What happened this morning: April 16, 1997

1.	Dorene said she would go for a walk;

2.	I got excited that she would do that for herself;

3.	I assumed she would do that first, before other things (mistake #1);

4.	I dressed and shaved, taking a minute to look at a Christopher News Note while doing so (mistake #2);

5.	I was disappointed when I found that Dorene had not gone for her walk yet;

6.	I came downstairs to find James working on his printing, and asking for an egg for breakfast;

7.	Dorene asked me to fry him an egg;

8.	While waiting for the element to heat I put away the dishes in the draining rack, and organized the cupboard over the sink, which was unstable;

9.	I put the pan on the element and put some margarine in the pan;

10.	While waiting for the pan to heat I made the juice;

11.	When James came into the kitchen for his egg I said it would be ready soon;

12.	When he whined twice I sent him to his room (mistake #3);

I can't remember the sequence of everything else that happened. What I remember is feeling stupid for sending James to his room for such a small offence: whining briefly. I think I was upset about something Dorene had said to me, that she fried eggs on lower heat because it saved the protein. When James came down, he ate his breakfast, which I'd saved for him.

Dorene suggested I cook up the perishke (or whatever) and I thought, "For who?" but started cooking them. I said, "I don't know who's going to eat them.", and then realized Dorene probably meant them for me as a treat. I wasn't ready to take them because I'd just poured milk into my bowl of cereal from yesterday and was planning to eat that for breakfast. Dorene came by and said I needed more butter, and I felt confused because I thought I should use as little butter as possible.

She asked whether the salami slices from the fridge were good. I smelled them and thought they smelled OK, although perhaps a little wee bit off. Dorene, with her head cold, then smelled them and pronounced that they were inedible and unsafe (or words to that effect). I felt discounted, incompetent, and foolish because I judged she was saying that my judgment was worse than useless and that my relatively-clear nose was less reliable than her plugged-up one. I now realize that her nose seemed less stuffed up today than yesterday. I said it would have helped me to have a little taste (judging that then my tongue could help my nose) and Dorene said "Absolutely not!" as though one little taste would cause me serious harm.

James asked me to spend some time with him on the computer. I told James that he could have 5 minutes on the computer now. Then I told James that more computer time would have to wait until he had done his other jobs first: getting dressed, and practising the violin. He ran crying up to his room, and I went after him trying to tell him he hadn't heard me. Dorene said I had loaded too many heavy things on him, because he was tired from printing the lines of the se story. She said I should have said "Yes" and just warned him when he had 1 minute left. She said I give the kids too much information sometimes, and they can't take it all in. I recognized that it was true, and felt badly.

I asked Dorene whether she was going to go for her walk. She said she had to do some other things first, and I felt bad because I could see the whole early morning going by without her getting out for a walk. I felt frustrated that she would not put more value on meeting her need for exercise and fresh air. I said as much, and she said that she had to see to many things in the home, and that she couldn't rely on me to do it, or words to that effect. I recognized that it was true to some extent, but felt like I was to blame for her not getting her walk, and that unless I could operate at her speed, she would not go for a walk. I felt like a failure, and at the same time felt she was being unfair to expect me to be able to do things as fast as she does.

I went back to making my lunch, very angry inside, and wanted to throw things around the kitchen. I didn't want to make meat sandwiches for myself, wanting to save the sausage for the children (telling myself I wasn't important enough to have sausage). I recognized that I was important enough, and that Dorene might be sad if I didn't take sausage for my lunch, so I went ahead and sliced some sausage. I then looked at the lettuce, and pulled all the broken stalks off so I could get at the full ones. I noticed that the kitchen garbage needed to be taken out, so after putting mayonnaise and mustard on my sandwich bread I pulled off two lettuce pieces and began to take out the garbage.

Desiree came downstairs and wanted a cuddle. At first I asked her to wait because my hands were dirty from the garbage. I closed the bag and dumped it in the large basked, which I then saw also needed to be emptied. I gave Desiree an "arms" cuddle for a few seconds, so she wouldn't have to wait for me to wash my hands. She said she wanted a longer cuddle. I said she'd have to wait. I went upstairs to get the garbage from the two bathrooms and put them into the bag, which I then tied up and took downstairs.

Somewhere in the above I said to Dorene. "If you'd just get out of here for your walk ...!" She construed that to mean that I wanted her to go away so I could have space. It hurt me to hear her say that, but I realize now that I did want that; I wanted space to do the things that needed to be done without having her watching me, and either telling me or letting me guess that I wasn't doing them right or fast enough.

Twice this morning when I spoke to Dorene about how I was feeling I used a tone of voice she described as "whining." It stung me to hear that term, but I realized it was accurate. She said, and I realized on my own, that =when I talk that way she feels she has three children to care for. It hurt to hear that, too.

I wanted to help Dorene, and to encourage her to go out for a walk and take care of herself. I was angry that she would not do that for herself. I feel as though I'll never be able to meet her standards for getting things done around the house, and therefore she'll never be able to take care of her needs. I feel held hostage to her demands. I recognize they are the same demands she makes on herself, and so I'm not being treated any different than she treats herself. However, I judge that our skills and experiences are different, and that it is not reasonable to expect me to function like a duplicate of her when I am in the house. I try to do my best, and I try to change my direction when I see I am not putting first things first.

I believe Dorene is saying, "If the cost of my taking a walk is that there is more left to do when I return than there would have been if I had stayed in the house and done it myself, I will not take a walk. If this is how it will be, the cost of the walk will be too great." I judge it is unfair of her to set the bar so high. The cost to her health of not taking a walk also needs to be taken into consideration. As her husband, I feel very guilty that she has not had (or taken) time to care for her physical needs in some rudimentary way. I feel responsible for that, in that I have not freed her up to go out for walks more often. It is often true that when I get home from work and supper is over, she feels too tired to go out. I would prefer to be able to take over for her in the kitchen and prepare supper so she can go out for a stroll. However, I know I would not be as good a cook (at first, anyway) as she is, and I can see her view that it would be unfair to Hui Chen. However, on the other hand, Hui Chen is a good cook, and I believe I could learn to do better, if the others in the family were prepared to be patient.

I recognize that I am very hard on myself when I feel I have not done well enough. I am particularly this way when I feel I have failed to meet someone else's expectations. I recognize that I have more control over how I express this behaviour than I used this morning. I know it hurts Dorene to see me collapse when I feel like a failure. I don't want to cause her this pain. I need now to learn and use new behaviours when I feel very bad. I need to begin now to express my feelings in words, without the body language or intonations that belong to childhood. As I write this I wonder whether this is a sign of the "interrupted" growing-up that I have often thought of, and may have mentioned to Dorene.

Dorene was kind and thoughtful to me this morning, even when I was disappointing and hurting her, and she spoke lovingly to me when I left the house. I have a wonderful wife, and I need to value her more, and show her how important she is to me by changing how I behave toward her. I have thought and said this before, and meant it. I mean it now. God, please help me grow up. I surrender my right to put such burdens, of guild and bad feeling, on myself. I surrender my right to be a victim. I surrender my right to be a child, and behave like a child. I surrender my right to put burdens on my wife. I accept my responsibility to share in the care of our home and family to the extent I am able. I accept my responsibility to increase my ability by practice, forethought, and asking questions. I accept my responsibility to learn what I need to know, by asking Dorene when appropriate.