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Expectations

I suppose it's a little extreme looking for a therapist so early but I should mention we already had a contractor (I think I'll call him C) - one who had worked with us before and whom we really like and trust. It was in the middle of a conversation with C that we discovered that we have some DIFFERENT IDEAS ABOUT SPACE. To be fair, we've known this our whole marriage. It tends to come up when we move (which we've done 7 times in our married life), or when we just move furniture (which we've done a whole lot more than 7 times) or when we think about taking out a wall (which we've done far more times than we should of especially since we rarely have a plan for what to do with the remaining hole. This is why there is a hole in the office wall, no doors on the closets in our bedroom, and a large hole in the wall between two closets on the first floor. All I can say is that it always seemed like a good idea at the time.)

We just see space differently and after 20 years of a marriage (added to a few years of dating before that), we're both pretty certain that we're right. Honestly, I don't remember what the discussion with C was all about but as we got into it, I found myself doing the thing I do when we're arguing in front of people but we don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. Make it funny. So I cracked some joke about how we should have written down the decisions we'd already made since we couldn't quite seem to remember what we'd agree on 6 weeks ago (as if we'd actually decided something - more on that later) and then, just for added punch I asked C if he does marriage counseling along with remodels. He laughed - sort of - and for good measure confirmed that, no he does not do marriage counseling and, oh look at the time, suddenly he had to get going.

In addition to seeing space differently, we also work on projects differently. Since I am writing this and my spouse isn't here to defend himself, I can tell you that he is singularly focused when he works on a project. Now sometimes this is a good thing because it means that the project gets the attention that it needs to be completed (which is another problem of ours - we have a bad habit of starting things, without a plan to finish them. Do you see the pattern here?) However, I see this singular focus as a detriment to EVERYTHING else happening. Grocery shopping - it can wait. Kids running wild in the neighborhood - they'll be fine. Dinner needs to be made - we'll get to it later. Which eventually means that people are hungry, tired and in some cases unaccounted for (rarely on that last one - thank goodness). The kids and I call it project mode - as in, "dad's in project mode." And when that happens we all know that we have to lower our expectations and stay out of the way. Now that the kids are old enough to feed themselves, project mode has gotten a little easier but it's still a thing and it can sometimes, ahem, lead to disagreements because of a difference in expectations what will be completed by when. 

This kitchen will be the biggest renovation we've done and we found a good therapist. Let project mode begin.


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