Friday, January 20, 2006

Forgive but Forget?

The comments to my last post was enlightening. It seems that past history dictates the reaction to current events. In the past, I have been lax about calling Wife. When I am running behind schedule, I tend to get focused and totally block out other things that are going on. While this might have some advantages, one of the big disadvantages is forgetting to call Wife because I lost track of time. mom of 3 wrote: It sounds like something else is at the root of her bitchiness. Do you have a habit of not calling when you know that your wife expects a phone call? Does the lack of calling indicate to her that you don't care about her? This really struck home.

In the past I have been late calling. Instead of 5:30 it would be 6:00pm. I am at work. It's hard for me to stop what I'm doing, call her, and pick it right back up. Also, if I call her while I'm doing whatever, either I can't give her 100% of my attention (which really pisses her off) or it takes me longer to finish. It is not a situation of being out with the boys and coming home late (she does that with her monthly bonko night; a night with the gals means she won't be home until after midnight). So, after much discussion, she came realize that I get finished faster and am home faster, if she leaves me alone.

Does that make me selfish. Yeah, I guess so. I think a better description would be multi-tasking issues.

In and of itself, the episode has little meaning, yet it does. I've written two posts on the subject.

2 comments:

Shades of Woe said...

Seems like you might have a bit of a memory issue? Maybe if you found a way to remind yourself to do things - like call the wife - you'd eventually just do it out of habit. How about once a day or so when you're running on a schedule, you program some reminders into your cellphone reminding you to call her at certain times? If you use AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) you can sign up your cellphone for a free reminder service too.

aphron said...

I'd agree about the memory issue. That's a good idea to program these reminders. I'll try that.