Heart or Stomach

K and I haven't been getting along too well recently - probably no surprise there. However, one of the major souce of rows is around food. He gets home several hours before I do & prefers to eat early. He likes cooking, I don't - should be perfect, no? No.

Somehow this has transmogrified into a control issue. If he is cooking, then I must be at home at the time he decides. There is no option (without a row) of, "Oh I bumped into a friend - if you want to cook, leave mine in the microwave - if you don't, I'll ring a pizza when I get in or knock something up." This is allegedly totally acceptable, as long as I let him know in advance. The problem with spontaneity is that you can't always diarise it, and spontanteity that doesn't include him is apparently selfish.

Likewise, meeting friends for a walk on Sunday mornings, maybe ending up at a pub, maybe having something to eat, depending how we feel is selfish. He might have to sit at home waiting for me to come in and that's not right because he does too much of it. My view is that if he chooses to work unusual hours, that is not my problem and it is more than unreasonable to expect me to have no social life in the evenings, just because he's already been home for a few hours.

The problem is fundamentally that I told him that I no longer care about his behaviour - on or off line since the last little episode. He has realised that its perfectly true - I don't care, and is scared witless. Which is making him cling, which is pissing me off. He feels insecure, I feel smothered. The problem is, he just adds tension to my life. I can't go for a drink after work with my daughter without planning how I'm going to "manage" him when I get in. I'm rushing out of the pub because I know he will have the arse because he wants to cook and we must be in the house before he starts. The smell of frying onion must be mingled with the stench of burning martyr. He can't accept it's controlling. I can't be doing with it. It ain't good.