Couples Therapy Session 3 but it’s really 4.

We had another session and this one was enlightening for me.  At our last session there was a lot of talk about Ben and how tired he was.  After all the man works 12 hours a day from 3pm till 3am and works 7 days a week…why would he be tired?! 😉

Anyways, while there we talked about how I don’t like to hear him complain about his quality of sleep when he won’t lock the bedroom door (Sunshine LOVES to go in and stage whisper…’Dhahdy! Dhahdy!’ and Tyler always thinks he’s going to find something he’s lost in our room.) AND he won’t turn on the fan which acts as white noise.  Angela our therapist wanted to know why I won’t just turn on the fan and lock the door when I leave.  Simple question yes?  But it really made me think.

Why don’t I turn on the fan and lock the door as I leave?  After all….how easy would it be to do?  Why have I refused to turn it on when by simply doing that he’d be able to get a better quality of sleep which would mean I wouldn’t hear remarks and he’d move out of the bed quicker.  My Ben can not operate on 4-5ish hours of sleep.  And, at best will stumble around on 7-8 hours.

So…why not?

I thought it over while we drove home and through the next few weeks.  I think I figured it out.

Right now Ben and I see each other for only 3 hours a day.  Now, I’m not counting the time I’m lying asleep next to him because the minute I hear the car pull in I’m out and I sleep like the dead until the kids start stirring.  By then he’s out and doesn’t even know I’m leaving the room.  Shoot, I’ve fell on him and he hasn’t even broken a snore and I’m no where near a light weight.  So…he’s out too.  Around 11:10ish his alarm goes off.  I’ve been trying to ‘give him more time’ and not attack/bombard him the minute his eyes open but I’m starting to feel he’s abusing this ‘limited amount of patience’ I have and is just being a weenie. …note for therapy…

So…From 11ish until 2ish when he leaves the house the kids see him, talk, play, share, complain, sing, read to, listen to, dance with Ben.  During those same 3 hours we are trying to find time to be a couple.  I try to find time to be a wife and a husband as I’m always Mommy and he’s always Electrician.  During that small window of time we also need to be ourselves.

Long story short…I realized I was seeing the fan and the door and all as a “mommy” job.  Shutting the door and waking him up those are all things I do for the kids and my mom did for me.  I have 3 hours a day to combine my mommy role with wife role and I don’t want to mix the two where it concerns him.

But, I had to realize that even though I cook meals for him and do laundry for him those are ‘mom’ jobs but they’re also ‘wife’ or ‘husband’ jobs (I have him do laundry sometimes while I’m doing something else.).  I had to find a way to pull my mind away from Mommy to this is just caring and loving him.  There’s nothing maternal about it…it’s simply nurturing.  Now, I don’t want to be nurturing with him as I’d like to be seen as a sexual being by/with him so I had to just snap out of it and know there’s nothing Oedipal here.

I shared all this the other day with the therapist because she commented on how fidgety Ben was (the man can’t set without vibrating a leg.  It’s so bad he’s gotten the pew to vibrating before.) and seemed more ‘lively’.  I agreed and he said it’s better sleep.  He’s sleeping better despite not taking the Valerian root and he’s finally off the caffeine too.  (Remember caffeine takes 13 hours to be broken down by the liver.)  Ben never understood why I’d become aggravated to hear how he’d taken a caffeine pill before driving home.  It’d be kicking in AS he’s trying to go to sleep.  DERH!  Sometimes the man is about as dumb as a box of rocks.

We talked some more, shared my ah-ha’s! And she wanted to know how I kept the mommy outta the wife and I told her I sashayed outta the room.  We all laughed but she thought it was a good idea.  Dude…at 7 or 8 in the morning I’m falling/tripping over the covers…I’m not able to be coordinated enough to sashay.

I thought that after we left HOW am I going to keep the wife fed?  Mommas so well fed she needs a pryin’ board to get off the couch but Wife?  She’s been starved like a kid at fat camp.  I came to realize that in 13 years of marriage I’ve left it up to Ben to make me feel attractive and sexy.  Why is it that we all know we’re responsible for our own anger, happiness, sadness but sexiness or attractiveness is given up and released to the partners keeping?  Why had I done that?  That like anger and joy was my responsibility.

So!  I’ve taken it back.  I’ve bought conditioner and shampoo that’s geared toward curly hair.  I thought I’d lost my good hair after I had Rhea.  But I didn’t….it was just REALLY dry.  I’m starting to hints of good hair…it’s just got SO much more silver in it now.  yes, I’m 32 and I’ve grey/silver in probably 80% of my hair since I was about 16.  I don’t color it (well sometimes I will with Henna) and I actually think it’s very cool.  Shades of Rogue and Storm (cartoon Storm not the movie Storm) baby!  I’ve also been using scented lotion every day.  And, not my coconut oil…good ol’ store bought with urea in the ingredients.  I’d never allow the girls to use this but…I smell like cinnamon and something else…(I bought it pre-boycott at the Devil er..Walmarts.) and it’s so nice and soft!  I’m using face stuff and doing a whole soap and lotion regime where the soap is actually made for your face not your hair or your ass.  (oh and it has a buncha’ chemicals in it too.  Annoying …yes…but…Locking the bathroom door and ignoring all but cuts that can be proven as needing moms attention by displaying a bloody appendage under the door has seriously done some wonders for myself….  It too was bought at the Devils er…Walmarts.) 

Side note- does anyone know of an organic face regime that actually makes your skin feel soft and you don’t have to mix it up yourself?

Am I being lazy?!  Hell yes!  But it’s nice and nurturing to myself.  I never had time to do those things for myself and that’s why my hair’s as dry as straw and I’ve ashy elbows.  So…When buying a 4$ bottle of lotion with urine in it and some highly packaged purple bottle of conditioner that does magic in 3 minutes  means a higher quality of life….do it.  After all there’s a place for everything and right now intensive wrinkle treatment and 3 minute miracle conditioner and the time to be alone with myself each day has done some great things.  After all….we all know it’s not the conditioner or the lotion…it’s the nurturing I’m finally giving to myself and it’s spilling out amongst my family.

Here’s to production as it gives me permission to take a few wonderfully selfish minutes for myself.

Oh yeah…and I have to say that I also snuck out all the kids good dark chocolate candy and hid them and I’ve had 1-2 pieces a day!  Hey…they’re the sample sizes…easy. 😉

Honey