The Contingency Plan

When Luc and I first moved in together, I was amazed at how his minor habits were the things bugged the crap out of me. Although the love was strong, we'd fly into absolute fits of rage over things like dirty dishes, whether to wash our clothes in actual colour groups or just in lights and darks, or the way he leaves his shoes and socks riiiight by the front door, etc.

Six years later and we still argue about shit and our top five 'let's argue about shit' list is:

1. How anal he is about his technical gear. We currently share a home office and it's not going smoothly, mainly because he stresses intensely about stupid, petty shit - like the order of his wires, me leaving a notebook and papers on the desk or God-forbid cup or five (which I would take away after I'm done looking after Hugo and making dinner after work each night). To me, these things aren't worth arguing over as they take two minutes to remedy but he makes such a big, dramatic deal about them - accusing me of being negligent and uncaring. And don't get me started on the 46 character encryption passwords we have to use to access our home network. Which are regularly changed. Which he won't share over the telephone or on messenger unless the messenger is encrypted. I seriously don't think the Government or hackers (or whatever they call them these days) would be interested in our shit. But being a network security specialist, he begs to differ.

2. He never proactively takes photos of me so most of the pictures I have with Hugo or of myself are those close-up, take photos of yourself at arms length kind

3. He loves to sing his own praises. Literally. He'll sing songs about how cool he is, which I know is meant to be funny, but seriously now. I much prefer derogatory humour. It's seems more humble.

4. He doesn't like doing housework so he'll talk me out of doing it so he won't feel guilty. It's silly. I know he doesn't like doing it and am fine with that. I don't ask him to do it but feel I should still be able to if it's what I want to do. And the crazy thing is that he guilts me out of doing it! So we sit there, watching mindless tv together or surfing online (both with laptops on the couch), while the clutter piles up

5. He complains about how cluttered the house is. It's seriously not cluttered, he's just anal (point one) and lazy (point four). It honestly drives me nuts. I don't think it's realistic to think you can always have a spotless house when you have a toddler with no one actively de-cluttering shit.

I feel bad griping about him like this. He really is a good guy, even though I've just driven him out of the house because he's driving me NUUUUUUUUTS today.

At least I now have time to tidy and de-clutter. Phew!

46-character passwords?!!?? Wow, that's a bit overboard, even for a network security specialist.

My step-brother is the "sing his own praises" type too. It's annoying but funny.

Can you hire a housekeeper? Or for the next nanny you get, add housekeeping to her duties when hiring her.

I wonder what Luc's blog would say about the little things about you that drive him nuts. All couples have little things about each other that drive them nuts, of course. It's part of life.

I agree with you on the passwords.

If Luc had a blog he'd have PLENTY to complain about!!!

We actually do have a weekly cleaner and Rachael also has housekeeping duties so our house is definitely in good shape. Unfortunately the clutter I speak of isn't great and something out of their realm - things like filing, going through the junk room and chucking stuff out, etc.

Not of great importance, just all minor shit really.