Multilingual partnerships, miscommunication, having a hard time staying grateful

I'm an American expat living in Catalunya trying to find my happy place and stay in grateful mindset. I had a major health crisis this year that I'm recovering from still and I've got to say that my just-so-happy-to-be-alive phase was a heck of a lot shorter than I expected. I'm not as physically able as I was before and it's pretty depressing. Maybe this is just a rant. We've moved somewhere fairly remote. I don't have any real life friends close by, so my main interactions are as wife and mother. This isn't new, I've been a fish out of water since 2013.

There's a lot of work to do on the summer house to make it fit for all four seasons and my husband is the default communicator with salesmen and workmen because he speaks the local languages natively and I don't. He doesn't manage the details though, although I know him to be capable of it in his 'real' work. In the early years of marriage 'miscommunication' was the explanations for many conflicts and sometimes a shortcut to resolution. Lately though I sometimes feel like it's used as an excuse to just ignore me.

Today's example is that we finally got the fireplace insert but the door hinges are on my non-preferred side for where I want firewood to be stored. It can't be changed and it's going to bother me every day. I know I told the salesman where I wanted the wood storage to go and how the door should swing and that I asked my husband, probably more than once, to make sure he communicated that requirement. The salesman, the owner of the business I think, came and measured and helped us select the insert. The workmen who came however spent much of the day smashing out the back of the fireplace to make it fit and mortaring it back up over some kind of insulation. I have no confidence that it was well done. I'm not even sure we got the one we ordered; I thought there would be a full row of intake vents along the bottom, a much larger ash catcher for cleaning out, etc. It was meant to be at least six inches higher off the base than it is but they say they underestimated how deep the mantel is. Bottom line I wasn't the interface on the job. I missed my chance to say the door was wrong before it was installed and my husband is mad that I'm mad. (I spent the evening rearranging our furniture to try to make it work with the firewood storage on the opposite side of the fireplace but it's going to be in the way of the walking path to the kitchen. It's a weirdly shaped room and I already had it optimized for plan A.)

Thanksgiving weekend my brother-in-law framed out the basics of a chicken run for me onto an already-built pergola, but I said NO STAPLES and he ignored me. I showed him a picture online beforehand of hanging galvanized hardware cloth with screws and washers so that it could be easily removed and repurposed, but he put in tons of staples in the small project, made cuts in the expensive wire and had to pleat it where the tensioning was sloppy. Those staples will be a hazard to chickens for years as they rust and fall out. There's also a six inch gap for 3 meters for me to solve where I can use skirting wire, but I wouldn't have had to if he'd listened about wire being hung from the outside vs. the inside. He insisted on making something 'square' that leaves this enormous gap instead of attaching it out of square to the sturdy beam of the raised garden bed that was already adjacent. The message to me was, "You can make suggestions but not demands." But at the same time, "If it's really a problem you have to be adamant or you shouldn't complain afterward." They're going to do what they think is cheaper/easier and I can stuff it. The drawings I make keep magically disappearing. On the same project I asked repeatedly for a dutch door, but not half and half, more like one third two thirds so that I can step over the bottom one while keeping birds in. Ignored. I asked for the door we made to be accommodate width the hardware cloth span 110cm but the frame was made 90cm, which is going to make it way harder to maneuver a wheelbarrow.  The point of custom projects is to make them how you want them, not to some manufactured standard. We left it on bad terms with his realization that the modification he made to the pitch left us short of roofing materials. I think I'm going to turn it into a potting/greenhouse area because of all the freaking staples. But the real question is how do I get out of this pattern. The tools are all his. We're renting a home my mother-in-law owns. I don't think it's straight up misogyny. I think it's more like, "You can ask me to do it or you can tell me how to do it, but not both." I want to be the 'client' not the 'nagging' wife or ungrateful sister-in-law.

I could make a long list, the solar installers who didn't pass inspection until all of the hardware was moved and who didn't patch the first wall they used. The chainsaw guy who unsupervised dropped half of next year's firewood to a lower terrace in a place we can't easily reach it and where it will have to be hauled back up 35 steps back to the house. The messed up plumbing that makes our tub belch sewage-smelling gas if the stopper isn't in. My husband didn't do it, but he didn't prevent it either. Maybe I'm expecting too much that he can tell who is competent before hiring them, but when I have specific concerns ahead of time he still doesn't prioritize them. I'm the person looking for best practices and perusing the comments section for the ones that say, "Hey man, I do this professionally, you'll be happier with your result if you X."

We once took a kite to the beach with the kids. These two grown men who had never flown a kite spent an hour yelling at me about how to do it. I sometimes remind my husband with this shorthand, "It's like that day at the beach with the kite." I'm not always claiming to be an expert, but in this case I read five books on building chicken coops and runs, watched all the avoidable-mistakes-made videos, etc, but they've built some stuff and don't listen to me. I posted earlier about a ADU tiny house that I'd like to build, but I have so many years of planning and dreaming invested in it that I'm not sure my relationship would survive the build the way things currently go.

I'm open to ideas about how to change this dynamic, find (not fake) gratitude, or otherwise find the joy again. I recognize that part of this is feeling triggered and rehashing old wounds about my alcoholic father letting me down over and over again, but there's also some built-in codependence to living where a language deficit infantalizes you. I'm really not sure how much more of this disappointment I can take, but if this year taught me anything it's that I can't afford to live in the US anymore.

Talk to me.

I suspect the primary problem is that you are dealing with human beings.   At peak, the company I was CEO of had over 50 employees.  Even my best employees messed up more than I would have liked. More often than not, they messed up by committing the most obvious mistakes.

I am sorry that things have not been working out for you lately.

I am a firm believer in positive thinking.

As John suggests your dealing with humans.

My story is similar to yours, moved here in 2013, health issues ...

We live out in the boondocks so I don't have to deal with human except when we go to town.

I do enjoy those excursions and dealing with folks so seldom.

I used to have a pretty poster that hung on my wall that reminded me that Tomorrow is a New Day.

I hope you will find the joy that you are looking for.

I very much disagree with the idea that you NEED to feel gratitude at all times. Or even most of the time.

That's a huge expectation, and in my experience, a recipe for resentment. I had a few people try to coach me into that mindset 'be grateful, at least it isn't ________";and quite frankly, it was awful for my mental health to always focus on how something could maybe have been worse and how I should be grateful for what I have, when yeah, my physical health sucks, my mental health isn't great, and the world keeps hitting me when I'm down.

I treasure when I feel joy, and plan my life trying to find those moments - but think of joy as a gift I sometimes have, not a constant companion I need to fight to keep. It's okay not to always have joy, or gratitude. I'm human.

I think what I am reading between the lines is that you are not feeling respected, and that's a really hard thing to live with - and fixing it will probably require intentional work from two people - you, and your husband.

Sometimes stuff sucks and anger is a reasonable emotion. Sometimes stuff sucks for a long time.

Figuring out how to express ' I am angry, and disappointed ' in a healthy way does take some effort, but bottling it up just leads to resentment, in my opinion. And it's a very toxic environment if you CAN'T express when you are angry, and disappointed (in an adult way without insults and yelling).

I could try to find gratitude, today, that I discovered that my roof is leaking, but at least I caught it now, or I can be right pissed that the house inspector missed it, when, in retrospect, it's obvious there was a previous leak here and I now think it's been slightly leaking since I bought the house, and just suddenly got worse, and now I might not get the thing I have been going through extreme pennypjnching for 3+ months to save for, that I've already had to delay 3 times.  Being pissed at the world is healthier for me, than trying to feign gratitude for likely needing to replace my roof 3+ years earlier than I'd planned.  And no, I don't feel grateful to own a house today! Try me after the roof's repaired and I'm no longer scared about what else is going to be found to be wrong when I fix it.  I'm not going to yell at the inspector, or misdirect my anger at friends, which won't help, but I will let myself be mad.

And it's reasonable for you to expect support from your husband when things go wrong, and stuff is frustrating. An appropriate thing to do, if the wood stove door is hung the wrong direction, is to expect him to contact the installer to replace it, or give a hefty discount for providing the wrong product. And if it turns out that he actually didn't specify the things you asked for, or was told in advance it wouldn't work, then it's very appropriate to be angry at him for lying to you about it, and dismissing your concerns, and to expect HIM to help rearrange your house to make it work, since it was his mistake, and he needs to take accountability for it.

Did your husband express any frustration at the installation and wrong product being delivered, or just frustration at you for being angry about the wrong product?

As for the brother in law ... Unhired help is much harder to dictate to than hired help. That's the sort of thing where I might consider asking them to build the frame, and doing detail work yourself.  Getting your own power tools is a powerful feeling - can you ask for power tools as Christmas/birthday gifts? There are a lot of things in the world I prefer to do myself and borrowing tools (which invariably comes with the owner's opinions!) gets old very fast.

Is moving to a more urban area, where there might be more English speakers an option? Is taking language lessons an option? Your mental health matters too.

Hi Eileen,
I'm going to come at this from a husband's perspective if I can. These are in no particular order. And of course it is always harder to give ideas or advice when you only have half the story.

- That is a rough place to be in, and I am sorry that you are going through it.
- Workman doing things wrong, or getting a wrong product, or work being done poorly can happen to anyone, anywhere on earth, no matter how careful they are. You are not alone, but things should be corrected :)
- I think your relationship with each other is more important than the projects.
- It sounds like your relationship is strained. I suspect the projects would be easier to deal with, if both of you were getting what you need from the relationship.
- Not speaking the same native language sounds really hard. If he does not speak your native language, and you do not speak his. I second the idea to take classes to improve your ability.
- You mention trying to stay grateful. Were you grateful to your husband for any of the work done on any of these projects? Telling a husband thank you, even when its not perfect, means a lot. Complaining about something, when it is not perfect, can hurt a lot. I'm not saying to never mention things that need fixing... but one path builds up while the other tears down.
- It sounds like you want this relationship to work. I think that is fantastic. It is easy for the husband to get busy and not build up his wife, and sometimes he needs reminders. But it is also the case, that it is easy for a wife to get busy and not build up her husband. I can't ask him this question, or I would. When was the last time you went to your husband and asked what you could do to support him or his projects?

I appreciate the help with perspective taking. (I’m on the spectrum btw.)

John F reminds me of what I shorthand as the ‘mere mortals’ problem. Yes, people just keep making mistakes because we’re human. I was taught adamantly that we needn’t make all of the mistakes ourselves, we can learn from others’ mistakes. It really grinds me that others don’t make this effort. When I pay someone a lot of money to do a job professionally and they botch it I feel taken advantage of, but maybe they’re just human (and certainly care less than I do).

Anne has been there. Amen to positive thinking and Tomorrow is a new day. I say that to my kids a lot and do try to reset with my husband even as the errors accumulate and compound.

Catie is right that gratitude isn’t a healthy default expectation. Joy is a gift. I can’t remember the last time I was pleasantly surprised. I do feel disrespected. I can also draw a dotted line back to some resentment about feeling subordinate. I earned my bucks in the US as a corporate trademark paralegal and the dynamic of supporting and reminding someone else (especially a man when he knows less than I do about something) bothers me. I used to do the research and provide informed legal opinions that were blessed by my supervising attorney only to watch ‘business decisions’ made over and over again that ignored the effort and input. It undermines motivation in the extreme.

Although I know I specified the door swing to the salesman who ordered the insert and showed him where wood will be stored, I believed incorrectly he would also be performing the work and would take that detail seriously.  The bid we got was essentially just a price on letterhead, so I had to push my husband to specify what was being done and the completion deadline in writing. The model number of the insert eventually got specified, but not the door swing. The installation method was specified, that it would be built up (for better air circulation below/improved ergonomics for cleaning out ash). That didn’t happen, but there’s no way for me to enforce it. I’m also disappointed that the drawer for catching ash is tiny. It holds less than a third of the ash we typically generate in a day. I thought it would extend all the way across the bottom but it’s just a small drawer in the center. I regret looking at the catalogue instead of in a showroom (learn from my mistake).

Sorry about your roof! I have lived in urban areas, too, but have really only managed to make one good friend in all the years I’ve lived here. She was in our last town, Sant Cugat del Valles. We left in a hurry this spring - got evicted due to fraud by our landlord and the apartment reverting to municipal ownership. It is hard for me not to be frequently in the mental space of, “Give me a reason to live here! Make it better!” My husband doesn’t have the right to live in the US legally and our kids have at least 6 more years of school here. I will stay to spare them another disruption, but there’s not much for me here. I am close enough to town to walk (eventually) or bus (eventually) but only after after I have fully recovered from major surgery.

I do sometimes take language classes. I speak Catalan at about a 5th grade level officially. My Spanish is worse and I can’t easily bounce between them like J can. If something requires a lot of technical vocabulary I’m at a pretty big disadvantage and the misunderstanding can always be blamed on my lack of Catalan/Spanish if I’m the interface person for labor, so we don’t do it that way. Amen to unhired help coming with unsought opinions. I’m making modifications on someone else’s property though, so I can’t really avoid the opinions even if I don’t get the help.

I hear Matt’s skepticism that he’s only getting half the story. Thanks for the sympathetic line. Yes, It should be corrected but I can tell you from experience that it won’t be. I married an ‘it is what it is’ guy.

I’m going to think a lot about your questions about the state of the relationship. Honestly it’s not great. I have given up everyone I know and love to live on the other side of the planet for the last third of my life and I wake up to that reality every day. We’ve built something new, but a lot of the time it doesn’t feel worth it. The honeymoon has been over for a long time. Our life is dominated by his culture, his language, his family.

My partner doesn’t have any projects (other than ‘placate wife’). He seems to want to read, play video games and do the bare minimum. We’ve had conversations about greater ambitions, but ‘grow up, finish school, get job, get married, have kids’ were the only things on his list. I want more out of life, whether it’s optimizing a comfortable and well-functioning home, creating a homestead environment, raising animals or seeing the rest of the world...

I’m not financially dependent on him and the things I’m asking him to manage I used to do for myself in English in Seattle when I owned my own place as a single person. I feel like the little mermaid. Did I really give up my voice for a man? I have studied his languages for years, but I have plateaued at a level that is not mastery. His English is ok, but I rely on multiple repetitions to try to be sure I’ve gotten through and that’s not great for the relationship dynamic either. Even more so when it doesn’t work.

You know the idea of ‘fight, flight, freeze, fawn or fix’ in crisis? Forgive me if I’m projecting this on your comment, but it often seems to me that when I want to be in fix mode men want me to be in fawn mode. I will agree that it’s not positively reinforcing to get criticism instead of praise. The phrase ‘weaponized incompetence’ often comes to mind though, too. There’s a lot of ‘didn’t notice, too busy, forgot’ in our general domestic division of labor that seems awfully male-socialized to me.

From the mental health standpoint I think if I set my real boundaries the relationship would end. I don’t want that for our kids. I have a list of firm ‘deal breakers’ and this isn’t on it. That said, I love my husband, but I don’t need him. The expat context forces the codependency. From my point of view, I either need to create a home I want to live in or I need to be somewhere else. I have always told him that I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me. (My mother ‘stayed for the children’ and wasted her life on someone whose choices formed my deal breakers list.) Basically, I'm ok with relationships ending, just don't move on and make me the last to know. I’m not looking for a new partner, but if we get to the point where we’re just coparents and no longer true partners in life I might prefer to say, ‘We’ve had a good run’ and try to part amicably. This is a first, and I hope only, marriage for both of us but as I mature I get ever farther from the Catholic dogmatism I was raised in.

I use the word disappointed, but his apathy is soul-crushing. I can't understand having the power to make something better but being totally unmotivated to do it. There's an argument we keep having Him: Nothing is ever good enough for you! Me: How can you possibly think things staying how they are is good enough? Maybe he is waiting for me to get fed up and go?

Welp, this went to the autistic overshare place pretty quickly. Thanks for coming with me.

No worries about oversharing :) Some people would put me on the spectrum. So please forgive me if this comes across as overly blunt.

Eileen Kirkland wrote:.... That said, I love my husband, but I don’t need him....

I think the question is, do you want him?

I would love to hear that things get better between you two, but it kind of sounds like you have made up your mind already.

If you do want him, then what are you willing to do to make the marriage work?

If you don't want him... well, as someone who is going through a divorce right now, I would entreat you to deal with things in a way that will make it the least hard on the kids.

Eileen Kirkland wrote:My partner doesn’t have any projects (other than ‘placate wife’).

He seems to want to read, play video games and do the bare minimum.

I’m not financially dependent on him and the things I’m asking him to manage I used to do for myself in English

it often seems to me that when I want to be in fix mode men want me to be in fawn mode.

I will agree that it’s not positively reinforcing to get criticism instead of praise.

I think if I set my real boundaries the relationship would end.

I love my husband, but I don’t need him.

I have always told him that I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me.

I use the word disappointed, but his apathy is soul-crushing.  

Him: Nothing is ever good enough for you!

It sounds to me like his soul is already crushed...