The recipe stewed...

Well the recipe stewed for a while (other half thought about it at work the next day) and when he came home from work was overly jovial. Bleugh! (can you tell I was still annoyed?)

So I'm cooking dinner and he props himself up in the kitchen. Now this is most out of the ordinary and his coming home from work routine is:

• come in, walk around the living room (checking his territory hasn't been ambushed or changed during the day while he has been out hunting wooly mammoth). 
• Deposit motorbike jacket, bike boots and skid lid in various parts of the living room.
• Sit at the computer and log on to ebay. (I'm really, seriously thinking about starting up an ebay Anonymous!)
• Collect plate of dinner when he's been told it's ready a minimum of 3 times.
• Eat dinner
• Watch The Simpsons
• Perhaps now talk to wife, or maybe not.

So, back to me cooking dinner and him propped up in the kitchen, joking and being very jovial. (my thoughts are, what has he done? what does he want? or, what is he going to do?)

He says: "I've had a bit of time to think, and I do actually understand what you were saying".

THUD (that is the sound of my chin hitting the floor, but in actuallity, I quietly say "oh?").

He carried on and it did actually seem like he did understand what I'd said. I even wondered if he'd been for an injection of oestrogen during the day so he could understand women. The major thing for me, that came out of this discussion, is that after 10 and a bit years of being together and me saying on numerous occasions, he all of a sudden understands that he goes to work from 9 to 5 and then clocks off. He has the evenings and weekend to do whatever he wants to do whenever he wants to do it (and he does - he doesn't lift a finger housework wise), whereas I don't have a clock on and off time and never get evenings/nights/weekends off. And he also (says) that he now realises that I wanted to get these decorations alone because if I took Isabelle it then turns into an outing for her and I become involved in her oohing and ahhing at all the pretty decorations and I don't actually get the time to do what I'd planned.

So why didn't he listen to me when I was trying to explain this? Why did it turn into a huge argument because he took it personally and went all defensive and then threw all the 'you do this that and the other' shite at me. It turned into a bitchfest on his part and I turned into a blubbering wreck that sported golfball eyes for the next 24 hours. It's so hard to talk to someone when the defensive barriers automatically go up and he automatically assumes I'm calling him and pitching his downfalls so he turns the tables and hurls all the crap at me he can think of. I'm not that kind of person, I don't slag someone off just to defend myself. I don't point out people's downfalls and be spiteful just for the hell of it. In fact, I don't do it at all. People are people (grrrr now got Depeched Mode in my head), but everyone's different and I accept that, I really do wish he would realise that I'm not actually out to get him and make his life a misery, especially when I'm feeling a bit bogged down with life and could use a bit of support and a shoulder to lean on to hold me up.