The Apple Pie incident and yesterday's session

It has been a busy couple of weeks. W had 4 exams last week for his law course and I was the one who had to reassure him every step of the way, even to the extent of looking up his previous results for the semester and working out how important each exam was. For instance the subject he flunked out badly on the take home exam (2/20 after misinterpreting the question) he got 24/25 for tutorial participation and reflection when the class average was 17. He had also done well in another assessment task for this subject. So when I explained that to pass the subject overall you need 40% on the exam and if he got 40% he would be sitting on 54% overall which would mean a pass. Of course that is my logical way of looking at things. His stinking thinking (thanks T!) gets in the way.

On to the apple pie... Way back in first year when I did Ed Psych A, the first lecture told about praising people and how immediate praise about something usually reinforced the behaviour. Most people are programmed like this. W, obviously, is not. We spoke after his exams about how nice it would be to go on a picnic last Monday, which was a public holiday. We thought we would go locally and decided to invite Ws brother and his family to join us. I said to W that I had a few apples lying around I might make my Raw Apple Cake which, apart from being very yummy, is pretty low fat for a cake. Ws response was that he would prefer Apple Pie. I then said that Apple Pie was a little difficult to take on a picnic. He sulked. Sunday morning SIL texts me and says come around for a roast dinner tonight. I text her back saying thanks, I'll bring an apple pie. Now I adore cooking and baking, but have never had much success with pastry. So I asked my friends at the Nigella.com board what apple pie recipes they would recommend. People were most helpful and gave me lots of pastry making tips. I ended up going with one recipe and to cut a long story short, my dish was too big and I had to really stretch the pastry. I ended up doubling the filling and the pastry reached, just! It looked gorgeous once baked. So I took it to BILs for dinner. I wasn't expecting the kids to enjoy it. BIL doesn't say a lot about food, but commented on how nice it was. SIL demanded the recipe and commented on how gorgeous the pastry was. My Miss 8 ate a slice and said it was 'pretty good' which for her means it was good! Nephew aged almost 14 who is a vegetarian except for sausages and chicken nuggets said it was 'mmmmmm' and I could bring it again. W did have 3 slices. After he had finished I asked him how it was. His comment 'I suppose it was ok, but there was too much cinnamon and I wanted it on the picnic.' I could have cried. I had already baked a chocolate cake for the picnic.

So the picnic rolls around. SIL provides the snags and bread. I provide a coleslaw, a watermelon and the chocolate cake. W refuses to eat the chocolate cake again telling me that he would prefer apple pie. He sat away from us at the picnic and only made snide comments about me to his brother throughout the afternoon. BIL and SIL ended up getting up to play ball with the kids to escape from him. When i asked him to wash a knife so I could cut the cake I was told no. So I did it myself. SIL was appalled at his behaviour. She was even sadder that she noticed Miss 8 behaving like him at times when she didn't get her way.

So yesterday afternoon we see P, the shrink. W stars off by saying how well he is doing. When P asks me how I am I tell him I am just too despondent because W does nothing around the house. I list the dishwasher and the laundry. W tells P that he thinks our marriage is over and if he was gone I would realise how much needs to be one to run a house. Well! P actually got right into W and his stinking thinking! He told him that he was behaving like a child and God help our kids if they see their father telling people that you really only have to clean up after yourself and you shouldn't do things to help other people. He told W how selfish he was and how self absorbed and kept telling him that the world doesn't revolve around W.

He suggested that we do things the way he does with his kids. One day I load and unload the dishwasher, the next day W does it. We agreed. Well I did and W sort of did. I suggested that I did yesterday, W do today then I can do tomorrow which is Ws birthday. W agreed. So last night I cleaned as I went along with dinner, did the dishes, loaded the dishwasher and started it. This morning I felt like crap with tonsillitis again (I might just fill the repeat script from a few weeks ago but I know I should go to the GP) and I have a shocking cold. I got up and made the kids lunches. W took them to school (they were running late because W wouldn't stand up to Mr 5 who decided 5 minutes after they should have left that he wanted to learn to tie shoelaces. I would have just said tonight, not now!)

So it is now 11.30am and the dishwasher is still full of clean dishes and the dirty dishes are mounting up. I have not said anything, but it has meant my tongue is very sore from biting it all morning. W is back in bed reading a magazine.

Our next task is for each of us to do 4 lists before our next session on Friday week... 1) my strengths, 2) my weaknesses, 3) my partner's strengths and 4) my partner's weaknesses.

We will see if W does his...