Mother in Law: Pleading my guilt

We (and, specifically, I) talk a lot these days about wellbeing. For the sake of balance, and honesty, I want to share with you a conversation I had with my husband this week. I told him that my prominent feeling at all times is guilt. He asked me what I meant and this is what I told him. 

I feel guilty that my hourly rate is so high.

I feel guilty that I’m tired when I get home. That he does as much around the house as me even though he works full-time. That I’ve killed 95% of the plants I’ve bought or been given since I owned a house. That I have a cleaner even though I work part-time.

I feel guilty that the dog didn’t have a walk today.

I feel guilty that, in asking him whether he had fed the dog, he felt I was nagging him. I’ve started asking in a singsong voice to be clear I’m not nagging so I don’t feel guilty at perhaps nagging by accident.

I feel guilty that my family wants another dog, but having another dog will give me someone else to feel guilty about, so I feel guilty for trying to prevent myself potentially feeling guilty in the future. Quadruple guilt.

I feel guilty that Tom Nook taught Deceptively Angelic Looking Child 2 (DALC2) to read.

I didn’t brush my teeth or take my makeup off last night.

I feel bad that I have had to bother the GP a fair bit recently.

I feel bad about the three to four times a week I fall asleep in the process of putting DALC2 to bed, shirking the evening’s ongoing adulting.

DALC2 has been waking up in the night recently and sometimes I don’t hear her.

I’ve failed in making my children vegetable lovers. I’ve failed, at times, to remember not to make a big deal of this. Sometimes I also fail to remember to cook them the vegetables they do like.

I only buy free-range chicken, except the chicken goujons I buy for the kids which are probably mostly beaks and claws.

I feel bad for my family that I leave so early for work.

I feel bad for my team that I leave on time to come home when they are plodding on.

I’m overdrawn midway through each month and all I’ve got to show for it is some home magazines. My house doesn’t look like the ones in the home magazines.

I wish it did, which I worry makes me vain or materialistic. A school mum has a sign up in her kitchen that says ‘Excuse the mess, my children are busy making memories’. I want my children to make memories IN A NEAT AND TIDY FASHION, which will no doubt stifle their creativity.

Unless it is a teabag or a banana skin, I feel bad every time I put something in the food bin. For the first couple of years of parenthood, we didn’t have a food bin. I still feel bad about this.

In 2001 I playfully clonked my housemate on the head with a ladle but it really hurt him.

I can’t look the kids’ guitar teacher in the eye because I don’t get them to practise.

I don’t enjoy reading bedtime stories because I’m too tired. I feel guilty that I will regret this when they are coming home at 2am stinking of cigarettes and booze.

My children can’t skip. I thought I had delegated the teaching of skipping to the school but apparently not.

I said I wouldn’t have any sweet treats in March but just this week I have had two Dairy Milks, four slices of chocolate cake, three slices of chocolate torte, some pavlova and a small bag of Haribo.

I don’t have an electric car yet or solar panels. We eat too much meat.

I forget DALC1 has fish in her bedroom for weeks at a time.

I’m probably not going to make it to the PTA meeting this week, again, due to work commitments.

I don’t think I’m a great listener.

I feel bad if I take me-time, and I feel bad that I probably should take the me-time so I’m jollier.

At this point I felt bad about the panicked look on my husband’s face. He just puts rubbish in any old bin and clearly now thinks I’m insane. He immediately bought me two self-help books about ‘toxic guilt’, which I’m already feeling guilty for not opening.

I know the long and short of it is that I am doing my best, and if I didn’t care so much about some of this stuff I wouldn’t be me, but I also think there is a lot to unravel. Is it a woman thing and, if so, why? Is it just a perfectionist’s thing?

There will be a part two to this blog when I’ve read the books and got some tools to share. Just don’t chase me up on it. I’m already chasing myself.

 

Some facts and identities have been altered in the above article