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Sometimes Steffi
08-19-2024, 04:59 AM
I was reminded of this quote yesterday when my wife and I had yet another argument.

Life around my house is very stressful lately. My wife is having mobility, cognitive and memory problems. We had a homeowners disaster. I ceiling in one of our extra bedrooms collapsed from corn to corner to corner to corner, dumping two feet of blown-in insulation into the room. The pressure wave blew the insulation out of the extra bedroom into the hallway and my wife's bedroom (she sleeps separately) and over the balcony to the floor below. I used a snow shovel to scoop up the insulation in the hallway into one of those large rolling "dumpsters". It's now 4 weeks after the ceiling collapse and the insurance company is still dragging their feet in determining if this is even covered.

For about 2 weeks my wife slept on a couch in the family room. For the last two weeks she's been sleeping in the guest bedroom in the basement. Everything is at a flashpoint and every little daily frustration becomes a disaster.

So last night, my adult, living-in-the basement daughter spilled way too much laundry detergent into the washer. My wife and my daughter "had words" and my daughter was starting to leave the house. I stupidly tried to intervene and de-escalate the situation. My wife and I "had words" and I left the house right after my daughter to "chill out".

What am I going to do until things calm down at home? GO SHOPPING, for Steffi. I checked on my phone and Macy's was still open for 2 hours. Yay.

I decided to stop off at my gym and burn off some energy. After 15 minutes on the treadmill, I was calmed down enough to return home.

It's the first time that I really understood the meaning of "When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping." It means "Retail Therapy". The goal, however, is to keep the cost of "retail therapy" less than real therapy.

Julie Frisky
08-19-2024, 07:37 AM
Hi Steffi, oh that's a tough situation and I quite understand shopping really does help, our neighbors are have parts of their roof replaced and as our houses are attached they had to remove some of ours and left parts of it exposed over the weekend, I was so stressed about it so I had to do a bit of online shopping therapy myself it really did help, so that quote is so good, I really hope you get everything sorted soon.

Julie xx

bridget thronton
08-19-2024, 08:03 AM
Steffi - so sorry to hear about the ceiling stuff and the fallout after. Hope shopping helps.

docrobbysherry
08-19-2024, 11:01 AM
You're lucky, Steffi. I don't ever seem to need an excuse to shop for Sherry!:doh:

kimdl93
08-19-2024, 01:56 PM
Sorry to hear about your ceiling and all the other stuff going on in your life. Its good that you and your daughter have the good judgement to exit and chill.

Sometimes Steffi
08-19-2024, 04:12 PM
I've gone to a lot of therapists, but one of them explained about agitation.

When you get agitated (or annoyed, or or angry, or whatever other word you want to apply to it), the agitation activates the "fight or flight" response and adrenaline is released. He said it could take up to half an hour for the adrenaline elevation to subside. His advice was to remove yourself from the agitating event(s) and "chill out" for half an hour.

I was seeing him for crossdressing issues in my marriage, but he also had some other good insights.