Guilt and the Poopy Pot.
When Josh walked into the kitchen this evening he made a face and asked, What smells like poop? Do you smell that?
I couldn’t smell anything.
That is, I couldn’t smell anything until I walked over to the sink and leaned my head over the dirty saucepan that’s been sitting there for a week waiting for me to wash it. Ohhhhh boy. Suddenly, the poop mystery was solved.
At first it was funny to have a poopy pot in our kitchen. Hahaha, how gross is that, poopy pot in the sink. But after my giggles went away, I got this tight feeling in the pit of my stomach. (I’d know that feeling anywhere.) Guilt.
What kind of wife makes her husband live in a house where he has to worry about poopy pots? What kind of wife can’t sleep at 11:30pm because she’s thinking about how dirty the bathroom is? At midnight last night I was on my hands and knees, in my nightgown, scrubbing the bottom of the bathtub. I’ve always known I had some low self-esteem issues, but what I didn’t expect was for marriage to suddenly bring on a whole new onslaught of guilt about what a “bad person” I am.
Do I intellectually think I’m a bad person? No, I don’t. Does Josh think I’m a bad person? Of course he doesn’t. And yet I still feel like I am one.
Tonight while eating dinner (pizza!) Josh made fun of me about something and I told him as punishment he had to wash the poopy pot. He laughed and said, No way! That’s your responsibility! (When we were first married we each established our assigned duties.) Right after he said that, I felt so sad. Not because he did anything wrong, but just because I was so disappointed in myself. I think I always pictured my career as a housewife as a stellar one. I thought everything would be clean all the time and I would have dinner on the table by 6pm.
Who was I kidding? And now that I’ve completely not lived up to that expectation of myself as a wife, I feel like I’ve let down everyone. I’ve let down Josh, I’ve let down my mom, I’ve let down myself.
Really, it’s not so bad. I know I’m loved despite my “deficiencies”, and I’m so glad to be where I am at this moment of my life. God is taking care of me. I think sometimes I just need to write things out… it helps me put it all in perspective a bit more.
Plus, there’s Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer. (Girls, you know what I’m saying.)
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I think we all fail to live up to our own self-expectations, unless we have none.
Thanks for all this insight into the mind of a wife. I see some difficulties of marriage through your words and I have no comfort for you…but I am sure that God and your husband have all that you need.
“At midnight last night I was on my hands and knees, in my nightgown, scrubbing the bottom of the bathtub.”
Yep, I’ve done that. I look at the house after goofing off all day and think, “I can’t live like this.” I totally know how you feel - I could have written this post. (Except it would say “Mike” instead of “Josh.”)
You seem to have the mistaken impression that your mother has some housekeeping standards that you’re somehow not living up to. You lived in this house for almost 22 years, and you still believe that? If you and Josh are content with your apartment as it is, that’s all that matters. It’s certainly not my business (after all the times I’ve postponed doing the cleaning to read a good book) to care. You’ll clean when you need to.
I love my mom. That is all.
(Actually it’s not all… Kari, I almost always relate with some of the struggles you outline in your blog posts as well. I think we have a lot of similar thought processes.)
When in doubt…Ben & Jerry’s.
Really, though, it’s good to hear your thoughts. I have those kind of thoughts as a single woman…and am sometimes worried about what kind of wife I will be.
Rhonda, I think I can safely tell you I think you will be a wonderful, wonderful wife.
With a fat, well-fed husband.
For Allison and I it seems like we only get the place clean when we have people coming over. So yesterday I was in both bathrooms on my hands and knees scrubbing the floors while choking on the fumes from the ammonia while Allison was storming the kitchen with mop in one hand and Evan in the other. (Thankfully Andrew was playing outside.)
I often wonder why we feel the need to work ourselves into a frenzy, cleaning for friends to get the house beautiful, yet we don’t think that we deserve the same.
Incidentally, our friends’ visit: 1.5 hours
Time spent cleaning: 5.5 hours