Consequences in The View from the Terrace

Chris bought me a new patio table and chairs set for my birthday. It was almost his birthday by the time I got it but that was fine, it arrived in time for the good weather and I loved it. The old one had more or less rotted away. He bought me that one as well, 8 years ago. He told us to look after it and I would get Hubby to cover it up when it rained, but we didn’t have a shed to put it in over the winter so it had to sit there through the bad weather. I kept saying to Hubby that we needed a shed in the front garden to store the garden furniture and a few odds and ends as we live in a terrace and had to bring things through the house or walk around next door to get to the back.

Hubby has several sheds at the back all in different stages of disrepair. He is useless at anything like that, he spends hours building things and more hours repairing them when they start to collapse, but we never seem to have a single shed or greenhouse in good condition and the back garden looks like a shanty town.

Hubby did build a shed at the front a few years back but it was too late to save the old garden furniture. Not only had it stood outside for several years it had never been re treated with wood preserver, though on one occasion Hubby did rub it down in preparation then he never got any further so it just rotted more quickly. The table started to slant, then one of the legs broke, he mended it but it never looked right again. First one, then another of the chairs broke when we sat on them, fortunately we were both able to save ourselves in time but it got that I was checking them every time before sitting down. We were down to one usable chair this year and the table dipped badly in the middle, it was just a question of time.

So I was delighted with my new garden furniture set. I looked at it through the bedroom window standing there on the freshly cleaned patio and it filled me with joy. I might have a husband who never finishes any jobs and who has destroyed the back garden with his array of tumbledown sheds and greenhouses, but my children made up for it. Tony laid the patio a few years ago using some pretty hexagonal recycled stones that Hubby acquired from a lady down the lane who was having her paths redone and had then left standing in a pile collecting moss for two years. Now Chris had bought me the new furniture and Hubby promised to look after these.

Last night rain was forecast and I asked Hubby to find something to cover the patio furniture. He was busy watching Wimbledon and telling the players how they should have played their shots, but he said he had a plastic cover and would find it soon. I was tired after a duty at the helpline and also developing a migraine and the downstairs computer was playing up so I went to bed early with the laptop that Cat got me for my birthday, as I said my children are wonderful! This morning I woke and looked out of the window to see that it had rained in the night and the garden furniture was still standing there uncovered. I was so upset I cried. He had promised to cover it and we were going to look after this set. I went downstairs and told him it had been raining and he hadn’t covered the table and chairs. He looked at me puzzled and said, ‘I don’t think we have anything to cover them with do we?’ I reminded him he had said he did last night and he looked completely blank, I could see he had no memory of it at all. Now I understand he has ADD and this causes memory problems but he takes no responsibility for that. He could have done it right away or written a note to himself and put it where he would see it, I do that all of the time now that my memory isn’t what it was. He has got into the habit of leaving it to me to check and remind him.

At times like this I feel so angry with my mother-in-law. She didn’t teach her children responsibility she just did everything for them and picked up after them and fussed them. She once told me her daughter couldn’t boil an egg when she married and her husband had to teach her how to cook. She thought it was hilarious. I would have been ashamed to tell anyone that if it were true. My mum taught me to cook and sew and I was expected to do certain chores around the house and keep my own room clean. It all seemed normal to me, my friends did the same. My mother-in-law didn’t think children should do anything. She once criticised her son-in-law for making his daughter pick up her much younger sister from school. She was about 15 at the time, but mother-in-law said she was being put on.

I often think that Hubby feels I have taken over his mother’s role. He relies on me and expects me to keep the house running, to remind him when he forgets and or sort out and deal with the things he has forgotten. I used to be able to cope with this although I was never happy with it. I used to have an excellent memory and a clear mind, my health was better and I was always a good organiser. Now I am getting older and my own memory is not so good, my mind is not always so clear and my health has deteriorated.

A few years ago, before Tony rewired the house, the power used to cut off if we put the dishwasher and the washing machine on at the same time. Tony found the house had the wrong grade of wire, he told me it was probably adequate in the 50s, it was never intended to run so many appliances. I feel a bit like that old system, my brain was only ever intended to run me though it used to be good and I coped with him too. Now I am old and can’t cope with running his life as well as my own. When he overburdens me I sometimes cut out like the old electric system and forget things or make mistakes. This morning after our row I put on the dishwasher and later realised I should have put in our dishes from yesterday and the saucepans we will need for our midday meal, instead I put in a load of pet dishes which I usually do in the afternoon, I don’t mix them with ours. Oh well, Hubby is going to cook lunch so he will have to wash the pans first, perhaps he will realise there are consequences for not taking responsibility and leaning on me, but I expect he will simply see it as me being ill and making a mistake and will probably suggest we have jacket potatoes and salad so that he doesn’t have to wash any pans.

The table and chairs are covered now after Hubby and I had a row, well a one way row as he never gets worked up which also drives me mad. I told him he has to take responsibility for his memory and write notes to himself if he isn’t going to do things right away. It wears me out constantly checking to see if he has done things and reminding him if he hasn’t. I said I’m not his mother, I’m his wife, which is silly really as his mother wouldn’t have reminded him she would have done it herself and then when she found him asleep in front of the telly would have fussed about how tired he is! She is gone now and he doesn’t even remember her birthday or the anniversary of the day she died. I do and I usually pick a rose from the garden to put by her photo on her birthday. After all, I remind myself, if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have met and married Hubby and I wouldn’t have my three wonderful children would I?