means "FAST" more than anything. But I need that for myself alone because of these challenges...it gives the time and the ability to keep up with it....to use towards other things. It can't be at the exclusion of one thing for the next.......a concept that D and I hit head on with and that never changed with her. It's take two people....and doing what you can to be supportive, not detrimental....no matter which side of this you are on. It's not just with "stuff".....it's with everything, that's for sure. I cannot blame her or anyone for that matter of what happened before which some of it was not me. But I still had to do it, and I started out behind the 8 -Ball in our case. That wasn't D's fault nor mine at that time since I was already in the process of correcting this all...and it took more than I had and then some....just to try and to maintain the inside....the outside is where I was...and then left it unfinished until later.
That's aside from the things I've discovered which is really no surprise. When someone just quits....and they're "done".....then nothing going to change them even if they said the opposite, it really doesn't matter at all? It really doesn't matter who's fault it is...when you're dead, now does it? My dad did have few good ones , and that was my favorite :)
J
J