“I’m Doing All The Work!”

I’m not really. I did, however, come out with this line during an impressively mature, grown-up, and actually very very civilised discussion on Monday night. Some might question the grown-up-ness of it, actually, but the thing is – THEY WEREN’T THERE! The road to Monday night was very long and windy, but to give it some contextual background I should say that ever since we got our Big News we’ve been on a mission to get our house up to standard (as neither of us were convinced of the fairness of bringing another human being to live amongst our level of dishevelled chaos). So, nearly every weekend of the last three months has been filled variously with the stripping of wallpaper, plastering of walls, painting of said walls, gardening, rubbish tipping; all your basic nightmare psstimes. And now the latest project: The Kitchen. Walls are being knocked down, RSJs being fitted, and doors are being bricked up ahead of a new kitchen being fitted. All of this work is being done by me, with the help of assorted tradesman family members.

Context established, then, Monday’s drama, in script form:

INT. NIGHT

At 7pm, after a long day of boring-yet-strenuous work, MAN pulls his car up outside his house, puts his key in the door and is first greeted by his DOG:

MAN: Hello girl.

DOG: Woof. WOOFWOOFWOOF…WOOF.Woof. (trans. Never mind “hello” – where have you been, and where do you get off leaving me like that? It’s been HOURS!)

MAN: I know honey – I missed you too.

Hearing the commotion WOMAN approaches the front door, wearing her coat and proffering a B&Q brochure:

WOMAN: Hiya! Come on, we need to go straight back out and buy worktops, and also to change these floor tiles you bought – I’ve decided I don’t like them.

MAN: I’m knackered. And I’m starving – can’t we do all that running around tomorrow night?

WOMAN: No. There’s a discount on, but it ends tonight. Come on, they close at 9. I’ll make it up to you and look after you when we get back – I’ll make you some supper.

The couple proceed to go to their local B&Q, only to find it doesn’t carry the full range of products needed for decision making. They subsequently travel to another, not so local B&Q, where they have better luck and are able to buy the things they need. Arriving home at 9pm MAN becomes slightly irritable, and when he realises that WOMAN (who’d had the day off work) hadn’t been to the supermarket to buy food, becomes almost apoplectic with self-pitying rage:

MAN: There’s no food in. Why didn’t you go to the shops?

WOMAN: I was busy, and what stopped you from going to the shops?

MAN: I was working! Like I have been seven days a-wek for the last three months. If I’m not at work, I’m working here. Would it have killed you to have sorted something out for me? And anyway, wasn’t I promised this before we left for B&Q?

WOMAN: (laughing) Are you being serious?

MAN: (not laughing) Totally. I can’t believe how selfish you’re being. It’s not like I’m expecting you to have my dinner ready when I get in, but you could have at least bought me something I could make myself.

WOMAN: You’ve lost the plot. And by the way, you had noticed I’m pregnant, and pretty knackered myself???

MAN: Oh don’t start on with that again. You’re pregnant, not sick – I’m the one doing all the work here!

And there you have it. “I’m the one doing all the work”. Any further detail is superfluous. Captured right there is the fact that in three months I appear to have turned into a badly written ‘cad’ off a depressing ITV relationship drama. Obviously I’m not proud of this behaviour; it makes me look like an idiot. Which I was, am, and will probably continue to be until long after this baby is born. I’m offering no excuse other than I was tired and irritable after a shitty day at work. But! the interesting thing for me – and the reason I’m writing about it – is that untilI I heard those words coming out of my mouth I hadn’t really thought about how the balance of activity has shifted at home. Those first few months of pregnancy, as the non-pregnt one, you’re constantly trying to make sure your partner isn’t stretching, or over-exerting herself. You end up doing much more of the general domestic housework, and then a load more of the running around fetching and carrying things. And of course, this is only fair. I know this. Which is why I was disappointed to find that in some way, maybe I’m resentful of it.

Maybe these feelings are common. Maybe not. And maybe none of this has anything to do with the pregnancy, and is just about me being tired on Monday night, and having a chauvinistic hissy fit because I couldn’t get any dinner – i.e. no latent subconscious resentment about my ‘lazy’ wife and what I expect was a much-needed duvet day. Either way, I’ve written about this as a reminder to myself to (as my friend Dave frequently says to me) “basically get some form of a grip on things”.