Who are you, and what did you do with my husband?

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Sometimes my husband does things that surprise the heck out of me.  Like today.  I came home from my internship just as he was pulling in to the driveway.  He's never home that early, so I was curiuos about why he was there.


Me:  Hey, Honey!  What are you doing home already?


DH:  I came home to do some chores before I go do my recon tonight.


Me:  Chores??????


DH:  Yeah.  I figured I'd take my clothes (dirty laundry) down to the basement.


Me:  (Externally I said...) Oh.  Okay.  Should I mark it on the calendar?  (Inwardly I said...) It's about damn time!!!


DH:  Ha.  Very funny.


What y'all don't know is that my husband's side of the bedroom is ALWAYS covered in his clothes - clean and dirty.  I do the laundry and just add to his pile of "who knows what" on top of his dresser.  Every now and then I say, "Honey, if you want your clothes washed you need to take them downstairs."  It has taken me YEARS to get to the point where I don't nag him on a daily basis about his "bedroom mess."


BTW, not only did DH take his clothes down to the basement, he CLEANED half the basement!  Now I have a clean, somewhat organized laundry area.  Even though the 3-section clothes sorter no longer has "sorted" clothes and it is 6 feet from the washer/dryer, it's clean.  And I didn't have to do it myself or even ask DH to do it!  Time to celebrate!!!


The "turning point" from my nagging occurred when I returned from SBLive at Hood.  When I got home DH had taken the kids to dinner so I could have some "down time" after my trip (this, in and of itself, was a surprise).  And when I walked in the door, the house was IMMACULATE! (surprise # 2).  So I walked to the bedroom to fulfill my OCD need to unpack right away (that drives DH nuts!) and to my surprise (# 3) the bedroom was CLEAN!!!  No clothes on the floor.  None on the dresser.  All the various odds and ends had made there way "somewhere," but there wasn't anything out on the dresser, headboard, or floor.  I seriously almost fainted.


I took a few moments to bask in the glory of a clean bedroom.  I had no idea how long it would last or if I would ever see it again.


When DH came home I gave him a huge hug and kiss and thanked him for all of my surprises.  Later I asked him why he never does this stuff when I'm home...


His reply:  Because you nag me and I hate that.  It makes me want to do it (clean up his messy side of the room) even less when you nag me.  THAT's why.


Me:  (In my head...)  Well why didn't ya say so in the first place??? 


Then later I pondered his reply a bit more and realized my nagging was exhausting for me and annoying to him, so why bother?  I don't nag any more.  I do make sly comments now and then, but he and I both know I'm not really nagging... really.  It's my "subtle" way of throwing hints that the bedroom is really a disaster zone.  And he usually takes it in stride and eventually gets around to cleaning it up.


Honeslty, it took us YEARS to get to this point about the rediculous things we argue about in our marriage.  We still argue about really dumb stuff, but I think we both have a different perspective on "what it all means" when we do. 


What about you?  Pet peeves you just can't deal with?  Learning experiences that you encountered through trial and error (such as the one I described above)?  I know I'm not alone on this one...  :)


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