The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Here it is, almost the end of November and winter snow will soon arrive and the tons of oak leaves that cover our very large hilly yard have not been picked up. Most years I raked and bagged them myself just to get it done before the snow came but this year I'm having back problems and told the A I'd help do the lighter work if he'd help with the heavier work and he said he would. That was a month ago and time is running out.
So he had 4 sunny days off this past week and still did not start the job and used a disagreement we had the other day as an excuse to procrastinate some more. So today I told him I'd try to hire someone to rake the leaves which made him mad. How dare I spend money for someone else to do the work??? Alcoholics tend to make you feel like any options except the one they choose is the wrong one even if the one they choose is to do nothing. If I can find someone in the neighborhood to rake the leaves I will be lucky and if not, the leaves will remain on the grass till spring when it is time for him to start mowing. Unfortunately some of the grass may not survive.
It is really hard for me to see all our neighbor's lawns raked and clean while our lawn is deep in leaves but I have decided that I am not going to break my back doing the work and if I can not find someone else to do the job I will have to live with a leafy yard. I am powerless to make him take on the responsibility so I will zip my lips and not bring it up to him again. I have to detach from his procrastinating ways but what is even harder for me is to detach from his apathy because he does not care if the leaves get raked or not.
So sorry to hear about the leaves issue, but more importantly sorry to hear about your health issues that prevent you from being able to do a job that you once used to do.
I certainly do not want to come across harsh and I do want to acknowledge that you know your A far better than me ... however, perhaps just food for thought ...
What if raking the leaves and having a yard like the neighbours is just not important to your A. Not becuz your A is an A ... but rather becuz it is not important. Even I, not being an A myself, sometimes say I will do something and then it does get done (ooops, could be procrastination, could be forgetfulness, could be that I really didn't think it was important or that it was not that important to the person asking me).
I do think you are making the right decision to not make a big issue out of the leaves ... besides, they may be fun to jump in - lol:)
Hi spiritually calm, thanks for your kind concern about my health issues. And yes jumping in leaves is a lot of fun. When the kids were young and at home, I got them to help rake so they had a big pile to jump in!
Does the A care about having a leaf free lawn? Well, he sure liked it when I did the work.
I've been with the A over 20 years and his actions are quite predictable but I can't say if his attitude about not raking the leaves is part of his addictive behavior or just who he is or a combo of both but the important thing for me is detaching from the situation and from him. Seems there is always something new that comes up to practice it on. This time it's the leaves.
My H is such a procrastinator and he is not even the A. That is where most of our arguing comes from. I have had much success by putting the same principals to work for my H as I have for my A son.
Bottom line..............I try to let go of ALL expectations from son, hubby and anyone in my life. If I want something done in my home and I ask hubby if he will do it today and he say yes and I come home and it has not been done...I am p___ed the rest of the night. I'm the one suffering...not him!
Believe me...procrastination is not just an A thing.
Hope you can get things accomplished without having expectations of hubby doing it.
