Posted on by LA · 80 Comments

Anything Can Happen Friday: The Beach Diva

Last weekend, my Husband told me he wanted to go to the beach.

“The gang is going to the beach on Monday. You don’t have to go, but I’m giving you the option.”

I know your first question is: Does LA hate the beach. To which the simple answer is NO…but the longer answer is more complicated.

I know I can border on the high maintenance side of life. But, when I want things a certain way, I totally do them myself. I do not ask for help or assistance in anything that I personally want to feel comfortable. I am self sufficient in my high maintenance needs. Except…when I go to the beach.

I like a chair, an umbrella and a public bathroom.

I will not go to the beach without a chair, umbrella and public bathroom.

As I don’t have a car, or an umbrella or a beach chair, when I make a trip to the beach I need to rely on the kindness of not at all strangers. When I go to the shore with my college friends, they are my friends, and they know my peccadillos by now, and I have no problem asking for the assist. But with this group, who are technically my Husband’s friends, it gets a little trickier.

So my Husband has to make the call, to ask about the stuff that the beach diva needs. My Husband is a bit embarrassed about this- with others, he likes to assume the easy going laid back guy pose, which is SO NOT MY HUSBAND, but it’s the equivalent of saying “I’m not an easy going guy, but I play one on TV”. (In fact, the one single woman in our group said- Oh- K is so easy going about everything” and I snort laughed…)

Bottom line, my husband the people pleaser, doesn’t really want to ask the group if all these things will be available for my usage. He would gladly throw my daughter and I under the bus instead of having his image of the happy go lucky party guy be tainted. Which frankly, gets a bit old after a bit…

But now that I’ve thrown my husband under the bus for the sake of a blog post…all’s fair in love and blog posts, right?

The things I want to leave you with are as follows:

  1. Is high maintenance bad?
  2. If your partner needs something specific, how hard should you try to accommodate
    them?
  3. What makes someone high or low maintenance?
Posted on by LA · 80 Comments

The Advice Column- Selectively Lazy

Dear LA,

Recently my husband and I got a puppy. We love the puppy very much, though she is not really trained. When we take the dog for a walk she tends to walk me instead of me walking her. When I was younger this behavior might not have bothered me, but you know, one of the side effects of aging is a sore shoulder after you’ve walked a very determined dog.

We did take the dog for training, and the trainer suggested things to do so the the dog stops this annoying behavior. The trainer says that when we are walking her (remember we are walking the dog not me) we should just stop whenever she starts to pull the leash. This way she will realize who is in charge (it’s supposed to be me in charge in case you were wondering)

.Walking the dog like this is very time consuming as one may have to stop after every step. It could take ten minutes to walk down the block!

I am willing to go through this process. I know that the end result is worth all the work. However, my Husband just does not see this in the same way that I do. After doing this for a minute he throws his hands up in the air and exclaims:

“This really isn’t that important to me. I just don’t care if she pulls the leash.”

This is very frustrating to me. If all the people that walk the dog don’t practice the desired behavior, it won’t work!

How do I get my Husband to understand how important this is to me?

Signed,

Dog Tired

Dear Dog Tired,

I completely understand your frustration! My Husband does things like this as well. His desire to be selectively lazy wears away at my patience.

Sometimes couples have to be on the same page. They must present a united front, because if they don’t, things go awry. It is important to understand which issues are important to your partner so that you can help them achieve their goals.

The biggest problem of couples not seeing eye to eye on domestic duties is that one partner will end up doing more of the work. Think about laundry and loading the dishwasher. How many fights are started because Partner A likes things done one way and Partner B doesn’t do it the same way?

While I realize that there can be many ways to load a dishwasher, if A really likes it done a certain way, shouldn’t B try to hop on board?

Alas, what tends to happen is that A ends up doing the dishwasher all the time. A begins to resent B for not helping. Then fights begin about other things…

But wait…

You wanted advice, not reasons to be single…

OK- here’s all I got.

  1. talk to your partner about why you really need them to help you out on this issue- make them understand why it is important
  2. try not to control every aspect of domestic life. Let them do something their way. Make it something that doesn’t matter thought. For the love of all things good, make them replace the toilet paper when the roll is empty.

Walk on!

La

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

  1. Do I have what it takes to be an advice columnist?
  2. Do you have arguments with your partner about domestic duties?
  3. How do you solve the problem of your partner not doing things the way you want them done?
  4. What does or doesn’t your partner do that drives you crazy?
  5. Should there be training for partners who don’t listen?
  6. Is every single person breathing a sigh of relief?
  7. Anything else that was touched on in todays column?