Back to square one

 After a flurry of activity, doing a few jobs and helping me out with things around the house for the past few weeks, husband is now back to doing what he does best - lazing around, TV on, falling asleep and playing games on his computer.  Although why I should call it 'helping me out around the house' I don't know - we both live here, make things dirty, eat, etc, so why the hell should it just be me who does everything?  I'm not a servant or au pair, even though it feels like it.  But then I guess that's my fault for doing (practically) everything and letting him get away with it for years.

Before anyone says well he has got heart failure......yes, but he's not at death's door, he's not sprawled in an armchair clutching his chest and gasping for breath all the time, he doesn't even look ill.  The heart meds he's been on for 6 years, plus the new medication his GP put him on a month ago, are doing their job of keeping him pretty well, the angina pains have gone completely, the breathlessness has eased off considerably.  He only gets breathless upon a fair bit of exertion, and then it eases off quickly, within minutes.  So I'm not being unreasonable and forcing an ill man into jobs he's not capable of.  I don't force him into anything actually.  And I do tell him to pace himself, that he doesn't have to do everything all at once, and to take regular breaks.....a brief sit down every 30 mins or after one job, eg.  After all, that's what I do myself.

So we've had ANOTHER talk.  I reminded him that I'm not in the best of health myself and find it difficult to do a lot of things.....but I do them, because they need doing!  I asked if he thinks it's fair that I struggle on doing everything whilst he does little or nothing....he said no, of course.  I told him just how soul-destroyingly wearing it is to have to keep reminding him to do a job he's supposed (and has agreed) to be doing, only for him to moan and grumble and say 'Yeah yeah' - and then still not do it until some time later when I lose my temper and say 'Now, please!!'.  So yesterday he did a few things I asked him to do - like hoovering the lounge (the rugs were thick with dog hair), emptying the kitchen bin and putting a new bin liner in, cooking some liver for the dog, he also changed his bed linen.  It'll be alright for another month or so, and then he'll be back to his old bone idle ways.  And so the cycle will start again, and each time it wears me down more.

The birthday meal - well, the less said about that the better, it wasn't really a success.  Then waiting in all morning for a plumber who didn't turn up on Monday, followed by the shopping trip from hell yesterday - lots of empty shelves (including no milk whatsoever, literally none), hardly any staff around, nobody on the bread counter to slice a loaf, lots of shelf edge price labels missing, overcharged on about 4 items at the till (price that came up didn't match the shelf price label).  And then having to go to another shop to get the items missing from the first one.  Think it's time to go back to online shopping, or sending husband on his own.  Which has it's own set of problems.