'Til team work do us part
My mother-in-law is a lovely woman. She has never been critical or given excess advice. That is why I should have taken notice of the pained expression on her face when my husband and I told her we had purchased an old house. When she blanched at the mention that the house needed total renovation, I assumed it was in disappointment over our big news not involving a grandchild.
I should start at the beginning. One Friday evening, my husband and I had talked about purchasing a different house. The house we were in was the only thing available when we had returned to our hometown. It was less than ideal, bad location, no yard, too small for our growing collection of stuff. I had planned a call to a real estate agent on Monday.
In those days, when I had a life of my own, I would clean house on Saturday morning while my husband went to the estate sales or goofed off with his friends. That Saturday my husband returned early. I asked him, "What's up?"
"I bought a house," he said.
I'm certain that I did not completely lose consciousness. "What house?" I asked.
"You know the one over by the funeral home you always said you wanted? The guy was out in the yard, I made him an offer and he took it," he said.
Hubby didn't say another word, just took me by the hand and led me to the car. I was in shock, and didn't speak a word on the drive across town. As we neared, I knew which house he had purchased. Yes, I had remarked how much I would love to have it, though I believe I prefaced the statement with, "if we won the lottery." This place needed a lot of work.
Hubby's offer had been less than the price of a good used car, and we figured we could renovate it for about what a comparable newer house would cost. I called the lawyer and had the contract drawn up. We had done a cosmetic remodel on our current house, so I thought we could get through it. I did love the house.
Cosmetic remodels and total renovations are very different. Total renovations involve correcting 98 years of other people’s wallpaper mistakes. The paper was one half inch thick in some rooms. It became obvious to me that I would need a steamer. In spite of my demonstration that no putty knife would remove this, hubby insisted I wasn't trying hard enough, and we weren't spending good money on a steamer. I acknowledged that I wasn't smart enough to remove wallpaper and that he should take care of it.
After several silent days of hostility and very little wallpaper removed, I remembered the one piece of advice my mother-in-law gave me; "Don't wallpaper with your spouse." She told me this after dismissing both husband and son from the first duplex hubby and I shared. Some things are best done without male assistance, and I learned then that wallpapering was one of them. This seemed to be true of wallpaper removal, too.
Having renovated an older home, my mother-in-law knew what was in store for me. She knew about the dirt and heavy work of demolition, the agonizing over decisions, the frustration of waiting for and supervising contractors, and of course, all that wallpaper. It must have been nearly impossible for her to smile and congratulate us.
I know now that her advice wasn't just about wallpaper, it was about any major project taken on by a couple. I hear her words in my head when I think that it would be easier to dispose of my husband's body under the basement floor, than to argue about where to put the French doors for the one-thousandth time. Her words echo when my husband tells me that under no circumstances will the bathroom be painted grey. "Don't wallpaper with your spouse" is the soundtrack of my nightmares about all that is still left to be done.
Had my mother-in-law accepted that she might never see her son again? Did she have faith that modern psychiatry could restore me? Was she confident that she could support us after our financial ruin?
I can only hope that my mother-in-law kept quiet that day because she thought it would all be worth it.
by
Slippingirl
