Think Before You Talk

Tuesday, June 29, 1999

Of course, I couldn't get through a Monday without wreaking some sort of havoc...

This time, it was another case of speaking before thinking. Jev had taken his student loan papers in to work, so he could call and change his address with them, and give them whatever information they needed. During supper last night, I asked if he'd done that, and he said that he'd forgotten; then I asked what day he was supposed to have off for the upcoming holiday, and he'd forgotten to look that up, too. So I asked, in what I thought was a very gently teasing manner, if he'd forgotten anything else, and he said he didn't know.

I didn't really think anything of it, at the time. We finished dinner, then went into the living room and watched television for a while, and it seemed like everything was going just fine. In the middle of the second episode of Dilbert (one we'd seen before), I remembered that the mattress needed to be flipped, and when I mentioned it, Jev got right up and went to do that. I went in to lend a hand, and then he helped me make up the bed, since I'd washed the sheets, and had to take everything off for the flip anyway.

Munchie had decided to hop up on the bed as we made it, and while I managed to get her on top of the fitted sheet, she laid down smack dab in the middle of the bed when we went to put the top sheet on. Jev wanted to fold the sheet part way down, so she would have an easy way to get out; I just wanted to make the bed, since I knew she could get out anyway. It wasn't a good combination, and after a few failed attempts at trying to figure out just what Jev wanted to do, I annoyed him enough that he just left me to do it my way. Munchie, of course, left with him.

I finished making the bed, and went to the restroom, and then headed out to the living room... it was empty. I'd seen Jev start for the restroom at one point when we were making the bed, so I thought he'd gone into the other, and I went down to the front hall. Nobody was in the bathroom, but Jev was here in the spare room, online. My stomach was unhappy from having made too much a pig of myself at dinner, so I just curled up on the bed and watched him, and when I got up to leave, he said he wanted me to come over and see something. I came over, and looked over his shoulder while he showed me stuff, and I thought for a minute that everything was okay again. Wrong....

We went to bed, since there was nothing else to do, and I tried to figure out what was wrong, but he said he didn't know. When I squeezed his arm, to sort of say that I was there if he needed anything, he just laid there, and when I laid my head on his shoulder, I got the same sort of treatment. So I just crawled back into my shell and he turned his back to me, and I tried to get comfortable.

I thought about just getting up, taking my pillows, and coming in here to sleep on the daybed, but I figured he would think I was running away again -- something people always seem to tell me that I do. So I stayed. And then he got up and left... coming in here to lie on the daybed. Of course I didn't take that well, at all. About five minutes after he left, I turned on my bedside lamp, and made my way down to the spare room.

The door was closed, so I tapped softly, and after a moment, he said it was unlocked. I opened it and stood in the doorway, and tried again to ask him what was wrong. That time, at least, I got a few answers. He said he feels like there is so much responsibility on him, and he feels like he went from college kid to married in the space of just a few short weeks. He feels like he's not doing enough to make me happy, and that if he screws anything up with work, or with the car, that he's going to make such a mess of things that they'll never get straightened out.

He also said that he doesn't know what he's supposed to do when he gets home, and that his parents always told him, so he didn't have to think about it. I tried to explain to him that I never really had to take care of all this stuff either, and I was just learning as I go... when I want him to take out the trash, I leave it in the utility room where he'll see it when he comes in, and when I want him to move something for me, or mop the floor or what have you, I ask him, and I don't expect him to read my mind. I just don't know what more to do right now.

I know he worries about messing up on bills, and like I told him, I'm trying to keep track of everything, and make sure everyone gets paid on time, and so far, things seem to be working out pretty well. And of course he says that right now, they're not taking all the deductions out of his check, for the car insurance payment, his health insurance, and so on and so forth. We'll manage, I know... we just need a couple months of how things are usually going to be, and then he'll see that we have enough money to get by, but I guess until then, it's going to be a rocky road.

As for my stupid jokes making him so upset, yesterday, and a week or so ago, he says that they probably wouldn't bug him under normal circumstances; it's just that with all the worrying he's doing, every little thing feels like he's doing something wrong. So I really really need to learn to think before I speak, and try to understand how he's going to take something, before I go and say it.

I know that I need to do that, but in a way, I wish that we could joke with each other that way, and he wouldn't take it as a personal attack. If I have to think about every little thing before I say it, I may as well go back to being the me who never said anything, because she didn't want to cause any problems. Maybe it's just safer that way, I don't know. I have a feeling if I went back to that, though, it would bother Jev even more.

Is there any chance of winning?