So my disease is, mostly, under control, yay!
But my family, particularly husband, seems to need me to be able to do everything everybody else can - x 100!
So, anyone else able to point out the obvious Ab
I was trying to talk about how to mange stuff - but the site kept seizing.
Exactly! I'm trying to recover from a bad back and people don't seem to understand that I still feel sore and frail..if I say I don't feel up to something, they go, huh? Its like what part of my back is giving me a major scare don't you understand? I wish everything was back to normal and this grandma could feel confident to be as active as ever, but when the nerve pain down my leg signals me to be careful, I need to slow down! And, that can be very disappointing to me and everyone around me....nobody seems to get it.
It is so hard isn't it, getting other people to understand that although you look well and may be doing pretty good on the medication you are not as well as you look or as you used to be pre-PsA.
My husband is home at the moment, in-between jobs, and although he generally does seem to "get it" he's seeing me living it 24/7 at the moment and is realising to what a huge extent every action has a consequence. For example, had a friend come for a few hours on Wednesday we drank coffee, chatted, went out for lunch, drank more coffee and chatted some more .... not exactly an action packed day. Thursday I was exhausted, spent pretty much the entire day either in bed or on the sofa. Yesterday I felt ok 'ish so just caught up with just a few household chores and went to hydrotherapy. Today feeling rubbish again so haven't done much at all.
I'd like to escape! Move into a small immaculate house on a quiet island (but where I can still get the supermarket to deliver my groceries and have a cleaner, gardener etc ) and live a very peaceful, isolated existence where my energy expenditure is the same every day .... so I always feel the best I can every day. And little pink piggies might fly.
Haha my thoughts exactly! How fun would that be? How 'bout just a week or two of that a few times a year? I'd even settle for that! It would be something to look forward to.....
oh boy...some people don't get it. Actually most people don't get it. I still have to get help with many things. I still even have trouble writing some days because of my wrist. I'm not playing tennis anytime soon lol It took a while for my son to get the picture.
I presume you've tried to talk to him about it. Have you tried distributing responsibilities with everyone in the house etc ? I know it's not as easy as it sounds.
Thanks so much for your responses everyone! It has made me feel much better to just vent and feel understood. I’ve put the detail below for anyone who wants it 
Sybil, we do indeed outsource many things - cleaner, nanny, lawn mowing man.
The problem is that he thinks that means he literally needs to do nothing around the house to keep things running, except cleaning the pool and the boat.
Which honestly doesn’t work well when he invites people over randomly for dinner on a weeknight the evening I arrive home at 8pm from a business trip…
Or drops all the bags of clean/dirty clothes, mixed together with boxes of documents, our daughters toys etc in the middle of the house and proceeds to not unpack them (I’ve left them there for up to 4 weeks and still no action), on return from a weekend in the boat.
And never pays a bill, organises grocery shopping, or reviews finances. Last time I came back from overseas, a $25 bill from the hospital had been passed on to the debt collectors!
And this would all be fine if I was doing a less stressful, lower level job than him, with more time - but I’m not.
And then he expects me to be able to party like a 20 year old with out a child (or an autoimmune disease) on the weekend.
I think I’m finally starting to get through to him, but I’ll be skeptical any of it will continue unless I’m on about it all the time. Sheesh!
First world problems, eh?
Wow, Jen! I think the same mom raised both of our husbands!!!! My husband's sister told me how "the boys" never had to do anything around the house, while the 2 girls worked like slaves!
I only work part-time outside the home, so I do everything at home. We don't have hired help, but we will need it eventually cuz, as much as I never minded doing everything, I need to cut back.
If you want to meet a slob, I'll introduce you to my hubby (of 41 years)....his dirty clothes land on the floor anywhere he takes them off and he doesn't know what a waste basket is because wrappers, etc., are always dropped next to his easy chair.
He just doesn't care. I stopped hauling the 40 lb bags of softener salt to our basement a few months ago--so now our water gets hard because he's so slow about getting the salt to the softener.
Out daughters are lucky they have men who share the household responsibilities-they think I'm absolutely nuts putting up with what I do. But, nagging is tiring--it's just easier to put up and shut up-it's not going to change after this many years!
Also, in his defense, he does have good qualities-otherwise, obviously we wouldn't have lasted this long together! I'm sure yours does, too. :-)
I find taking my husband to a few of my doctor's appointments helps to open his eyes. Until the next time and he forgets.......
It's tough when the rules change mid-game. My guess, Jen, is that you tend to be hypercompetent, which historically allowed others to slack off. Ten years ago I was working full-time, raising three active kids, running a non-profit in my spare time, and keeping up the house- well, sort of anyway on the housekeeping, but a hot homemade meal hit the table every night. Currently, I need help to get out of a t-shirt.
Jen, have you asked him whether his preference would be to pitch in or just lower standards?
Sybil, you are right, he is lots of fun.
And its not that he expects me to clean up after him - he just doesn’t care if its messy. I’m far from a clean freak, but personally I find it more of a pain if I can’t actually find my underwear and have to buy more, than just putting the darn clothes away.
He’ll just buy more. Then of course, won’t throw anything away, and since there isn’t enough space to store stuff, it just gets piled up, usually on top of something i need. Sometimes I feel like I am in an episode of “the hoarders” and the stuff everywhere seems to eat away at my equilibrium!
Ok, I got the linen cupboard cleaned out Sunday. I’m thinking about reclaiming zones in the house he is no longer allowed to leave random stuff… It doesn’t help that I’ve got a 4yo doing it too.
Deep breath, end of vent, thankyou everyone
Well Jen, I had a husband for 15 years who sounds very much like yours. I now have a wife- lol
Too funny! Omg, I’m starting to wonder if my husband was cloned.
sybil said:
LOL!!
Ali said:Well Jen, I had a husband for 15 years who sounds very much like yours. I now have a wife- lol
Bin liners, Jen. Anything of DH’s that you have to pick up goes into the big opaque green bag, unsorted. Not angrily, just very matter-of-factly. Bag gets put somewhere that suits you at the time. Then you always know where things are. 
And bags can disappear … oops!
Is it time for some division-of-labour lists?
Hi Jen,
I find it interesting that you're trying to contin things (your job, your obligations, your responsibilities) so you can better manage. This is evidenced not only in your actions but in how you've sought help for things you can't/don't want to take care of (like lawn care). Your hubster's take on life seems, conversely, to be expansive. Clothes still dirty? No problem, buy more.
My partner and talked a lot before we moved in together about how she craves a small and simple existence. And how adding complications or even "things" to her life causes anxiety. Clearly your husband doesn't have such anxieties, but it seems that you do. It also appears that the new "things" you have in life (boat, kid, etc.) all need time and attention and that comes from a relatively fixed bucket full of time and energy. And you have a leaky bucket. So if he wants the added extras (like weekends on the boat or random dinners at home) then the resources for taking care of such things and the resources diverted from maintenance matters (dishes, house cleaning, laundry) in favor of new things all need to come from HIS bucket of time and energy and NOT from yours.
You each seem to approach life quite differently and this may have been easier to handle in the past. Perhaps it is time for some new ground rules.
And I'm with Ali. My wife is easier to work with than my ex husband(s)!
I really wish I had waited until we were both more mature (I was 19, he 22) before getting married. Thank god we didn't rush into having children--I was ready for them at 25--I don't think he will ever be. He does enjoy the grandkids, though.
We were too immature to talk about future, unfortunately, so when the children started coming we had totally different attitudes towards parenting....I think we're really lucky our kids turned out as well as they did.
My family always wondered why we stayed together--he hates my family and is usually very sarcastic to me when they're around. Around his family, though, he treats me nice. It sounds stupid that we stayed together, but considering any alternatives, divorce or separation didn't appeal to me either, and I couldn't even imagine raising our kids in a "broken" home. I think they learned a lot seeing us stick it out and make the best of things. Thinking back, I wouldn't doubt if the stress of our marriage brought on my ppsoriasis (that happened before we had kids).
Anyway, I wanted to say I'm glad our kids have been more mature and open with their significant others--they saw first hand how they didn't want their married lives to be!
It sounds like you have a good handle on this, Jen, and if you keep talking with him about the things that bother you and create some sort if plan, things will work out.
janeatiu said:
Hi Jen,
I find it interesting that you're trying to contin things (your job, your obligations, your responsibilities) so you can better manage. This is evidenced not only in your actions but in how you've sought help for things you can't/don't want to take care of (like lawn care). Your hubster's take on life seems, conversely, to be expansive. Clothes still dirty? No problem, buy more.My partner and talked a lot before we moved in together about how she craves a small and simple existence. And how adding complications or even "things" to her life causes anxiety. Clearly your husband doesn't have such anxieties, but it seems that you do. It also appears that the new "things" you have in life (boat, kid, etc.) all need time and attention and that comes from a relatively fixed bucket full of time and energy. And you have a leaky bucket. So if he wants the added extras (like weekends on the boat or random dinners at home) then the resources for taking care of such things and the resources diverted from maintenance matters (dishes, house cleaning, laundry) in favor of new things all need to come from HIS bucket of time and energy and NOT from yours.
You each seem to approach life quite differently and this may have been easier to handle in the past. Perhaps it is time for some new ground rules.
And I'm with Ali. My wife is easier to work with than my ex husband(s)!
Wow Jen it seems like you are dealing with A LOT! I should probably be more grateful for everything my husband does for me and around the house. I found that the ‘spoon theory’ really helped my husband to understand that I don’t have the same amount of energy that I use to have. And also days that are bad also means less spoons for the day. Here is a link to it for those who haven’t read it: http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/BYDLS-TheSpoonTheory.pdf
Janeatiu, you hit the nail on the head! The reason I’m finding it so hard to deal with is because my bucket of time is being taken from to fulfil his wishes … And he wasn’t even acknowledging it.
I used to have such a big bucket, (and I’m a simple sort, I don’t wish for much), it didn’t seem to matter!
Anyway, I finally lost the plot a bit the other night and had a bit of a rant at him. I had even had an afternoon nap on Sunday, when I usually do the housework while he’s resting … And I think he is starting to understand some of it. Its certainly a tricky balancing act when one of us wants more of everything, and one less though
It certainly is fun living with and loving someone like that though - never dull, and I wouldn’t swap him for the world!
Of late its just been a perfect storm of home, work, and illness (dengue, salmonella, and influenza - PsA has barely been in the rankings) that seems to have stripped me of my capacity to deal with it all - or made my bucket extra leaky so to speak
I think I’m finally starting to slowly claw my way back to equilibrium, thank you all!
This is also a problem in the amielynn38 household!
Let me first off give the man some credit. He is a great husband and awesome father. He gets the whole PsA thing. He's a pharmacist, so he understands the drugs. But....
He's a pharmacy manager and almost never home. There are meetings and shift switching. If anything goes wrong, he has to fix it. I know this is part of his job and it allows him the extra income that we enjoy....... but he's very stubborn about hiring outside help. I want a maid, a good one, a once a week maid. I love having my house very clean and I am an organization nut. I feel more calm and relaxed when my house is right. A maid would allow me to relax without all the work. It would allow me to save my energy for fun things and gosh, I don't know.... sex?!
How do men not get this?