I try really hard not to "mother" my husband. I watched my mom break my dad down over the years by constantly telling him what to do and how to do it.
I've watched women "mother" their husbands and have thought to myself, "I'll never do that!" You know what? It's pretty hard sometimes not to do that. Call it mothering call it nagging, whatever you want to call it, it's a role that's very easy to fall into.
I found myself falling into this role. I would tell RD to do this, remind him of that, try and "help" him with this. Sure...as a wife and a friend I should help him when I can, remind him of things, but it's a fine line sometimes. What I would call helping, RD would define as nagging. If I step outside of the situation I can sometimes see his point.
I think I had gotten a lot better. I learned to bite my tongue about a lot of things. I came to accept that he wasn't always going to carry his cereal bowl into the kitchen...he would often forget to rinse all those yucky hairs off the soap after his shower (yuck!)...leave his shoes piled up by the front door...put his socks in the hamper...put the chips in the pantry when he's done, not just on the kitchen counter, etc. Some things just ain't gonna change.
Now the hard part. Parenting.
So he doesn't do things just as I would do them. So he calls the bottle ba-ba instead of bottle (how will they learn?!). So he lets them crawl around on the floor right after they drink their bottles instead of having them sit for a few minutes (what's a few puke spots here and there?). I can deal with all that. No problem.
BUT...he has a way of leaving little trails wherever he goes. When he eats popcorn it gets everywhere. As he's eating Bugles on his way from the kitchen to the living room he leaves a trail. He ate a Klondike Bar lastnight, crumpled up the wrapper, tried to toss it on the table, and it landed on the floor - it stayed there until I picked it up. Some things ya just can't let go. I went over to see what SA was messing with...he was eating...what was it....a DAMN Salsa Bugle! GRRRRRR!!!!!
So I had to put on my nagging-Mother hat and kindly remind him to please be more careful with dropping things on the floor.
Maybe I just need to realize that I have four kids in this house, not three. ;)
