Partnership and Pettiness

The worst thing about being married for me has been the revelation of what a petty, moody, picky, and irritable person I really am.  I imagined myself laid back and friendly and even-keeled until I started living with someone who actually is all of those things, and we had to start doing things like dividing up chores and combining finances and picking out paint colors.  It turns out I am an endless score-keeper, maintaining a silent and constant tally of who did what last, who bought the groceries or who drank the last of the juice or whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher.  (I do an unfair tally, too, awarding myself lots more martyr points and overlooking the chores NBT regularly takes on, like trash and dishes.)  When my inner baby says, "This isn't fair!" I have to figure out whether it is worth picking a fight about or is one of the little things older wiser married couples say you just smooth over.  I hope it will go away with time, because it is a silly way to live, and it has been the worst revelation about marriage.  I thought I was generous and loving, but I am petty and self-righteous.  Ick. 

The best thing about marriage is you have a person to figure out the kind of stuff you're thinking about, someone else who has a stake in what you like and don't like about your job, or where you want to be living in five years.  For me those decisions or projects can be overwhelming, and it's so very much nicer when somebody else is there to think about it with me.   

It's becoming evident that the decrepit gutters on the house we live in are rotted in a way more ominous way than we imagined.  There's water getting into the house, and who knows how extensive the damage is.  We need to figure that out, and then start the calculations of what it would take to repair, and whether it makes sense to put on an addition or do roof and/or siding at the same time if we're already going to be doing major work, and really the natural conversation after that is, is this the house we would want to do that kind of work to, and what are our alternatives?  How do we want to live?  It is a conversation that really quickly spirals into a Great Big One, full of weighing and balancing mundane stuff like siding and gutters and also Life Goals, how much of our future and time and money do we really want to devote to home improvement, anyway, and what kind of things do we want from our house?  I do poorly at such conversations, and it makes me much braver, much reassured, to know there's someone in it with me.

(It's clear to me that you need to move back to Sacramento, which is where your heart has always been.  You and I seem to be the same sort of person, a person who falls madly in love with a place, and sorts out the rest of your life so you can find a way to be there.  You've been braver than me about trying the other model, but I think it's time for you to go home.  The other stuff is easier when you know where home is.)