RAMWrites

Tag: family

  • RAM Writes the Sixth

    I know, I know, it’s been days since I posted, I’m sorry.

    But I did warn you with my very first post, re the terms and conditions, that frequent posting is not guaranteed.

    I’ve been doing bits, and also not doing bits, and it’s been great. My annual leave is coming to an end, back to work on Monday. So, how did I spend my last few days?

    Well, as you know, my MIL was here, she left yesterday (Thursday), and my partner was very sad leading up to her departure, and before seeing her off at security. I hear you ask, how was it having your MIL staying with you for 3 weeks? I will answer honestly.

    A mixed bag.

    She is a lovely woman, didn’t take over the house, nor have any bad habits. Communication was a struggle, with her having no English, and me minimal Spanish. But we got by.

    What I struggled with is, I felt like I wasn’t comfortable in my home. Like having an additional person there, I was acting differently, as was my partner – but for different reasons. I honestly think I would feel this way for any guest staying that long, not just his mother. Even if my mother was here for that long, I’d feel uncomfortable at home.

    Part of it was my partner also, and how he acted. Now, he is very close to his mother, which is fine for the most part. But I felt sometimes that he prioritised her, sometimes even at my expense (not financially, of course). But the biggest problem I felt, was his tendency to go to the gym for more than two hours, and leave us home alone together – he expected me to wake up early with his mother, on my time off, to make sure she didn’t have breakfast alone.

    To clarify, for my current job, I commute 2 hours each way, leaving the house at 6.30AM, returning 7.30PM, so catching up on sleep was high on my AL To-Do List. So if I wanted to sleep passed 10AM on a day where we had no trip planned, I’m entitled to, right?

    Tell my why I was expected to accommodate his mother, but not him? Why couldn’t he go to the gym earlier, while the rest of us were still asleep? Or even do shorter sessions, knowing the two women in his life are sitting at home struggling to communicate with each other?

    Why is it not OK for me to eat without his mother, for example making sure she has breakfast or lunch with someone, but it’s fine if they don’t wait for me to eat? We had an argument about this – I wanted to know why it mattered what time I wake up on a day with no plans (cause he had a mopey face on him). He said it’s not fair for his mother to eat alone. Not the next day, we were preparing lunch together – his food was a quicker prep than mine. He didn’t time it so we’d eat together. So I’m halfway through my prep, and him and his mother are sitting down munching away.

    So it’s not about us all eating together, it’s about his mother eating alone. So one ‘rule’ for me, and another for them? How is that fair?

    I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable or not.

    I just wanted to be left to my own devices.

    I was the one expected to drive us everywhere – fine, I am the fully licensed driver, it makes sense, I’ll do it.

    We set a plan, let’s stick to it.

    But my days off are my days off – don’t expect me to fill in for you, because you decided to go to the gym for two hours at breakfast time. YOU should amend YOUR schedule to accommodate your mother being here, not me.

    I’m very conscious of the future to be honest. The plan is to move his mother here eventually, once we have our own house sorted. But she is absolutely not living with us. I will stand firm on that. She is not living in our house with us, no way. Ideally, she will live nearby, or we will build a granny flat for her to live on property – just not IN the house with us.

    And I hope to god she will not be there everyday, visiting.

    My partner is very different around her. But also not.

    Obviously, I know it’s hard for him to live so far away from her, barely gets to see her every year. So I have no issues with her coming to visit for longer periods, because she’s family. But I just need him to be more accommodating in changing his schedule, not mine.

    And when she moves here, they can see each other more often. I just hope it’s not every day. Because we need our time too. We are a couple. We are building our lives together. It’s me and you- not me, you and your mom.

    To summarise, the woman herself is fine. The long term visit is 50/50. The actions of my partner were my main issues.

    Over the other few days just passed, visited Kilkenny Castle. Such a lovely town, the castle is €8 entry at the gate, you can also book private tours online. We did gate tickets and self-guided tour through the castle. The history is very interesting, with connections to the English Royal lineage, and even Anne Boleyn! We liked the town so much, we researched properties and jobs – what if we move to Kilkenny?

    No. The houses are expensive. The jobs for us, scarce.

    We’ll stick with where we are for now.

    In other news, I passed my college course. I am officially a college graduate. I’m so proud that I did this. It’s hard to get back into education as an adult. And having passed, and with a good grade too, I feel accomplished.

    I will celebrate this tonight, with many rums. As I deserve.

    Today is June 27th – I have no further updates for now. But there is some changes coming up for me soon.

    I will try not to leave so much time between posts next time – no promises though!

  • RAM Writes the Fifth

    Me, Myself and I.

    Today was the first day of my annual leave. What did I do to kick it off, you ask? Well, by being a taxi-service for my other half. I drove him and his mother to the airport at 3am, so they could catch their 6am flight to Rome, Italy. I was, of course, invited when the trip was being booked. However, I didn’t have the required funds readily available – and couldn’t have my partner cover the cost for 3 people.

    Admittedly, I am jealous that I’m not there. The culture, the architecture, the food – ugh the food, I’m jealous of that. However, it will be good for the two of them to spend time together. They hardly get to see each other once a year, so the time they spend together, should mean as much as possible. My partner is very close to his mother, talks to her at least twice daily by video call. I’ll give them their time together.

    So today, having fallen asleep at 7am – ish – I woke up around 1pm. A quick breakfast, and I took myself off to town for a coffee date with my thoughts. I’m always thinking about my future, personally, professionally, relationship-wise.

    I have a plan for my life. I want a house, I want kids. I want to progress with our relationship status, frequently discussing engagement with my partner. He’s not always thought of marriage as a proclamation of love or unity. He feels it doesn’t change what a relationship is. Where he grew up, he’s seen couples separate, parents divorce, or one moves out permanently. Including his own parents.

    He doesn’t think marriage makes a family. And honestly, neither do I. Marriage does not define a family. But it does define a relationship. I believe marriage is a proclamation of unity, of choosing that person as your person, forever. I’m not naive. I know that just because you get married, doesn’t mean you’ll never break up. I know divorce and separation are common occurrences. And nobody gets married, anticipating divorce.

    For me, when I think of relationships, more specifically my relationship, I want progression. I don’t want to hit 40 years old and still have the girlfriend title. I want the next stage. My partner and I have been a couple more than 4 years, dating nearly 5 years. We have been living together for more than 3 years.

    That means, for us, we’ve been at the same stage for at least 3 years – a couple living together. And our journey has been a struggle for the bulk of this time. We met during Covid, so date locations were limited, with our first date August 2020. We moved in together December 2020 – not by choice. Too early for my preference, but circumstances led to it.

    I would have preferred taking more time to know each other before moving in together. For me, it was too soon for us. We come from different cultures, and we were on different courses in life. I was working my way up the career ladder, and he was in classes to learn English. And we weren’t ready to be with each other every day.

    But we stuck together, worked our way through our differences and disagreements. And I think we’re all the stronger for it, now living in our 3rd property together – our first rental without other tenants. Our own place. And we’re the happiest we’ve been.

    He’s finally managed to find professional work. I’ve become successful in my career, did some college courses and have gotten a new job locally. Everything is falling into place.

    But our relationship still feels the same.

    I don’t want to force him. But I want the next step. It’s a tricky subject to discuss, without disagreements occurring or pressure building.

    We talk engagement and kids. He doesn’t want to have kids away from his family. He wants to wait until his family have relocated to Ireland – which is our eventual plan. But we don’t know when that will be. And I don’t want to put my life on hold until then. What if that’s 5 years from now? Or longer?

    We need to build our life together. And we need to do it on our terms. Nobody else should dictate when we set our plans. It’s our lives, our future, our kids (to be).

    I know what you’re thinking – typical woman, looking for a ring and the white wedding. And to be honest, women can want that if they want. Me, I want something simple. For a while, I was thinking, let’s get our house first, with a big garden, then we can get married in the garden, a small ceremony and a party to celebrate. Now however, I’m leaning more towards elopement. Travelling a few countries, getting married while away, and then having a party to celebrate with family and friends.

    And with that, I don’t even want the wedding right away. I want the engagement. And then we take a few years to save for the trip/wedding.

    Engagement. Kid. House. Wedding. That’s my plan anyway – hopefully within a 3 to 4 year period.

    Today is June 16th, 2025, and that was a deep-dive into my thoughts on my relationship.

  • RAM Writes the Second

    You know you’re getting old when you’re excited about purchasing new household items. That is me this weekend – excited about having new household items. Let’s do a run-down of the recent additions to my house that got me grinning like a maniac

    Let’s start with where I live. I live in a ground floor apartment, 2-bed, 1 bathroom, living room and small kitchen. I live with my partner, just the two of us, so plenty of space. Although, truth be told, I’d love more storage for my clothes and shoes. Sadly, there’s not much space left for more wardrobes or chest of drawers.

    We have lived here for just over a year. The apartment was mostly furnished when we moved in. We bought a desk, as I work from home twice a week, and my partner is a PC Gamer and watches YouTube quite a bit. So a new desk, a priority purchase. We were originally going to buy one from Amazon, however a skirmish into our local town and we found a similar desk in a local store for a similar price, so we opted for that – instant purchase, and my partner’s first DIY project (What a milestone!).

    Next item, it was a shoe rack. Mostly for me, as my partner owns about 4 pairs of shoes – I have quadruple that. This item wasn’t a new purchase. I had exactly what I wanted in my room in my parents house, so on a visit one weekend, I returned with a 10-shelf rack for shoes, now stored opposite our bed. There is a shelf or two that’s empty. So that means I have to shop for shoes to fill them – Yaay!

    Cut to 2 months ago, when the more recent purchases occurred. And my old-age excitement! Our bathroom, item number one. Up until recently, we were storing our bathroom supplies in bags, stored around the sink. I’d been keeping an eye out for a shelving unit, but I wanted a specific one. I wanted wood, I wanted it to have little wicker baskets, and I wanted it to fit other our sink.

    Two out of three ain’t bad. What I found was too tall to fit under the sink, but it did fit nicely along the wall between the sink and the toilet. I organised the drawers by priority – skincare in the top drawer, dental care next, etc. Then on top of the shelves, I put our mouthwash and morning skincare products. Easy access, convenient.

    We bought a cordless hoover, and I have never been more excited to do chores! It was €80, from Amazon. It’s hand-held, lightweight, and has good battery life, the whole apartment done twice in one charge, and is done fast. I’m an asthmatic. I’ve always avoided doing the hoovering – hoovering sends dust particles into the air, and I’d be suffering for hours afterwards. My partner would hoover when I was out of the house, so the particles were settled by the time I got home. With this new hoover, I don’t have that problem.

    The hoover I purchased is currently out of stock, however if you’re interested, here is an affiliate to a very similar product, with similar reviews and price https://amzn.to/4mHwopN

    Back to adulting updates…

    Today, we bought new clothes for my partner (a miracle in itself), and new lunch boxes. Very exciting! We have had the same set of boxes for more than 2 years, so it is about time we updated them. I commute for work, and my partner cycles to his job, so leak proof lunch boxes are the goal – you, the ones that clasp shut. These are yet to be tested, so I’m hoping they are good. When I tell you, I was buzzing with excitement for these as I searched the shelves for these.

    The only thing about lunchboxes is staining. I find it so hard to clean the pasta sauce stains from them. I’ve seen online that you can use dish soap and tissue paper to remove stains, but does this actually work?

    Anyway, I was far too excited with my purchase of new lunchboxes – my age is starting to show…

    The clothes, these were a good buy. My partner lives in trackies and gym clothes, so getting him to buy nice, adult clothes is a feat worthy of a trophy. Feel free to send me one!

    For my partner, date night outfits are trackies and his country football jersey. Or dinner with my partners, trackies and a gym tank top. So, when we do have plans for such events, I near have to force him to put on a pair of jeans and a nice t-shirt – something that’s clean, and he doesn’t wear to the gym, and without pit stains.

    So when he was agreeable to a new pair of slacks, a brown overshirt, and 3 decent t-shirts, I had to subdue my glee. Yes, this man is purchasing decent clothes! I internally did a jumping heel touch. He’s not the material type, doesn’t own alot of things – clothes-wise, our storage is 80% for me, 20% for him. It’s once in a blue moon he buys himself something.

    I have to be honest too, I wanted to shop also. I wanted to buy new shows, some comfy leggings, and some over-sized t-shirts for myself. But I didn’t. Today wasn’t about me and my purchases, it was for him.

    It’s June 2nd, bank holiday Monday. We both had today off – not everybody does. We will end the day with pizza, which I have been craving for more than a week – I’m so excited for it!