Earlier this week, my boyfriend made plans for today (Sunday), to grill chicken wings, something he’s been wanting to do on a day where it’s not raining and he’s not working (rare when you’re a farmer in the midwest and it’s in the middle of the fall harvest season). He’s been looking at recipes all week. This is his thing. I do not partake in it. It’s more than just chicken wings for dinner, it’s his hobby to create this meat creation on the grill. He is completely in charge of making these chicken wings happen on Sunday for dinner, and I’ll make all the rest of the sides and stuff, that’s the plan we’ve agreed to.

We got the wings out to thaw yesterday, and a couple hours ago (we planned to eat dinner at 6, he’d need to start the wings by like 3, and the following conversation happened about 2:00), he called me and said, “Hey me and my brothers are gonna go move farm equipment, if I’m not back by the time you’re back (I was out running errands), can you more or less get the wings started for me?”  (Leaving out minute details of instructions he gave me). I said, “Yeah I can do that.” This is my C.

C: Neil asked me to start preparing and cooking the wings if he wasn’t home by the time I got home
T: I will help him make chicken wings.
F: Compliant
A: Agreed to prepare and start cooking the chicken wings
R: I made plans to help him make chicken wings if he is unable.

I recognize one of my sticky thoughts is “he should do what he said he would do.”He said he was gonna make the chicken wings. Turns out, he’s not making the chicken wings and if they are going to be made for dinner, I am either now in charge of making wings happen, or selecting something else to make for our dinner’s protein, and making that instead in place of wings.

Of COURSE I’m making these fucking chicken wings. (Not said in the typical compassionate tone, but a pissed resentful tone). Why won’t he do what he says he going to do? I can’t count on him to do anything. (We can use the chicken wings example here, but this is a pattern I’m noticing, so we could literally insert lots of things here.) Feelings: mad, angry, resentful, pissed, frustrated.

I feel frustrated (obviously), then I take on the work of doing chicken wings, but another model on top of that is I’m resentful toward him.

I feel like a martyr. I want this pattern to stop. I don’t like accommodating for and overcompensating for his inadequacies, and also mad at myself for not just saying no, I will not help you with chicken wings. I will prepare something else for myself in order to be ready to eat at 6 (my planned dinner time per my food protocol) and I will not push my dinner time back to accommodate you just making them later than expected, like pushing my dinner back to wait until they’re ready, I’m not doing that. If chicken wings are done by 6 and you can somehow make that happen, great, otherwise, I’ve got me covered.

I recognize I’m doing the thing where I’m putting a negative C in the C line and trying to feel better about it. Boyfriend doesn’t do what he says he’s gonna do, sans details, could hypothetically be a c if we compared the two.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten coaches. If I can just move a little more toward neutral, I think that would be a great next step for me after understanding what’s going on here.