Not a Wasted Word

I’ve known that I have ADHD for a long time, but I’m just starting to realize how much it affects me. And… shit I don’t know how to write this or what to say, but for real I need to write something.

Right now it feels like ADHD is standing between me and the life I want. It is a brick wall, towering above me, disappearing into the horizon in both directions. There is no way to go over, or under, or through. It is immense and impenetrable. I hate it with every fiber of my being.

There are so many changes I’ve wanted to make in my life that I haven’t been able to make, at least not effectively or consistently, and every single one centers around my ADHD. I do these things I don’t want to do because I have ADHD and I can’t stop doing them, or change the way I do them, because of my ADHD. And honestly, if I look closer, and pull back the layers and labels and the ways I’ve understood myself for so long, it is clear that ADHD has been influencing my life in so many negative ways, has been keeping me from being happy for so long, and I honestly don’t think it’s ever going to get better.

{Reading that, it doesn’t feel like that big of a deal. Oh my house is a little messy! Oh I spend more than I mean to! Welcome to the club. But it’s hard to explain how demoralizing it is to set goal after goal and never even get close to meeting them. To KonMarie my house only to have it be paralyzingly cluttered again a year letter. To tell myself that this month I’m going to stick to my new budget and not make it even a single day. To have those things I can’t control keep me from doing so many things I want, like traveling and living abroad, and just having a goddamn friend over for drinks. And that’s not to mention all the horrible things it makes me think about myself. The ways it makes me see myself as a failure.}

I feel frustrated, and angry, that this affects so many faucets of my life in so many adverse ways. I wish so badly I didn’t have it. That I were someone else.

And watching my daughter deal with it, and knowing she will probably have an equally difficult time, breaks my heart.

And knowing that having this makes it that much harder for me to parent her in the way she needs, breaks my heart even more.

I feel like this disorder takes so much, and it doesn’t give much back. Creativity? Spontaneity? Enthusiasm? I’m sorry but those few positives are not nearly enough. The cost is much too high. I can’t enjoy those strengths when I’m constantly stressed that I’ve forgotten something important, or I’ve lost something valuable or irreplaceable, or when I can’t control my anger and frustration, when I yell even though I want desperately to be calm, when I can’t organize my home or my classroom, when I can’t watch a movie with my husband without pissing him off, when I can’t control my spending, and only manage my disordered eating with medication. It fucking sucks to live my life this way, and it makes me feel sad and hopeless to realize it will always be like this.

I’m reading more about it, and trying to take heart in the positive aspects, but damn, it’s easy to linger on the negative. And when I google “I hate my ADHD,” and read post after post by people who feel similarly…

I keep coming back to this paragraph in Driven to Distraction, the current book I’m reading (not sure of the page number because I’m reading an electronic copy on Axis360):

In discussing what’s happening over the past decade and a half with Dr. Russell Barkley, one of the leading researchers in the field, I was particularly interested in Dr. Barkley’s comment that ADD is more impairing that any syndrome in all mental health that is treated on an outpatient basis. More impairing than anxiety, more impairing that depression, more impairing that substance abuse. The “morbidity” of untreated ADD is profound. Twenty-five percent of the prison population has undiagnosed ADD. Most of the kids in the juvenile justice system have untreated ADD. Traffic accidents are eight times more common that in the general population. If you have ADD, you are 40 percent more likely to get divorced than if you don’t, and 30 percent more likely to be unemployed. Estimates run as high as 40 percent of the addicted population having ADD, and a significant proportion of the eating-disordered population.

Edward Hallowell M.D & John Ratey M.D., Driven to Distraction

It’s validating – I see more of myself in those statistics that I’d like to admit – but it’s also demoralizing.

I know I should end this without something that wraps it all up, that makes it relevant in some way. But this is where I am right now, and there isn’t a pretty little bow to put on top of it. ADHD affects my life in many and myriad adverse ways. I hate it. I wish desperately that I didn’t have it. I wish that my daughter didn’t have it. I hate that she has it because of me.

I’m owning it though, for maybe the first time in my life. And I guess that is something. And since it makes it hard to wrap things up into a succinct message, I’m not going to make myself do that, or this post will never get published.

I really needed this three day weekend, and we took full advantage of it.

On Saturday we had our PTA end-of-year party. There are just four of us on the board so it was small. We’re a close group and it was a lot of fun to spend the afternoon together. I had a really good time, and left feeling immensely thankful that I’ve found my tribe.

Sunday I spent the day at work, watching Wine Country and Dead to Me while I graded papers. I finally feel caught up enough to make it through the end of the year.

Today I took the kids to Great America with my parents. My daughter went on roller coasters – the biggest, fastest, scariest ones in the park – and a lifelong parenting dream of mine was fulfilled. I love amusement parks and roller coasters, and finally riding on some with my daughter was truly wonderful. Also, for real, roller coasters these days are no joke.

So yeah, it was a good weekend. And I feel ready to take on the last three weeks of work.

I wrote this yesterday but forgot to post it. Oops!

It’s a lazy Saturday morning. My son and I are not at martial arts because there is a belt test that I’m not participating in. So I’m working out on the elliptical while my daughter reads and my son works on his homework packet with his dad (yes, my kid in TK has homework ::angry red face emoji::)

It all sounds rather idyllic. And perhaps it is. But what you don’t see is the hour of meltdown that my daughter had to navigate before starting to read (she is a high reader but doesn’t want to read novels, especially in Spanish – though once she gets started she always finishes them quickly and easily (and even enjoys them!). It’s been a tough year for her in a lot of ways and I’m not always sure how to best support her. It’s hard, and it weighs on me.

Reading more about how better help to manage her ADHD has forced me to look more closely at my own experiences with ADHD. It’s bringing up some complicated feelings, to say the least. I hope to write more about it soon.

But for now, as the subject line promised, some updates:

• Terminix just did a third treatment on our tenant’s unit (a chemical treatment), as he believes he still has bed bugs. I’m almost positive that he is not following the protocols required before each treatment but what can we do? If we ask he will most assuredly lie, or say something cagey. The most important thing is to wash all his clothes on hot, and I don’t want him doing that in our washing machine (which he technically is allowed to use – yes we are idiots), so I’m not pushing it. I think he thinks that since he did that the first time he doesn’t have to do that again, but if you thought you still had bed bugs, wouldn’t you do it again? I don’t understand how his mind works. At this point we’re just waiting out the three-month warranty on the initial heat treatment to take next steps (which will definitely include us NOT offering to pay for subsequent treatments if no evidence of bed bugs is found). At this point it would be a bad idea to initiate an owner move in because he could easily sue us for doing so with malicious intent and there is a relatively new law in SF that protects tenants with bed bugs specifically so we’re just going to wait until Terminix is no longer willing to keep treating the place for free before we figure out what to do next.

• My sister-in-law is pregnant again, which took us all by surprise because her first pregnancy was uncertain and her child birth experience was relatively traumatic and she was sure she wasn’t going to have any more kids, but her son is barely one and I guess she changed her mind. My in-laws are spending all summer in Texas now, and then plan to be there indefinitely after November. It sucks to get used to them being around only to lose their support entirely for large chunks of time, but having them here sometimes is definitely better than never.

• My kids only have six more days left of school – four next week and two the following week. The fact that they end on a Tuesday is so frustrating, but luckily my husband and his parents planned a trip and will be taking our daughter to Texas to visit her aunt, uncle and cousin the Wednesday after her last day. Then my husband and son will be joining them on Friday, so they can all fly back together the following Tuesday. This means I will have the house to myself for FOUR NIGHTS. I have NEVER had the house to myself for even one night (though I’ve had many alone with my husband), as my husband does not plan trips with them without me. So this is very exciting news. I’m still in school for this stretch, so it’s not just going to be a giant party, but I’m super stoked about it none the less.

• I have 12 more days of school (we end on Wednesday, 6/12) and am feeling panicked that it won’t all get done. By the end of next week I’ll be over that feeling and won’t care if it’s not going to get done, but I’m not there yet. (I think I could be there already, in the not caring stage, but I worry if I let myself do that we won’t get anything done and I’ll go crazy. Keeping them busy and working toward a test is really the better way to play it, and I have to be motivated to do that so I let the panicky feeling have it’s way.

• My house is WAY into the HOLY SHIT IT’S SO MESSY IT’S STRESSING ME OUT place, but we’re not AirBnBing it this summer so I’m not externally motivated to clean it up, so I’m having a hard time working on it. I put the kids in camp for the week before out trip to St. Louis because I assumed we were going to AirBnb the place, so I plan to use that time to do a big purge. We also have a new storage shed in the back yard (which we bought for the initial heat treatment) that I plan to utilize for the stuff that I want to get rid of, but that other people think they still want. Hopefully it will be out of sight, out of mind, and then I can get rid of it for good.

• My husband and I are in a better place. Of course nothing has really changed, we’re just on our familiar cycle’s upswing. I know we need to do more to really change things but I’m too tired right now. Maybe after this summer I’ll have the where with all to initiate something.

• Two old friends recently announced they are pregnant after many years of TTC and IVF. I am so thrilled for them. So, so thrilled.

• My husband went out with an old friend from out of town last night who announced his wife is pregnant. Their kids are our kids ages (second one is a year older) and they had a miscarriage last fall so we were expecting the news at some point. I personally can’t imagine starting all over again with a newborn at this point – I am more and more satisfied with parenthood as I get older! but I’m happy they are getting what they want. It sounds like the husband is not super on board, but going along with his wife’s wishes (he was the one who shared the extremely lackluster comment about parenting two kids when my husband announced we were pregnant again, and it seems his attitude has not changed all that much). I hope it all works out for them. Meanwhile I am SO THANKFUL that my husband and I did not have to navigate that issue. We are both very happy with our two kids, thankyouverymuch.

• (I will also mention this was the woman who was incredibly dismissive about my miscarriage experience, and our struggle to conceive, when it happened, and evidently was totally destroyed by her own miscarriage experience, and how long it took to get pregnant after (she got pregnant immediately the first two times). I’m not sure how that makes me feel, but it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about.

• I have some new plans for this summer that I’m excited to share, but this post go long so I’ll do that next time.

I hope you all have a great long weekend!

My weekend wasn’t that great, but it wasn’t horrible.

Saturday I had the orientation for a two week professional development I’m doing this summer. Ultimately I will be paid for this time, which is amazing (I’ve never been monetarily compensated for a professional development before), but that won’t happen until March of 2020. In the meantime, it’s still hard to give up a weekend day to basically be at work.

The good news is the professional development felt worthwhile. I learned a lot, and already have new ideas for how to start the next school year. I do think it will be a good use of two weeks this summer. It definitely feels overwhelming, and the fact that they are paying us definitely ups the stakes. And the commitment is significant. We have to complete more units in the fall, along with attending four follow-up Saturday sessions. We also have to earn professional development points – by both learning AND presenting what we’ve learned – before March. So yeah, it’s a significant commitment but I feel hopeful that it will be worthwhile.

I brought the necessary gear to run after the class, and after I asked around, someone recommended an open space preserve near by. I drove there, but there wasn’t anywhere to park near any of the three entrances I saw on the map (well, there were places to park but it wasn’t allowed – I have never seen so many No Parking signs in my life), so I had to park a ten minute walk from the entrance. Then I ended up running two miles to the top of a high ridge. I actually felt pretty good running up that massive mountain (I’m not an enthusiastic hill runner), and I enjoyed the view from the top, but I was stressed about time because the whole ordeal was taking way longer than I intended. In the end I was in the park for almost 90 minutes. It was stressful to be behind schedule, but it was really good to be outside.

I got home pretty late, and my husband was pouting a little from being left alone with our son all day. I tried to ignore it, because evidently this is as good as I’m going to get in my marriage and I’m going to have to be okay with it. I was pleasantly surprised that he had picked up the house – my son had a play date and he felt he had to – and I thanked him for that. After bedtime we watched John Wick 2, which was exactly the plotless, action driven two hours I needed after the mind-f*** that was Suspiria the night before.

Sunday morning my MIL texted to let us know our daughter had been up all night puking. My ILs actually took her both nights this past weekend (at our daughter’s request), so we hadn’t seen her since Friday morning. Her being sick threw a wrench in our Mother’s Day plans. My husband did “get up” with our son, but he still ended up in my bed before 7am. It’s a good thing he’s so cute. I also realized I had started my period (they have been pretty unpleasant these days).

My mother was out of town, and my in-laws had offered to make my favorite breakfast so we went over to their house. My daughter was still in rough shape, and I felt pretty bad myself. The breakfast was yummy, but since our early-afternoon plans were cancelled, we ended up just hanging out there all day. I was very touched my in-laws offered to make me breakfast, but just being at their house all day was not what I wanted to do.

The good news is my daughter felt better by 2pm so we could still make our 4pm movie. We saw Detective Pikachu (my son is WAY into Pokemon right now), got In-n-Out for dinner and went home.

I had graded papers at my in-laws (seriously best thing I did all day), so I could watch Game of Thrones, but by 10pm I still hadn’t started. I realized I didn’t really want to watch the episode, but I also didn’t want it spoiled, so I put it on. It ended up being way more disappointing than I was even expecting, and I went to bed pretty upset. I’ve invested countless hours in this story, not only watching the series on HBO, but also LISTENING to all the audiobooks (each one is 40-50 hours long). So yeah. watching them end it the way they are ending it is way more rage-making than I’d like to admit.

And that was my weekend. Not how I wanted to spend either day, but there were bright spots in both.

Next weekend I have a mixture of things I want to do and other obligations that will make it much of the same. Hopefully things will get calm down in the summer.

On Friday Laura Vanderkam linked to an opinion piece in the NYT about the unequal division of labor in most US homes, and also linked to a response she appreciated in The Federalist. Finally, she had this reminder for her readers.

I’d also say that if anybody reading this blog feels the split is not equal in her (or his!) household, presumably you didn’t choose to marry and stay married to an @#@-hole, and you can have a civil discussion about this and talk it through.

After that piece of advice, she provided an anecdote about how recently she had to remind her husband to help more with the laundry, and after that one reminder, (you guessed it!) he totally started helping more with the laundry.

The Federalist piece seemed to hint at the same suggestion – that married couples should just talk about these inequalities at home. Except she didn’t really suggest that. She didn’t really present any possible solutions for unequal division of labor in most homes. Her main qualm was with women who lambast their husband in national publications. Her purpose for writing was to declare it unfair that the men in these marriages don’t get to present their own perspective on the situation, and counter productive to the goal of improving the situation at home! I mean, why don’t ya’ll just sit down and talk about it! Figure this shit out already!

I don’t really want to levy a moral judgement on the women who write – under their real names – disparagingly about their husbands in national news outlets , but I’m pretty sure think they don’t write those pieces to improve the division of labor in their own homes. I think they write those pieces because they HAVE talked about it with their husbands, A MILLION TIMES, and it’s not changing. And it’s not changing in the homes of countless women, despite their talking about it ad nauseum with their husbands as well. Women write those articles not simply to vent about a frustrating situation, but to start a conversation that might eventually lead to a real and significant change in the division of labor in American homes. Because for most of us, just talking about it with our spouses isn’t helping.

Do I really need to say this? Do I really need to write that in many marriages, just talking about it doesn’t make it better? There are few things more frustrating to me than someone reminding me that what’s obvious to me is only obvious to me, and I just need to properly communicate my concerns for the inequality to be rectified. I’m also sick of women being blamed for succumbing to societal expectations and creating their own Pinterest prisons of grueling domestic labor and perfectionism fueled break downs.

Because I am a woman who does no peruse Pinterest or Instagram or ANY social media site, whose house is perpetually messy (no, not the kind of messy that people with neat houses talk about but really, truly crazy-makingly messy), who does not believe her children’s future success and happiness hinges on the amount of extracurricular activities they attend, who does not feel morally obligated to prepare home cooked meals for my family, and I still feels exhausted by the labor I perform (both visible and invisible). I’m also a woman who spent TEN YEARS talking to my spouse about how unhappy I was, and suggesting different divisions of labor, and even went to marriage counseling to address this specific issue (and nothing else) for months, and still wasn’t satisfied with the division of labor until very, very recently.

Oh, and my husband and I make about the same amount of money. And for many years, when I was most unhappy with the division of labor in my marriage, I was making more.

So please, don’t tell me to just talk to my “supposedly not an asshole” husband about how he needs to do step up on the chore front.

In our house, my husband does ALL the dishes (I only wash something if it’s dirty and I need to use it) and he cooks ALL of the meals (I only prepare my children’s dinners on the weekdays, and I use the word “prepare” because there really isn’t any cooking involved because my children are very “selective eaters” who only like four or five “meals” that mostly require a pre-heated oven or microwave to get on the table). He also does all the food shopping, and keeps track of what food we have and need and are almost out of. I might sometimes pick up the specific kefir my son likes (that they don’t carry at TJs) or grab two massive boxes of Cheerios at Costco when I’m already there, but essentially my husband handles almost everything related to the kitchen.

And I do pretty much everything else.

{I feel like I must mention here that yes “cleaning” is technically something I do (my husband has never cleaned the toilet or shower or mopped the floor in all our years of marriage), but I do it so rarely, and so ineffectively, that it takes up WAY less time than it does for people who actually care about how neat and clean their homes are.}

I find this division of labor pretty fair (and I believe that perceived “fairness” is much more important than an actual equal division of labor). The only real issue of inequality that we’re still figuring out is that while we’re both home in the morning, and we each take a kid to school (which requires we each get to work later than we’d like), I am responsible for picking up both kids and shuttling them to their stuff and/ir providing their care, every afternoon. And while yes, I have the car and my afternoons are not contractually claimed by my employer, I still feel resentment that I have to leave work unfinished to get the kids in time or that I have to figure out pick up and evening care for my kids if I want to do something after work, while my husband only has to tell me he won’t be home at his usual time if he needs to stay late to get something done, or attend an impromptu (or planned) event. This is something we’re still working on, and only recently (after I had the umpteenth time we had a blowout fight about it) has my husband suggested that maybe he could ask his boss if he could work from home on occasion, or leave early and finish up later without taking off the hours. (He has not actually talked to his boss about these things, but he did present them as possible solutions.)

So yes, things looks pretty good for me! And one of the reasons they are pretty good is because I had to fight for them to be pretty great for the better part of a decade. It was a fight that made me semi-miserable in my marriage, for a large portion of those years. It was a fight that we took to marriage counseling. And no, I didn’t marry an asshole, I married an open-minded man who would consider himself a feminist, who was born and raised by liberal parents in one of the most progressive cities in the country, and I STILL had to fight him for every percentage point of equality in the division of labor in our marriage.

{I think it’s also important to point out that part of why things feel more equal is because our kids are older and require less time and attention from us, ESPECIALLY at night. I think if they were still under five, I’d still be the only one getting up with them after falling asleep, and I’d be providing the majority of the intensive one-on-one parenting that younger children require and I’d still be unhappy with the division of labor in my marriage. So part of why it feels more fair is because some of the parenting-specific labor is no longer necessary, not because my husband is doing more of it.}

I also think it’s important to point out that, earlier this year, when I was feeling pretty good about our marriage (mostly because I felt less resentment about who was doing what), my husband sucker punched me in the gut by telling me he was NOT very happy with the way things were. I immediately wondered, and still do, if part of his unhappiness is that he does so much more than he used to do, and now HE feels the exhaustion and resentment that I used to feel about our partnership.

So even when a couple finally does find a division of labor that feels equal to the woman, maybe the man will start feeling resentment. Maybe it’s much harder to create a partnership where BOTH spouses feel satisfied and neither feels resentful than anyone is willing to admit. I wonder if someone is ever going to write an opinion piece about that.

In the meantime, I think the women who have husbands who are responsive to suggestions about how things might be more equal at home, (especially the women who employ someone at home who does a portion of the weekday work) might want to give the women who feel frustrated with the division of labor in their homes the benefit of the doubt. Maybe we really don’t care that our houses are messy, and we don’t feel we need to ferry our kids to a million activities, and we don’t feel obligated to cook unique, organic, balanced meals every night, (and we can’t outsource the grunt work to someone else), and we HAVE talked to our husbands about how we need them to do more, AND IT’S STILL A PROBLEM. Maybe it’s not just something women can fix in their marriages by lowering their standards or communicating more clearly (and outsourcing!). Maybe we need to have real and productive conversations about how men need to be doing more, and change employer expectations so that men CAN AND ARE EXPECTED TO DO MORE, not just by their wives, but by their friends, family, employers and everyone else.

So yeah. I read that, and it frustrated me, and I knew I had more to write than would fit in a comment, so I wrote this post. I hope someone understands where I am coming from, and finds this validating in some way.

What are your thoughts on the unequal division of labor in US households? How do you feel about the division of labor in your own home?

I’m not a fan of Mother’s Day. I know I’m one of the lucky ones. My mother is alive, and we have a good relationship. I also have the kids I so desperately wanted. It feels like I should like Mother’s Day, or at least not hate it.

But I kind of hate it.

I hate any day, really, where expectations are created but might not necessarily be met, where opportunities for disappointment linger around every decision. Mother’s Day manages to create expectations in others I will probably not meet, and even manages to disappoint me!

Why do we need to create more opportunities for disappointment? Oh right! To inspire consumerism! Isn’t capitalism great!

Mother’s Day feels like such a lose/lose proposition. In my case, there are three mothers that expect… I don’t know… something? My mom, my mother-in-law, and I all can lay claim to the day. How exactly are we supposed to play it?

I am extremely lucky that my MIL does not seem to care at all about they kinds of Hallmark holidays. She never tries to lay claim to the day. In fact this year my ILs are making my favorite breakfast, which I think is so sweet.

My mother does have expectations. And I always feel like I disappoint her. This year she is out of town and I must admit, I feel nothing but relief.

And then there are my own complicated feelings. I don’t think my mom should care so much about the day, and I’m thankful my MIL doesn’t, so shouldn’t I care either, right? And I don’t. Except a part of me does. Because my husband never does anything, AT ALL on this day. And while I love the stuff my kids make me, I know they only do it because an adult told them too. I could never articulate what might make me happy on this bullshit day, all I know is that I never feel happiness.

{Let’s not even mention the fact that I’m always asked what I want to do on the day, and what I really want is to do something alone, or with a friend, and isn’t that a shitty way to celebrate being a mother, by getting far away from the people that make me one?}

I guess I just resent that someone created a day that further complicates my already complicated life, a day that temps me to spend money when really I don’t need to, a day that creates the opportunity for disappointment and guilt. It’s all just so unnecessary. And I’m one of the lucky ones, who has a mom to celebrate, and who is celebrated as a mom. For so many people this day is about nothing but sadness. It’s an awful, traumatic day. And for what? There isn’t enough suffering in the world? We have to literally manufacture opportunities to revisit trauma and loss?

I honestly wish we could just get rid of it, for everyone’s sake.

So happy Sunday everyone. I hope you make it out unscathed.

Thank you all for your support on my last post. It means more than I can say.

I forgot to mention in my post, that my husband told me he didn’t like me many months ago (maybe in the fall), when I thought things between us were actually pretty good. His declaration that he was unhappy and didn’t really like me anymore were such a sucker punch to my gut; now I feel like I can’t trust myself to gauge our relationship anymore. That has been the case for a while.

Though I will admit, I wasn’t surprised when my husband repeated that he didn’t like me anymore recently. I was pretty sure things were shot to shit by then.

So yeah, I’m really not sure where we stand. I sometimes wonder what he would say if I asked him if he wanted a divorce. Actually, I know the answer to that. He doesn’t want a divorce because that would take obscene amount of work, and he will always avoid that if he can.

That doesn’t necessarily mean he wants to stay married.

To be fair, I have no idea where I stand either. I’m way too numb to know how I feel.

I signed up for a month of phone therapy. I call it phone therapy because it happens on my phone, either via text (through an app) or actual voice calls. I just got matched today, and I’m not really sure how it will work moving forward. My friend, who is the counselor at my school, recommended the service. She said she used it for a month and it was surprisingly helpful. So I’m giving it a try. Honestly, maybe texting with someone about how I’m feeling, someone who is trained to help me process those feelings, is exactly what I need right now. Lord knows it’s probably all I can manage at the moment, and I appreciate that it’s an option. All I know is it will start soon, I won’t have to spend tons of time finding someone and then months waiting for an appointment. It’s also a lot cheaper than regular face-to-face therapy in the city.

We did talk to the lawyer today. He wasn’t that helpful. He recommended we offer our tenant $20K-$50K to leave. He thinks we should just sit down and see what our tenant is willing to do. If he won’t leave for any amount of money, we’ll have to initiate an owner move-in, in which case we can still be sued for “nefarious intent” or basically, using the Ellis Act to evict someone for another reason (he would surely argue we were doing it because of the bed bug situation). So yeah. The good news is, we would only have to pay for his legal bills if a judgement were issued requiring that (I didn’t catch why such a judgement might be made). Our lawyer doubted he would receive free legal counsel (only tenants in protected situations get that). So at least he has to pay his own goddamn lawyer fees if he does decide to sue.

The whole thing is very stressful and I don’t think it will be resolved any time soon. This person choose to pay rent on this unit for 17 months without living there, so he clearly has no desire to leave (I wouldn’t either – he has an amazing deal down there). The only reason he might choose a buyout is if he still believes he has bed bugs, but there isn’t evidence of that, and no pest control companies will treat the unit, or if they will, we won’t pay, and he is so miserable co-habitating with bed bugs (real or imagined) that he takes a buy-out and leaves.

(Oh, and he says it would be very hard to evict him as being a nuisance (because he brought in the bed bugs) because it’s so hard to prove where they came from. So even though we don’t have bed bugs, and the unit never had bed bugs, and now he lives there and it does have bed bugs, we still can’t blame the bed bugs on him because we basically have to PROVE that he brought it bed bugs. It’s such bullshit.)

The lawyer recommended we have this conversation with our tenant ASAP, as he seems unstable and might dramatically up his demands if given the chance. We feel waiting might make more sense, either for him to get more desperate because of the the perceived bed bug situation, or to let it cool down so he will have less traction if he decides to sue us after our owner move-in attempts. I honestly don’t know what to do.

I also don’t know where to get the money. I mean we can use our emergency fund to cover up to $25K, but I wonder if I wouldn’t rather drain my retirement account – I think I might prefer working longer than drastically restricting spending for a number of years. It’s definitely a “lesser of two evils” decision. One I guess we’ll eventually have to make.

My husband is choosing to “be positive” and he is certainly a master compartmentalizer, so he is handling this all relatively well. I feel like I’m watching my dreams go down the drain with the prospect of spending this much money, and never having the rental unit as a source of income again. I’m trying not to let it get me down, but it’s hard.

Meanwhile a friend just let me know that she and her husband will be separating, as soon as they can find a rental for him. She recommends I start saving my money now, in cash.

It’s really hard for me to see the bright side right now. I wish I knew how my husband does it.

My marriage is a hot mess right now, just like the rest of my life.

I know everyone tells you that marriages take work, and are rarely easy, but for real. Sometimes it feels like I don’t get out nearly what I’ put in.

It feels like that in so many areas of my life, that my effort is not creating the desired results. Or really any measurable results.

My husband has informed me that he doesn’t really like me much anymore. I can’t remember exactly how I said it, but I repeated it back to him and he confirmed I understood him correctly. So it’t not like I heard that in something else he said. He doesn’t like me anymore.

Does he love me? I don’t know if he even knows.

Do I love him? I’m not sure. I’m tired. I’m tired of putting in the work and not getting the results. It makes me not want to put in the work anymore.

I’m tired of reading the books about how to do it better and being the only one who tries to change. I think maybe my husband will never be happy with someone like me. He is a perpetually calm person who never loses his cool, very rarely yells, and is most comfortable avoiding confrontation. His preference is always to choose the path of least resistance, the one that requires the least amount of expended energy. He doesn’t want much, and is generally content with the ways thing are.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, I think you can guess where the issues are.

When we have conversations about how to make our marriage better I feel like it’s always about me. He doesn’t like the way I do this or that, and it sucks to feel like I am the one with all the issues and he is just fine.

I’m also tired of apologizing for my anger, because you know what, as a woman in this country, who was fed a whole lifetime of lies about what was awaiting me, I have reason to be angry. Yes, I can always learn to more effectively express my anger, but I’m done apologizing for it.

I’m just done, all around.

April was a hellacious month. I’m sure things will get better. But that’s the thing. They always get better, and they always end up back here again. I worry we are just postponing the inevitable by perpetuating a cycle that is not productive. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, right? That’s also stupidity.

It’s lonely living with someone who doesn’t like you. And I am tired.

… ANNIE! For clarify the insanity that is California rent control and tenant laws while I sat around and clarified nothing! WITH DEEPEST SINCERITY, I THANK YOU, because truly, California’s tenant laws are a cluster f***, and inquiring minds obviously want to know.

I’ve been in the weeds, as usual. And honestly, there are a lot of questions we still don’t have answers to. That is why we are spending the big $$$ to talk to a lawyer next week. (After which I will update you all on the situation).

We are almost positive that we must adhere to San Francisco’s rent control laws. Our building was built before 1979 (so much before – it’s about to turn 100!!) and even though it’s not a registered unit, I’m sure rent control still applies (otherwise, single family home owners would be incentivized to NOT register their units). Basically, in all situations, renters in San Francisco have a ton of rights. Which I think is a great idea. 70% of the housing in SF is on the renters market, and most of that is owned by landlords who are trying to save a buck (or make a lot more bucks) in anyway they can. I think renters deserve protection in those situations, and I LOVED rent control when I was a renter in SF for 10 years.

I do think maybe there should be different rules for single-family home owners who are renting their spaces, but I honestly don’t know what they rules should be. But the city depends heavily on these spaces to provide below-market priced rental units, so they might want to think about protecting those home-owners so they are more inclined to rent those units.

We paid for the initial heat treatment, but thought that maybe we could eventually put the onus on our tenant for getting rid of the bed bugs (if they are found again), since he clearly brought them into the unit. I’ve read that in single-family home situations, where there are no other tenants who might have brought them in, landlords can require tenants to pay for treatments. But SF has a new bed bug law that went into effect in 2017 (because they are evidently a huge problem here), and we may be responsible for paying for treatments no matter what (I can’t find this information anywhere except on tenants’ rights sites paid for by tenants’ rights lawyers so I don’t know if they are choosing deliberately vague wording to make it sound like landlords ALWAYS have to pay to attract more customers).

We might still be able to push the responsibility on to him if we believe he is not taking the proper steps to ensure the issues won’t happen again. This is doubtful (him taking the proper steps) since he is still claiming that he didn’t bring them in, but that he got them from “rodents in the walls” or “feral cats in the backyard” (even though there is no evidence that bed bugs move with rodents or cats (they can feed on them, but they haven’t been shown to travel with them).

The probable issue will be that we’ll do this second heat treatment (only to his unit because he believes the first wasn’t done properly), and he will still think he has bed bugs, and the pest control won’t re-do the treatment without seeing further evidence of bed bugs (they are only doing a second treatment this time because they didn’t heat the bathroom last time – because our tenant said that was okay! And then decided it wasn’t okay!), and we will refuse to pursue another company or treatment option and he will flip out when we tell him he has to pay for it himself if he wants to do it. At this point, we may offer him some money (not $10K required for an owner move in but a portion of it) to leave of his own accord.

The messiest issue will be if he finds evidence of bed bugs AFTER the three month warranty on the treatment is up. At this point we are probably required to do another treatment, which feels unfair because clearly in this situation he would not be doing what he needs to do to ensure bed bugs are not reintroduced to the unit, or are being properly eradicated in the first place (we believe there is still far too much clutter in his unit to ensure complete eradication – yes we’ve been taking pictures). At this point, a lengthy legal battle might ensue.

We realized, after some particularly unhinged emails, that our tenant is now sleeping every night in the unit, even though he believes there are still bed bugs and he’s still getting bit. This is clearly making him miserable, which means he must have no where else to go. He told us previously that he hasn’t slept in our unit for 16 months, and instead was sleeping at his girl friend’s apartment. We believe that option is no longer available to him for whatever reason, or he would be taking it. The fact that he no longer has an easy option for where to go complicates matters

So that is where we are now. We have a consultation with a landlord lawyer on Wednesday morning. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Well, April 2019 thoroughly kicked me in the teeth. And it’s not over yet. By May 4th, things should be better, or at least less hectic.

It’s felt like a full time job keeping my thoughts from spiraling into the abyss. Knowing a bed bug infestation is right under our feet is incredibly stressful. Not feeling like we have any control over how it is managed is even more stressful.

We did heat treat our house. Five days later our tenant finally slept in the unit and immediately informed us he was still getting bit. We’re meeting with the pest control company again on Tuesday.

We have a consultation with a law firm that works with landlords next Wednesday.*

My guess is, we’ll have do an “owner move in,” eviction which requires we pay our tenant $10,000 to move out, after which we would not be able to rent our unit again (because we asked him to move out so that we could move in).

Of course our unit is not registered with the city. I don’t know if we really would never be able to rent it again. My husband works for the city and VERY MUCH wants to avoid bad optics, so he just might not feel comfortable renting it again. And of course, we’d need to deal with the bed bug issue, feel certain it had been eradicated (clearly just not living there for a year isn’t enough), and disclose that information to whoever else we found to rent it. We would probably only rent it to a good friend, which would bring its own issues. Ugh.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we ended up in this situation. About how the housing market is so crazy in San Francisco, that the only way we could afford a mortgage was to rent a unit (and to that point, the only reason we weren’t priced out of buying our house by higher bids was because it originally was put on the market with tenants living in the unit, which made it less attractive), and about how that put us in a risky position, which now is causing us financial distress. The whole system is so broken, two people with post-graduate degrees should be able to buy a house without renting out a part of it, but not in San Francisco, and increasingly not in other parts of the country either.

If we do have to pay our tenant $10,000 to leave, and then can’t rent the unit again, it will really change our financial situation. We were looking forward to a few years of having a little bit more money in our bank accounts (the post-childcare and car payment years), but it seems like those years are never going to come, and we’re going to have to carefully identify and prioritize our spending because we will never be able to pursue multiple goals at the same time. Some of our dreams will definitely have to be set aside, maybe only temporarily, but possibly forever.

It’s also spring, the time of year in teaching when you learn your colleagues (and friends) are leaving for better opportunities. My best work friend got a job at a high school, and I am especially aware of how I will never feel financially secure enough to leave my job, and that is a suffocating feeling. I guess I just have to find ways to make it as fulfilling as it can be.

I understand it could be much, much worse. One of us could be sick or injured and on disability. One of us could have lost our jobs. This financial set back is not the worst one in the world, but it’s significant for us. I just wish we weren’t in this situation. I have never loved our house, or living in San Francisco, and this just makes me resent the whole situation even more.

*{It was surreal to try to find a lawyer that works with landlords in this city – there are tons of tenants’ rights lawyers but fewer who are representing the bad guys. It is also surreal to be the bad guy. Blerg. We tried so hard to be decent land lords – we haven’t raised the rent on our unit once in seven years. We were just trying to offer a modest space at a decent price, just enough so we could afford our mortgage. And everywhere I look we are portrayed as the big bad Darth Vaders of the rental world. It sucks.}