home sweet home?

[angledge]

This entry is full of personal relationship angst, so if you're not interested, don't click here.

My trip home over the holidays was .... well, let's just say it wasn't all sweetness & light. Due to a number of small factors (illness, jet lag, hormones, stress, exhaustion, holiday madness, family factors, etc.), Stacy & I were both in tense, irritable moods when I first arrived home. This led to our first fight ever, which I started over nothing more major than her not asking me how my day went when I got back from a day of activities in Philadelphia. I'm happy to report that our last week together was really good, far superior to the miserable first week home. But the first week home was pretty bad - bad to the point where I was considering moving-out options.

In light of that experience, I've been mulling over numerous "big issue" questions. My relationship with Stacy is a weird one. It's never existed without the pressure of deadlines where I'm leaving for some faraway location (South Carolina, then Scotland). We started living together really fast (less than three months after we had our first date), but we haven't ever lived together for longer than a few weeks. Furthermore, the whole time we've lived together, I've been more or less unemployed. This leads to two big imbalances: free time (I have lots, Stacy has none) & money (Stacy has lots, I have none).

I'd like to try to make an opportunity out of our forced absence from each other, & try to address these things via email. The advantage of email is that each of us can take time to compose a question, & the recipient can take time to answer it thoughtfully. Some of the things I'd like us to talk about:

• Kids - No (or Yes) from Stacy. If it's Yes, then we're going to break up. But I want to hear a definitive answer one way or the other.
  
• Money - Spending priorities. Budgeting strategies. Debt & how to pay it off.
  
• Location - urban vs. suburban, or at least Claymont, Delaware vs. Somewhere-Anywhere, More Interesting.
  
• Goals - where do we want to be a year from now? Five years? Ten years?
  

There are other, more detailed things (chores, television, food issues), but the ones listed up top are the Big Issues. The Relationship Killers. The kids ones is especially important, but the money one is also pretty crucial.

One question for me - how best to initiate an email conversation about this? Maybe talk about it on the phone first? Suggestions welcome.

One question for all y'all - if you're in a relationship, how do you & your partner communicate about issues like these? Do you make goals together? How do you handle money? What about career conflicts, or dividing up chores? Let's hear it.

Comments

[chrysoberyl.livejournal.com]

I agree with purpleleopard with regards to telephone v e-mail. It is much more difficult to come up with a natural and non-confrontational e-mail about large hot-button topics than to broach the topic in a conversation. In a conversation, even if you intend to bring up a certain topic, you can still have a natural sounding segue. For instance, in recapping the 2004 New Year's party, you could mention the new Hiveling and guide the conversation into not wanting one of your own. Then if you feel that you need to follow up on the phone conversation via e-mail, the e-mail isn't coming out of the blue.

In response to the second set of questions, for housework, I do the things I am neurotic about, and Clayton does everything else. Oddly, this turns out to be a fairly even division of labor.

Since Clayton's work pays unevenly, it is difficult to budget. Usually, Kiki and I each pay what we can when we can. Usually I pay most of the bills that come in the mail, and Clayton will pay his credit card, his student loan and anything that is not a set payment (food, vet bills, dry cleaning, entertainment etc.). Clayton also functions as my ATM, as he is more likely to have cash on hand. We keep separate checking accounts and have a joint savings account.