# W leave projects undone, unattended



## RollDamnTide (Nov 19, 2012)

Hello.

My wife is at least mildly depressed with some anxiety, per her psychologist of 8 sessions, 3 years ago. Just from amateur observational terms she sits around the house all day, sleeps real late on weekends and basically has no hobbies aside from eating and TV. No children. She does work outside the home in clerical work at a doc's office, 40 hours week. She has been in this state for at least 8 years. It was gradual if not always present to some degree. We have been together for 21.

But this post is more about what seems minor until I considered all the minor examples that have accumulated and point to a similar pattern.

She in lazy 94% of the time at home, but enjoys her shopping. The combination means she won't see it thru. That leads to both of us seeing constant reminders around of laziness. I'll be honest; I’m not the hardest worker around the house. We make decent money and I'd rather hire someone. I do the yard work and clean up and cook, etc., but nothing major.

On the other hand, my wife cares if the walls are painted. Buys samples. Maybe 6 samples. And paints squares on the wall to check it out. I do my best to pick a favorite, and always state, "any would be fine. Do what you want. I'll be here to help on paint day." Then 3 years later we still have these squares on the wall.

We disagreed with how many perennials to plant by the mailbox. I like simple. I take care of the yard. Which means "if you are a high maintenance plant, sorry, you will die". The wife never goes outside except to shop/eat/job. This season, I’ll be digging up 10 perennials. Eventually I "get my way". I just wish she would realize who she is and lower her expectations. You know? 

There is a series of exams I should be taking but I procrastinate. I don’t lay all the books out on the stairs though as a reminder. We have all these reminders: Food she buys and never eats sitting in fridge until spoilage, or in cupboards for years. Yeah, no big deal... until I think she is 38 and still can’t reconcile her decisions with the truth of who she is. Hey, so what if you hate painting. I'm not bugging her about walls that need painting. My thinking: If it were just me, I'd let'em be. Maybe paint a room a week if it got bad. Or, depending on savings/price, go pay someone. Point is, I'd get it done if I cared about it.


I've been much less "controlling" since out first years of dating/marriage. She has a large slush fund to use for decorating / clothese / lunches / manicures / whatever. Before we would discuss all purchases and have stipends for lunch. Both of us. Thats been several years. And it was my idea, in order to lower the stress when she wanted (ex/) to buy more nail polish and has 15 colors already with 1 or 2 usages out of them.

I've tried, "lets get this house painted in two years, or I'll get someone in here to do it." Well, it would cost about $3500 and I dont really care if it gets painted. I would be glad to pay it if she wanted. So that might be classic cut off your nose to spite your face. She feels guilt about being lazy and we paid to have our other house painted (pre sale prep) after putting if off the 3 years we lived there. Now five+ years in this one, and we've done one room. It's as if she would rather fail and be reminded of it (by the environment, not me). Classic depression, I imagine.

So what would you advise to thread the needle between controlling and putting my foot down ? I can say "all the cottage cheese you buy comes out of your funds" That's not the real point though. Is it?


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## hawkeye (Oct 6, 2012)

Wow, same here with my wife. She'll buy decorations and leave them sitting against the wall for months. There's a bookshelf we HAD to have still in it's box in the living room a whole year later. She's also depressed. I've basically let this all slide for nearly 10 years of marriage now, but about a month or two ago I told her I had it and she was going to start finishing her projects. I told her I would rather let her do it herself, but relying on her to get it done wasn't working anymore. So i've just started setting deadlines. I told her the decorations that were sitting on the floor were going to be up by the week or I'd take them to goodwill. Same with a few other projects. It's going ok so far, but the moment I stop pushing, she'll stop doing anything.


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