kicking puppies is bad

I love my husband more than gummi bears, but some days he pisses me off more than I can express in words (which is hard to do, I’m fairly articulate). The thing I hate most (even more then when he knowingly stinks up the bathroom right before my shower) is when he promises to do something and doesn’t follow through. I don’t generally care, if this only effects me. But usually it effects many more people. If this had happened once or twice, I would probably be forgiving (this is a lie – I’m not a forgiving person). But it happens a LOT. And it makes me want to rip my hair out (or better yet, rip his hair out).

I’ve tried the traditional wifely solutions (nagging, yelling, ignoring, pleading, bribing with “back rubs”) and none are effective. They make things worse. He begins to feel justified about being an ass because I am being an evil naggy screamy witch. And everything become worse. Recently, his father had fairly major surgery (we live with his parents, it is a really long story, I’m not a loser, really…). We have been trying to be helpful. Yesterday we made dinner. Afterwards, I started cleaning up the kitchen. A while after I started cleaning, he came up and spent a few minutes loading the dishwasher with the “easy” dishes. I was still working when he sat down at his computer. I continued to clean. After several more minutes, I started to attack the nasty scorched pots in the sink. I nicely asked if he could empty the dish drainer, so that I would have a place to put the scorched pots I was scrubbing. He said, “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I put the nasty pots in the sink so they could soak. I’ll clean them later tonight”. I said, “I’m going to bed soon. I really want to make sure things get cleaned up – because your mom is really stressed out. Are you sure they’ll get done?”. He said “I promise”. I woke up this morning – and the pots were sitting in nasty greasy cold water in the sink.

If it were my house, I would just leave them there until he cleaned them. But it isn’t my house. And, under the circumstances, I don’t think that is fair. His mom is really stressed and tired, and I KNOW she won’t leave them there. She will wash them. So I washed them. But I’m angry. It is berfore 9am and what I really want to do is go in to the bedroom, wake him up and yell. Loudly. Angrily. Meanly. I want to yell. A lot. I want to flush his stupid new google phone down the toilet (then use rubber gloves to pull it out of the toilet, take it out the driveway and run over it 33 times). I have anger management problems. I’ve worked on them a lot. I’m not yelling. I’m not waking him up. I’m not destroying his stupid google phone. I’m writing down my feelings in a healthy way (and then publishing them on the internet in a not so healthy way).

All the crazy Dr. Phil like psychology people (I’ve never actually watched Dr. Phil – so I may be completely misrepresenting him) say that yelling and nagging are not the way to solve your problems. They say that I should openly communicate my feelings. But openly communicating hasn’t seemed to help. He *does* (in fact) know that when he promises to do something and fails to actually follow through, (and in the process makes ME look like an inconsiderate ass – because his mommy doesn’t know that he promised me things would get clean, she just knows that I cooked and the kitchen is dirty) it pisses me off.

So what exactly *is* the appropriate way to tell a 30 year old man that his behavior is inappropriate and he is acting like an inconsiderate 4 year old?