Happily Partnered

This post is for the benefit of my mother-in-law who I love dearly. Seeing as how she feels we're airing our dirty laundry she may not appreciate this post. She felt my last post was inappropriate and in poor taste. Hopefully this post will help to put her mind at rest and help her understand why I post the things I do.

Just so the world knows Neil and I ARE happily married and partnered. One of the reasons this is so is because we can TALK and VENT and MOVE ON. This was not always so with me. It's something Neil taught me. My former self would have left long before we even got to the married stage. That's not to say I've totally given up my stubborn streak (as my loving husband reminds me) but it has been a long time since I've wasted energy not speaking to those I want to keep in my life for any extended period of time.

One of the things I love and admire about my husband is his ability to get passed things. Sometimes I think he should vent more but oh well that's a blog post for him. One of the good qualities about our marriage is we know each other's strengths even if others do not. And although there is occasional breakdown in our communication I love the fact that we have enough love and respect for each other to argue/disagree and still be friends.

The point of my post is not to demean or hurt me, Neil, our business or our marriage. It's just to illustrate the struggles we face while trying to build the Bigmista empire. Hopefully it shows that while we disagree we continue to move forward TOGETHER in our journey. The only thing that would ever separate us is that I would want my own clean bathroom I don't have to share with Neil. We'll be neighbors so that I will be in time for dinner (HA HA HA HA HA).

Mind you I started this post before I went in the hospital on Wednesday so don't think I've been holding this in my head all this time.

Is It A Man Thing

I started this entry so long ago I'm not even angry about it anymore but that won't stop me from venting.

It started out as me being angry and resentful of Neil. While I don't really want to be in the lime light (I'm not a trophy wife in the PHYSICAL sense being the reason) but everyone, and by everyone I mean men (most brethren excluded), seems to think Neil is the only one running this business.

When Neil was approached about doing the article for The District Weekly it was inferred as being about interesting Long Beach residents. When my husband and the writer made the meeting for the interview it was on a Monday early afternoon when I would be at work. Granted I could have taken off to be there but neither my husband nor the interviewer asked for my presence. Neil came home expressing how he spoke about me (as if I couldn't have spoken for myself), and Glenn as if that earned him some points or something. Neil and I started a conversation about my resentment behind this and his stock answer "well baby what do you want me to do." Not a damn thing now. We never got around to revisiting the conversation but I'm sure another opportunity will present itself.

While I'm not implying that Neil is only the cook and face of Bigmista's Barbecue, but anytime there are new ideas I usually have to badger Neil until he sees the value in it. If I didn't think it all the way through and he points out the flaws then we drop it. I never make any decisions without discussing them with him even if I already know he's going to agree with me. I don't always get that courtesy. Neil if you say I do consider yourself cyber slapped.

Neil thinks I magically create money because I usually work our finances so that we can make things happen. I do this when it's something we've discussed. But at this very minute Neil has gone shopping for something. Do you think he checked any of our finances or considered if it will interfere with any pending purchases, no. But if it has a negative impact in some way he'll say "well baby why didn't you tell me." I have alerts from our bank go to his email. Out of the last 8, he's opened 1. He says I always tell him we don't have money for this or that but he conveniently forgets the reason we don't have the money for one thing is because we spent it on something else. Until we are financially well off we have to choose what will and won't get purchased. Or in my case I have to remind him that he spent money on X so he can't have Y.

Guys are always asking Neil about the business side of things that he doesn't even take care of. Neil will give them half ass answers that they eat up because of our current success. The Brethren are a great resource for a lot of information but I even they are only so forthcoming with information. It's like asking them their bbq secrets. Because friend or no friend you are still competition to a certain extent and everyone wants to consider themselves the best. And along the same lines, some things I don't mind sharing but when I bust my ass to get something done I'm not so free and easy with the information. To me it's like copying my homework after I've studied all week and you played. The little I know about this business I've learned as we go. We have some bbq friends that have been doing this far longer and successfully then we have but none within proximity that I can sit down and pick their brains about the business side. And then if it's out of state information I have to find out the California laws, regs and the like to make sure we're in compliance. Neil glazes over when it comes to these types of conversations just like I get glossy eyed after too much barbecue talk.

This was a lot angrier when I originally had it in my head.