My wife had a rough time this weekend. Those are, of course, rough. But the one positive is that they bring to the forefront big problems and emotions that she and/or I otherwise ignore. For one we realized that she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since having a baby 3 months ago (no wonder she’s been doing so poorly).
For another thing, she was feeling very overwhelmed and stuck with house work. That led us to realize that we had completely lost the excellent nightly routing we had gotten working at our last house. Moving threw that routine off and then it just never came back because we completely forgot about it. There was also the problem that I was getting home so late that it wasn’t reasonable in our minds to clean the house before going to sleep.
Well, the obvious solution to the first problem is to get to sleep. Since I have a relatively unpredictable bedtime that means my wife has to get to bed on her own. That shouldn’t be a huge challenge, especially now that we’re identified it as a problem point for her mental health and identified a time when getting enough sleep made everything a lot better.
The second problem seems simple: clean stuff. The important thing to remember is that the routine was always completed as a team activity. That doesn’t work if we’re solving the first problem with earlier bedtimes for my wife while I’m still getting home close to midnight. Our solution is to separate off the chores. She’ll tidy the living areas (which she’s already pretty good at doing anyway) and I’ll do the kitchen - including dishes - and fold the laundry. Two things she hates but I really enjoy. (What? It’s relaxing.)
Last night was night one, but I’ll let you know how it goes!