Lady,
you have way too much class to be like her

"Did I tell y'all that we still don't have carpet, it's arrived in the store but the guy won't pay for it, he's hired a lawyer to get out of paying for it? So we had to hire a lawyer, who thinks we have a good shot even though there isn't a signed agreement for him to pay for the carpet. There's an agreement that he'll get rid of the pet odor, and two carpet guys attest that the carpet was not salvageable, and his realtor and our realtor and one carpet guy witnessed the verbal agreement to replace the carpet, and the carpet order is in his name, and he's the one who ripped out the old carpet, with some guys who work for him."

Oh man, you mean to tell me your realtor never had him sign anything???? That is neglectful and stupid of your realtor. Your realtor should pay for half the carpet and the seller, the other half.

You could sue your realtor but a better way is to ask the realtor to pay your legal fees. It would have been so easy for your realtor to get it in writing for you at closing. Make him sign before the home is closed.

Had I known it was not in writing I would have told you to get it in writing. But your realtor is a professional, she had to know everything has to be in writing.

Right now, I would have your realtor write up how the deal went down, in detail. Get that from her before things get ugly. Then, you can always say in court that it appears your realtor forgot to get this verbal agreement into writing. I would not use a realtor that messes up that badly.

I ask, "What do you think?" He likes to discuss his perspective on most things. Others he will say he doesn't know, and I ask him for his first guess. I repeat back and ask if I got it right. Then I ask, is there more?

We're almost out of toilet paper. :MrEEk:

It stopped snowing though.

Oops, spoke too soon. It's starting to snow again.

H thinks even if we reach the end of our driveway, that the road isn't plowed. He sent DS6b to check. That should keep him busy for a little while.

So...rethinking this crazy decision of yours to move yet?

Aw, I LUUUVVVVVV adventure!!!

I'm actually really enjoying this. Just this morning I said to H that this came at a perfect time. I'm getting at least as much work done, maybe more than if I'd gone into the office; and I'm sitting in my living room on my new sofa and chairs in front of a fireplace, surrounded by windows looking out at snow-covered trees and have a great view of the valley below. I'm here where no one can bother me (except my kids ) and I can just read and write and edit. I had accidentally committed to being at a meeting in another city today at the same time I agreed to give a talk here, so that double-booking was resolved handily when the blizzard forced both things to be cancelled!

At the same time I'm editing this guy's proposal, I'm also editing DS6a's story he's writing about Lucke the Cat Pirit. (pirate) I wish I could do this more often.

Only next time with toilet paper.

Jayne

A friend and I recently had coffee together. We were laughing about the differences in perception between husbands and wives. We got talking about his Grandfather. One day Grandma was expressing over the dinner table (with company) that Grandpa never tells her he loves her. Grandpas reply was "I told you I loved you the day I married you, and if I change my mind I'll let you know.

I had to let you know this. Perhaps your husband was born too late?

God Bless you and your family.

Maybe you all could take a walk to the nearest neighbor and introduce yourselves and ask to borrow a roll or two of toilet paper? Great time to meet the neighbors! Then, when you return some paper, you could include some homemade cookies or something.

Now that's a new one..."Pardon me, could I borrow a cup of toilet paper?"

LOL everyone! Love the grampa story, bcb!

We survived. Friday evening H reached the end of the driveway. Right before he was quite to the end, the guy whose driveway I'd "parked" in came and picked me up and took me back to get the car. I had to have H give me a push up to climb over the hill left by the snowplow, to get onto the road to the guy's truck. When I came back, I helped H finish the rest of the way to the road so we could get the car off the road.

Saturday morning H drove into town and got toilet paper, bread and other essentials. Today he went into town and did the regular week's grocery shopping. He's gonna be gone Tuesday and Wednesday on a trip, so he hopefully got enough so I won't need to go to the store while he's gone.

It woulda been *really* hard to handle this without a guy around. OTOH he's about depleted his LB account with IBs and lack of communication - actual clamming up when asked a direct question.

When he's being friendly, I was telling myself earlier that it's just a "strong silent type" thing, like John Wayne or bcb's grampa. Other times, it seems downright passive aggressive, along with the frustrated feeling that comes from trying to deal with a P/A.

It does seem to be correlated with whether or not there's a glass of wine or beer on the counter.

Don't let me back out of calling the Harleys, ok? If I'm feeling better about things tomorrow, club me or something, ok? Cus things can go from good to me feeling incredibly frustrated in no time flat. Just a few minutes ago when I was trying to talk to him about how to handle something with DS6a he clammed up even though I was careful to not DJ. I felt several days' of frustration rising up, and I told him that I wanted to talk about *that*, about how we can't talk about stuff. Still no response. Not even eye contact. He just kept doing what he was doing. I told him that this was really not working for me (I think those are the words I used; I was trying to let him know how serious this behaviour was LBing, only I didn't wanna use MB terminology for fear he would take it less seriously).

This is exactly what leads me to figuratively throwing up my hands, saying "Ok fine!" and then not trying to talk to him for several days. Then I forget, and I figure I prolly could've done something different to prevent it, and that I will do better next time, and he seems to be acting friendly again...

...nothing ever getting resolved of course.

And all this does is teach him that it's ok to totally ignore me when he doesn't like what I'm saying, and that I'm stupid enough to forget all about it in a few days.

Stupid stupid stupid me. Stupid.

*Why* am I waiting for his agreement to get a dog???

Answering some pre-blizzard posts:

Some money was held back at closing with a written agreement that the "pet odor" problem had to be resolved. But believe it or not, H tried to talk the realtor into holding back LESS money than she suggested! I spoke up enough to go with the realtor's highest suggested hold-back. But that was when we thought carpet cleaning would take care of it. It was right *after* closing that we found out the carpet cleaner wanted to take us up to see the carpet at night with a black light.

It was the day *after* closing that the seller verbally agreed to buy new carpet, in front of his realtor, our realtor, and the second opinion carpet guy he called. Our lawyer thinks we have a good case because it was the seller who placed the order for the carpet in his name, and he also removed the old carpet. I was willing to just come to some agreement with an amount, so we could remove just the worst of the carpet until the new carpet arrived (or until my anticipated puppy was housebroken). But no, he removed all the carpet except for the bedrooms downstairs. I wouldn't be surprised if he then used it in another of his homes he's building.

I tried several times these past few days asking him "What do you think" on stuff. Except for choosing a new cellphone to buy, he hasn't anything to say.

if it wasn't for the kids, I'd be saying ok fine, don't talk to me and I won't talk to you, I'm sick and tired of trying. But that isn't a good environment to raise kids in. So I'll call the Harley's and see if they can make anything of this mess. How's that sound?

You definitely need it. But I would go one step further and suggest that maybe you need some other sort of professional to step in. What he is doing is not normal. He says, what? Maybe 10 sentences a day? I would really be thinking about taking it to another level. IMO, THAT is what is unhealthy for the kids to see.

Jayne, I don't see you as stupid. I see someone who keeps taking the short-term payoff over the long one. Until she doesn't. Then she does again Am I close?

Have you clarified for yourself what your plan is here? Have you read the Love Busters book yet? It talks about setting up the environment for success instead of going along with a bad agreement for you until you are frustrated and LB.

Are you willing to call the Harleys again?

Jayne, I wanted to say, that I have had to be very careful with my boundaries with men, because I know I am very vulnerable. When I got a great group of women friends together who shared my values, friends of the marriage, I felt a lot less vulnerable, more free. Like this neoghbor who came to pick you up, I'm sure he's just being neighborly. But if you had a woman friend to call when your H refuses to help when you need, then you don't have to keep the same kinds of boundaries up. You can invite her in even when your H isn't home, out for coffee to thank her, and so on, where you wouldn't want to do that with your neighbor.

The guy who picked me up was the guy whose driveway we got stuck in, that's why he came to get me, to take me back to my car which was in his driveway. He and his wife are this lovely older couple, and she took me and my kids in and she treated my kids like her own grandkids, and dried all of us off, etc. He could've picked up H, but then I woulda been left to shovel snow and my back hurt. It coulda been his wife who came to get me or H, but seriously, I think she would rather him drive than her. I woulda rather H have been the one to drive back too, but I even more would prefer H shovel the snow instead of me.

Not every male-female conversation leads to infidelity. I also talked to the lady, and we talked about their church and their grandkids and how long they've lived there. I talked mostly to him though because she was inside with my kids instead of outside in the blizzard hooking up ropes and trying to drag cars and trucks out of ditches. The person AAA sent was also a guy. I didn't talk to the AAA guy as much because when he showed up, the driveway guy suggested I go inside and get warm with his wife and my kids, and he'd be outside with the AAA guy.

I think making a rule that I will speak only to women is not very realistic at all. I'm stuck in a car with my two kids in a blizzard. EVERYONE who stops to help is going to be a man. If a woman stopped to help, the only good that would do is then we'd have two cars stuck.

No offense to feminists intended.

I understand you meant well, but sometimes I think reading on this board every day predisposes us to see infidelity even where it doesn't exist.

What a day. The kids' school was closed, but (and this was a surprise) so was the after-school program. After driving all over town to both possible locations (and for here, "all over town" is maybe all of 10 blocks... but it was a snowy 10 blocks!) I finally took the kids to work with me. We had to park a long way off because snow took up a lot of parking spaces. I barely had time to prepare for my class, and then the kids went with me and sat in the back of the class. Then I took them out to lunch with the intention of being back in time for a phone call... only I got the time zone wrong and missed the call by 2 hours!

So I didn't get a chance to call the Harleys, since the kids were always around, and I didn't ever have a spare minute anyway, and I don't wanna call from my office where everyone can hear, and my cell phone didn't survive the blizzard-car-ditch incident. But I still plan to call, next time I can go home to make the phone call. That should be tomorrow.

I was thinking, one reason I keep going back to thinking all is well, is precisely because I AM following MB. I'm trying my darndest to not LB, including DJs, and to keep a positive attitude and be thankful for his good aspects. To be cheerful around him and not hold a grudge. And so, the miracle of when-you-stop-LBing-then-your-spouse-starts-looking-better starts happening. But the previous problem was never addressed, and so it cycles around again.

For this cycle to end, i need to not be so naive. Right? I need to, um, in a sense, hold the grudge, right? To not just allow us to pretend that all is well when he continues to not discuss issues like parenting with me. Right?

Argh... this leads me right back to boundaries, right? Well there's one thing that's different this time... I'm having this inner dialogue on a Monday instead of a Friday. Usually this happens at the beginning of the weekend, and things spiral downward from here.

H leaves tomorrow for a two-day trip. I should be able to call the Harleys then.

On the drive home I realized I didn't want to make such a generalization of "if another woman stopped to help there'd just be two cars stuck." I used to take pride in my ability to literally, physically carry my own weight. The years have taken their toll on my back, though, and I'm now grateful for "gentlemen" who are willing to do the heavy lifting stuff.

So let me say, that if a woman like myself or like the driveway lady or like most women had stopped to help, there'd have been two cars stuck. BUT, if someone like Lil had stopped, that awesome woman who can birth calves before breakfast and then come in and charm the socks off Flick, now I bet she coulda gotten me outa that ditch! Or at least she couldn't have done any more harm than the driveway guy.

My apologies to all the women who can dig their way out of a blizzard with no help from a man!

Ok, going back to examine posts I didn' have time to respond to earlier today...

(See? I'm really trying to not just sweep this under the rug this time.)


Maybe 10 sentences a day is an exaggeration. I think he prolly said 5 sentences this morning, discussing whether or not the after school care was open. He said maybe 5 sentences later in the day discussing when he could come get the kids. So we're already at about 10 sentences, and we haven't even had dinner yet!

Of course most days the issue of whether the after school care is open doesn't come up. Most days we'd prolly be at about 5 sentences *maybe* by dinner time. And maybe 5 sentences during dinner.

Hmm. I'll have to start counting.

Does email count?