Last night we had a heated family discussion about our leaky master bedroom fireplace at the beach house. It has not been properly dealt with and when storms blow, rain gets in. It’s not like it floods the place, and the floors are concrete, but the surround is a beautiful custom steel and it is now all rusty. It’s just not good for unwanted water to be getting in to a house.
Our sort of unwritten agreement at this point is that, after 20+ years of me exclusively handling every aspect of our house, including maintenance, while Blue Eyes was off literally fucking around, it’s now his turn to take care of house maintenance. He hasn’t really done anything in the past three years to deal with the fireplace situation. What he has spent dozens of hours on, and hundreds of dollars on (if not thousands) is futzing around with his blasted cedar hot tub on the deck of the beach house. It’s like, his hobby. I am not a “hot tub person.” I didn’t want a hut tub. The hot tub has been nothing but a problem from day one. I mean, it’s pretty, and it doesn’t require chemicals as it has some reverse osmosis situation going on, but the heater never seems to work properly, and it sucks up the propane, and cleaning it is quite a time consuming ordeal, etc… he has spent WAY more time dealing with the thing, than actually using it, but he seems to have a never ending supply of patience and energy and money when it comes to that tub!
Somehow last night at dinner the leaky fireplace entered the conversation. The Peacemaker doesn’t understand the concept that it is a custom build situation. The caps have already been rebuilt, but the master bedroom side of the fireplace leaks. It has no damper. The damper went by the wayside when financial decisions had to be made at the end of construction when we were all realizing our dick of a general contractor had overspent on our house by nearly $500,000 and neglected to tell us. In the scramble to complete the house, things like much-needed can lights, and fireplace dampers got nixed.
Blue Eyes started getting antsy and defensive as The Peacemaker started asking more and more questions. No, there aren’t detailed plans for the fireplaces. They were built on the spot with the architect there for guidance. In order to access the mechanics, I kid you not, you have to climb through the cabinetry in the master bedroom. There’s a “secret” room back there. This is a job for an expert, someone who understands custom fireplace systems and dampers, etc… Personally I think a big part of the problem is… I don’t care for wood burning fireplaces. I asked for gas inserts, which are easily spec’d and built. The architect likes wood burning fireplaces, also easily spec’d and built. The architect decided that my gas fireplaces needed to be easily converted to wood burning should anyone in the future want it that way, even though it is MY house. I actually didn’t find out about all this until the house was built and the fireplace leaked. The custom built double fireplace damper/flue/chimney situation has to accommodate both wood and gas, with budget cuts, it simply wasn’t built properly.
As the conversation heated up, I’d had enough. We need a specialist to come in, diagnose, and fix the situation. Blue Eyes needs to coordinate it. That’s it. I reminded him of all the time spent on his precious cedar tub, I admit it! My voice was raised as I became more stressed and kept trying to exit the situation. I finally left and went off to do other things.
A while later, The Peacemaker found me, tried to start up the conversation AGAIN (I know he’s trying to be helpful), but proceeds to tell me his father no longer “FEELS SAFE” discussing the situation because I was yelling at him???
The man who lied to me for decades, cheated on me (no protection), gaslighted me, abused me selfishly, and brought a stalker into MY life, doesn’t feel safe? Yeah, NO. I’m so over that bullshit. For a couple minutes I wondered where this new “I don’t feel safe” shit was coming from? What a selfish bastard to use our son as a sick conduit for his demented behavior.
Just get the damn fireplace fixed, dipshit.
I’m not having the best Friday. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.
try not to cry on my rainbow 
So many similarities here. I got sick and after that discovered SAWH secret life. I always did everything. Now I don’t – he had time to attend strip clubs and have an affair. So FU. Lots of things now aren’t done because I refuse. In times of emergency if I don’t do it he shuts down and/or reverts to some adolescent age and cannot keep up or comprehend anything. Not sure I can explain concisely but your Blue Eyes saying he doesn’t feel safe is the adolescent that can’t keep up. He probably truly thinks he can’t deal with the fireplace. Mine would do/has done same. Under pressure they just revert back to some childhood age and can’t deal. He wanted a hot tub, I didn’t. He had a roof deck built to accommodate weight of hot tub. Fine, stupid location (well away from the house so might as well jump in the lake, if you want one in winter the deck off the house much better choice) but if I had sourced a hot tub FOR him we would have it and I’d have to nag to even get it cleaned. And then that would take priority over our chimney leak which affects surrounding drywall. Etc. Mine focuses on the lawn – nary a weed – but upcoming reno, yes that’s all mine. When it’s winter, well he has to finely shovel around contracted snow removal all to avoid stuff he doesn’t want to face, ie your problem fireplace. I work very hard at resisting end result – I want the stuff fixed/functional and is in his area of home duties. Often he wins because I just can’t stand it. Maybe we/you would have just handled the fireplace problem pre discovery – I would have and he would expect it – they can’t assimilate that our knowledge of that secret life has changed what we’ll take on.
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I simply do not understand how I didn’t see the overwhelming immaturity before. Or maybe I did, but he seemed better balanced on the back of his addiction. Maybe I somehow thought me doing everything for the kids/house/my family/his family… was normal, or my job? Now I know I was so wrong. Sure, he eventually brought in a good living, on my back, and with all kinds of disgusting secrets and lies. Yeah, nah, not doing it anymore. He was a horrible partner in the guise of a decent one. I know the truth now. xo
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I didn’t see it (the immaturity) either. Hard to fathom in hindsight for me. I was naive, trusting and I guess nesting. Took care of things and didn’t realize my partner wasn’t equal in those tasks. Mine also brought in a good living. But little did I know that he thought we could squander a lot of that. When I got a chronic illness I thought I was just burnt out, quit my very good job and took 2 years off to focus on me. During that time my aunt died and left me $200k. Not long after discovery (March 2014) he was doing his disclosure and I guess was working on what his prostitute habit cost. He turned to me and said we lost a lot of money with you being off work. Really, I kinda thought bringing in (so to speak) the inheritance money more than covered my time off. Asshole. Not safe for me to even try to get into his brain, I can’t fathom.
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It’s astonishing how clueless they can be and how messed up their brains. It’s all on them. I always knew I was a good person and a great wife and I certainly don’t need him to confirm it. I take everything with a grain of salt now.
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Bingo on this Kat. After 5 years I still ask myself how I never saw or understood the overwhelming immaturity of my spouse. I still see it today at times. He can still be thoughtless, self-centered, and lazy at times. One difference is that I kind of set an imaginary “timer” in my head on whatever it is that is getting under my skin. I bring it up nicely at first and then just tell him what is irritating me and that I need an explanation from him about the delay. Often his response, “I’m just lazy” Ugh. Then we move on from there. Geez I never thought that this is what 70 might look like. There is no consistent “dance” between us after 40+ years of marriage.
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We’ve definitely had to re-design, with compromises, our relationships. Frustrating on many days! I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving! ❤️
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Read this to Rich, firstly I would be pissed off that the architect took it upon himself to do something with my house without consulting me. Secondly Rich is with you all the way re the hot tubs, he used to have to clean one at some gites we managed, as a result we wouldn’t use one and we know they are a pain in the arse to clean. But here’s the biggy for me: The ‘I don’t feel safe’ emotional blackmail bullshit! Because that’s what it is, it’s being used to try and shut you up. Mmmm think you know that, and methinks that tactic will fail. Hugs my friend, stand your ground. ❤️
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Yeah, the architect is a friend, but just like a lot of men I know, he thinks he knows best. Frankly I wish he would just make it right since it was his design to begin with. Unfortunately because of the arbitration, everything came to a screeching halt with all the contractors. We’re still reeling from the corruption of the whole contractor’s board decision and still paying monthly to the builder for his overages. If I didn’t love the house, I would sell it and put it all behind us. Just a couple months ago a wealthy local businessman offered to buy it… I don’t want to ever have to sell it. Regarding the hot tub, I really dislike regular hot tubs with all their chemicals and whatnot. This one is really more of a piece of art, made from local cedar, etc… but I still don’t like it, and yeah, cleaning it is a bear. At least they (BE and our older son) have a beautiful view when they clean it. 😁💚
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🤣🤣🤣
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My translation of your post reads like this, Him: “Why did you call ABC Plumbing? I don’t like them! Why didn’t you call X,Y,Z Plumbing?” Me, “Huh? I’ve been asking you for 6 weeks to call a plumber to deal with that issue and you haven’t done anything so I called someone. How was I to know you had a preference? You never responded to my request or told me whom to call.” Not “feeling safe” because you are too lazy, busy, distracted, etc and being called out on it just means you were ignoring me and hoping I would forget about it or it would go away. They all seem to be cut out of the same cheesecloth.
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Yes, unfortunately selfishness and blame shifting run deep in the addict brain. I’m just frankly tired of it. The truth is, in my mind, I am off limits when it comes to ANYTHING! And when it comes to that house, it is supposed to be my sanctuary after everything he did to destroy my happiness. He was in charge of making that happen, and still is. He’s still very immature when it comes to those childhood ingrained emotions. Normally I just walk away from that shit, but sometimes our son won’t let me, and I blame Blue Eyes. He should be making it easier on me, not harder.
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I love seeing pix of your beach house and I love your tub in the master suite!
Re: “…where this new “I don’t feel safe” shit was coming from?…” I’ve experienced this before and it’s usually some sort of DARVO — they are playing the victim card. We all lose our temper on occasion and raise our voices. We are human. It doesn’t mean he is “not safe”. Ugh.
I can relate to being “the one” who always handled house maintenance, home remodels, etc. Now that we are both “retired” — HE can help with some of this stuff, IMHO. He was supposed to handle the issues with the builder and our home. They are not handled. He avoids conflict. He always let me handle any potentially conflictual issue too. The builder came back and attempted to fix two of the floor systems upstairs and it made the problem worse. That was pre-COVID, so it was a long time ago (it hit here in Feb.).
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The master bath tub is wonderful. There’s also a really nice tub in the front bedroom. The house is beautiful and just sad that it was never properly finished. I’ve heard building a house can be an awful experience, but I had no idea how sideways it could go. Live and learn, but it’s definitely past time to fix what is broken. ❤️
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