“I love you, but I love myself more.” Samantha Jones

I think we all know I have been struggling lately. Moving in with Dan, gaining new friends, losing old ones and settling into this little thing people call being a grown-up. (Insert dramatic huff here) I was the most independent, fun-loving and totally random single girl in the world. I really enjoyed that lifestyle, for many years actually. This whole girlfriend/pseudo stepmom/housekeeper/lover/friend shtick is exhausting. I am stressed about grocery shopping, childcare and household maintenance. My biggest stress as a single girl was who to party with and where. “I say who, I say when I say how much”, was my motto. Don’t get me wrong, I love Dan and although we have had our fair share of pissing contests lately, I know I want to be with him. I also know that a piece of me feels like it has broken off. That could be the loss of 2 of my friends in the past few months. I am coming to terms with the fact that in order to consider yourselves “friends” certain things need to be in place; mutual respect, trust, loyalty, love and consideration top my list. Once people become hateful, deviant frauds there is not much you can do. I think I was expecting Dan to swoop in and save the day when my friends walked out. They blamed him for their exit because they were too phony to admit to their own faults and frankly, their newfound distaste of me. I am realizing now (2 months later) that it was not Dan’s job to save the day. I realize now that I had a completely blown out of proportion expectation there. What Dan did do was talk to me. He did try to talk me off of the ledge on numerous occasions. He tried to defend them even while they attacked him and me. He encouraged me to do what was best for me. He never once suggested what was right or wrong for me. That is really all I could ask for.

Once the light bulb went off, I started to think of other events where my expectations were high; house cleaning, child care, shopping…the above listed stresses. I tried to talk to Dan about expectations a few weeks back and he told me he had none for me. I am not going to lie, that upset me. Here we have moved in together and we are trying to build a life together and he expects nothing? Well, being the deep seeded Scorpio that I am, I did nothing. I didn’t wash a dish, not one load of laundry; I did not lift a finger at home for 1 solid week. So I had a filthy house, stinky dishes, no clean underwear and I was still upset. In my anger I started to think, “Why is this my responsibility?” You know what? It’s not. Dan had his house, his child and his empty refrigerator before I moved in. The only thing that changed was my feeling of obligation. I hate that word. I hate its meaning even more. I don’t want anyone to feel obligated to me so it is no wonder that I was becoming resentful of feeling obligated myself. I am not obligated. It is not my job to take care of anyone but me.

So that got me really thinking. Here I am stressing about making sure there is food in the house when Dan would prefer to order Papa John’s every night until the end of time. I am doing laundry, both of ours and matching socks (which I absolutely detest) for what? He has enough uniforms to not wash for over a month. He doesn’t really wear much but work clothes so why am I stressing? I talked to friends who are married and don’t do their husbands laundry. They were like “Girl, why are you washing his shit? Then you will just be obligated to it forever” There is that word again.

I think the childcare stress is really my own fear and/or fear of obligation. I am not a mommy, not even a mommy-type. I have enough trouble getting myself up and to work everyday. I live with a strong fear that I will forget his child. What if I leave her at home and head out to work? What if I forget to pick her up from the babysitter after work? Thank God she is a chatter box so I would never just forget her in the car or anything What if she drives me crazy and I snap like my mother though? So many what ifs. My true issue is I don’t leave things to chance, especially things as important as childcare. But guess what? It’s not my problem. I have offered my help and support and now I have to sit back and let him accept it. I was trying to make all of the arrangements without a proper schedule and getting angry at him for not helping. He should be making arrangements, not me. She is his child, his ex to deal with, and his issue in my opinion. So why the obligation on my part?

The housecleaning issue has been a man/woman war since women went into the work force and were pushed back into the home. Men are just lazy when it comes to things they don’t care about and they don’t care about enough dog hair to make a whole dog building up on kitchen floors. They don’t care about mail piling up for months or even years. They don’t appreciate you spending half of your day cleaning because it didn’t matter to them to start with. When I was single and I cleaned the floor I didn’t expect anyone to be grateful or in awe of me. I also was doing it because I wanted to, not out of obligation. Did you see my aaaaa-haaaa moment? I will not do these things out of obligation anymore. Obligation builds resentment and that is no good. If I feel like drinking with my friends and not doing anything to the house, from now on that is what I will do. I was taking myself and this situation way to seriously.

In the meantime I was resentful of Dan for many reasons. He didn’t acknowledge all of my hard work. He really didn’t seem to notice and/or care. He didn’t jump start into doing more around the house, he actually did less. But you know what? As soon as I did nothing, Dan did dishes. As soon as I stopped doing laundry, he started. I haven’t mentioned childcare and I am not going to. I trust that he will let me know if he needs my help and if not, I have plenty to keep me busy. I guess the moral of this here story is that here I was trying to make our life together perfect. I thought we needed to lean on one another to be a team. What I lost sight of were the 2 extremely independent people that came into this relationship. I was molding myself into something different, asking him for things that I never had and depending on him to give me an answer. I didn’t like myself so I can’t imagine what Dan thought. I was being all needy and nagging like my mother and I couldn’t stand that. I don’t want to be that person. I want to be me. And that, my friends, is what I am getting back to. Me, myself and I. It isn’t selfish to take care of yourself. It is necessary and important. That is not to say that I don’t love Dan, I just love myself more to quote Sex in the City. And I should. Once you don’t love yourself you can’t expect someone else to love you.

“Declare today “sacred time”- off-limits to everyone, unless invited by you. Take care of your personal wants and needs. Say no, graciously but firmly, to others’ demands”----Oprah Winfrey