My side, your side

Have you ever met someone so anal retentive that it prevents them from being productive? Where if you, as the nice person you are, offered to help out with say clean their kitchen, it turns into a unfortunate mess? Where they argue with you over your method, supervise your cleaning, nit-pick how you cleaned, follow-up behind you and re-clean what you've already done only then throw a fit because they are overwhelmed and you aren't helping? If not, well then my lovely reader....meet me. An obsessively self-controlled person. Causing fights and ruining situations since 1979.

I am the anal one in the relationship. While my house does not look like it should belong on the cover of OCD monthly or even Better Homes and Gardens, when I get the bug to clean, GET OUT OF MY WAY. It's also best to just go with the flow of any meltdown I may have while in the process. Lots of "I'm sorry's" and "I love you's" tend to work well.

The husband and I have been together for almost 6 years, and in all these years I thought I was the irrational crazy one in the relationship. He was the one who was relaxed and had an island time mentality. He saw no sense in rushing anything. Turns out, the husband is just as dysfunctional as I am, I just hadn't found his hot button yet.

The lawn. The man is obsessed with the lawn.

He'll sit by the front window and stalk the front lawn. Freak out when a dandelion pops up, throw a tantrum when a person lets their dog "use" our lawn, pounce on stray bags/bottles deposited by wind and keep tabs on the activities of the retired neighbor who's lawn is immaculate. It's quite maddening to watch.

Several weekends ago we had an extremely busy schedule, which meant he wasn't able to mow the lawn until Monday night after dinner, the horror! I attempted to help speed up the process by offering to weed-whack the sidewalks, mailbox, planting beds & fire hydrant. BIG mistake. This did not save us any time. The husband stopped mowing to inspect how I edged the sidewalk, then he had to give me pointers, which I wasn't doing correctly so that resulted in him just taking over.

"But I'm just trying to help." I protested defensively.

"Honey, I don't have time to redo what you've already done. I like things the way I like them. Just let me do it."

Whoa, where did that come from. I was stunned. Who are you, and what have you done with my husband? After several minutes of banter back and forth we agreed on a truce. We drew a fictional line in the sand, at our front door. He supervises the outside work, and I oversee the inside work. No sense in fight about meaningless stuff right? :)