Phone rang this morning and it was wife asking how to start snowblower <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> . I explained it to her and she hung up without even saying goodbye (snowblower was running). She caled back 2 minutes later saying it was not "blowing snow", I replied by stating you have to pull the lever down for it to move the auger. Again hung up without saying anything.

I called back 15 minutes later and asked her why, when she calls me for help, does she treat me that way, do you not realize that I do NOT have to help, but because I LOVE YOU, I do these things. She said sorry but she could not hear me anyway with SB running. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" /> . I asked her if she enjoyed the Cheesecake I left and she went from kinda mad to a loving/sad "yes it was good, thankyou" and then said she had to go.

Geezeee......I am going away for weekend and my goal is not to contact her.

<small>[ March 05, 2003, 08:42 AM: Message edited by: Any Time Now... ]</small>

ATN:

"I called back 15 minutes later and asked her why, when she calls me for help, does she treat me that way, do you not realize that I do NOT have to help, but because I LOVE YOU, I do these things."

Sounds like it worked out okay, but you probably should NOT have called and said this. STOP EXPECTING ANYTHING IN RETURN FOR LOVING HER. Okay?

Take it easy, is all.
-Qfwfq

ditto Q-dog, that was an LB.

Stop it!

This is hard to do. We validate the difficulty in controlling emotions, but you HAVE to bite your tongue. It'll be swollen and bloody, but you have to bite it.

WAT

One thing I have been neglecting to say to my wife during all of this is that now that my priorities are different than before, I would like her to be a stay at home mom for our 2 yr old. Do I tell her this know or wait unitl we are trying to work things out. There is a part of me that because they "see each other" thru work that this is part of it, but the fact is my son beneifits if she stays home. I am not sure how to address this issue, any help or guidance or better yet a hit to the head with 2x4 would be appreciated.

ATN,

It wouldn't hurt to mention it, but not in a presumptuous context. Something like, "I don't know what will happen in the future, but I think it would be great for son if someday you could stay home and raise him." And then drop it, lest it seems presumptuous and strays into a "relationship" talk.

About you calling her back and telling her you didn't appreciate her rudeness. I am going to offer an alternative viewpoint on that. I am an independent, bossy woman. The biggest TURN OFF in the world to me is a SAPPY, patronizing man who lets me run over him. ugh! I like men who set boundaries and DON'T ALLOW me to run over them. I am IMPRESSED that you called her back and lovingly said, HELLO??? When you respect YOURSELF enough to do that, then I will respect you just as much. I like what you did! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

ATN:

consider yourself ♣-ed with the MB 2x4. NO! Don't tell her you'd prefer she be a SAHM. She'll interpret it as controlling. Sure, you want her away from OM, but let HER decide that she wants to do that for you on her own.

Hang tough,
-Qfwfq

I guess if it comes up where we are talking about the future, I will mention it. However WAT has not chimed in yet <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

I want to thank you all for lending me your ears/eyes and your advice is greatly appreciated. Its good to have a deverse group of friends that I can count on to hit me with the MB 2x4 <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

<small>[ March 05, 2003, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: Any Time Now... ]</small>

ATN:

" However WAT has not chimed in yet"

No, he hasn't. But you'd better put a helmet on! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

-Qfwfq

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Qfwfq:
<strong>ATN:

" However WAT has not chimed in yet"

No, he hasn't. But you'd better put a helmet on! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

-Qfwfq</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" />

What does Qfwfq stand for? If personal, no need to explain. I was just curious.

ATN:

I posted this when I changed my name last, but I couldn't find the post! So, here it is again. Sorry for the hijack:

"Cosmicomics
by Italo Calvino
Synopsis by Kelly Evans

Each chapter of Cosmicomics begins with a blurb which sounds like the dry, tasteless extract of a physics, astronomy or geology textbook, describing how solar systems formed from nebula, the universe started from a point smaller than an atom, the orbit of the moon changed long ago, dinosaurs became extinct, space is curved, expands, etc. On each of these topics, our narrator, Qfwfq, immediately launches. His idiosyncratic voice, omniscient, blithering, self-centered, unerring, ridiculous, is recognizable, exactly consistent, no matter if he is talking about his life as a mollusk, a dinosaur, a moon-being before color, or life before there was form, when the whole family lived on a nebula, or in the point before space.

Most of Qfwfq's friends and relatives have unpronounceable names. Xlthlx, Rwzfs, Mrs. Vhd Vhd, the beloved Mrs. Ph (i) Nk0 (actually a special typeset must have been developed, now that I think about it, since my keyboard doesn't have all the options necessary to even write these names), Z'zu, De XuaeauX, etc. However, they, and he, have distinctly human foibles (neuroses, competitiveness, love triangles, gambling, boredom, incomprehension of their bodies and environment), although in most cases they are not human. And while Qfwfq tells tales of many different lives, seemingly beginningless, which seem to imply transmigration and transformation, all mention of death and birth is conspicuously absent.

Qfwfq seems to have always been, although he doesn't waste time speculating on this fact. It's simply true that whatever is mentioned he remembers, or can look up in his diary. For instance in one case, he's looking through his telescope, as he does nightly, and sees a sign hanging off a galaxy 100,000,000 light years away, "I saw you." He hastens to check his diary and finds out he had been doing something he'd wanted to hide and hoped was forgotten on exactly that day, two hundred million years ago. Throughout the chapter, he worries about what people on galaxies all over the universe think of him, and keeps scanning for signs, and speculating what each sign means about others' judgements of himself, and wondering how to respond. "What of it?" Or, "Did you see it all, or just a little bit?"

-Qfwfq

Cool <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

No more chiming necessary!

I agree with Mel & Q that the mention of being a SAHM could easily be interpreted by her as a pretext for separating her from OM. If you can slip it in as Mel suggests, go for it.

I also respect Mel's perspective on your response to her on the phone. She may be like Mel in this respect and admires your "foot down" response. I hope so.

This illustrates one of the beauties of this forum - although we can't listen to your conversations and can only go on what a poster writes, different MB'ers can offer different perspectives and the different views are necessary to bracket the advice. It's never wise to go on the advice of one poster alone. It's clear you're weighing the advice of all, which is the right approach.

WAT

Question for all of you guys. Tommorrow nite is a program at my D's school. Where do I sit? I am sure my wife will have S. I am sure she will want me to sit with her, but I think I should try to show a little independece? Yes/No. I will not ignore her but will sit somewhere else?

Again 2x4 me if necessary!

ATN:

WHACK!

If she wants you to sit with her, the best thing you could do is SIT WITH HER!.

So, my vote would be "sit with her!"

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

-Qfwfq

That hurt <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" />

Duh!!

Whack, whack!!!

BUT!!! I suspect that she wants you to sit with her to dispell any suspicions by others that you're having problems. She'd be embarrassed.

Good!! She's feeling guilty, maybe. That's a BIG maybe.

Whack, whack WAT!!

Oooooops, I lapsed into trying to analyze every word she mutters. Bad WAT!!!!

Just sit with her.

WAT

Hold her hand, too, if she'll let you.

I gotta 'fess out: There are times when just holding my W's hand is better than SF! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />
-Qfwfq

Do you use lubricant on your hands Q?