Dirty dishes

Dear you,

Today I indulged in a bit of risky no-holds-barred honest anger. It was about the dishes. I am tired of being the only who does them. Common enough source of contention between people that live together.

You know that tingly feeling you get when you do something a little dangerous? When you’re thinking – hang the consequences! I’m doing it!

Well, it sort of got in the way of getting the words out smoothly.

I fluffed the lines from the movie in my head where we get to be a normal couple that argues over who left a sink of filthy dishes without considering that one person might kill themselves over it.

It was no big deal. I meant to say “I sometimes forget to be content with my lot as your domestic slave”. (Sounds good no?) I think I let things get to my head though and ended up sounding like a petulant teenager. “I’m sick and tired of doing everything around here. I’m not your domestic slave you know?” or something like that. So much for the moment.

So how do you do it? How do you address every day conflicts without it being an enormous drama?

Any criticism I make at all is taken as proof that he is really as crap and hopeless as he believes he is. I just want to ask him to clean the bathroom more often, not confirm his belief that he is a useless boyfriend, hopeless father, etc etc etc.

Flo