Does your partner understand you?

Mitch · Post by **Mitch** » 11 Jul 2008, 17:40

Yea Pippa, my ex did the same to me, nothing to do with P.O. though. It's a rough time for sure, and I am sorry that you are going through it, but it will get better. It's 10 years ago now for me, and I am SO much better off for it - I now think she actually did me a favour! After 14 years and 3 kids, it seemed like the end of the world for me. In a sense I s'pose it was - lost absolutely everything and came to the U.K. to start again. 700 quid and a change of clothes were my total assets. 10 years later and I have rescued the kids from a childrens home, have accomplished more than ever before, and have a wonderful Grandchild. No, she did the kid's and myself a really big favour - we are all so much better off for it now, even if they did have to spend four very long years in a home - it's all in the past now. We are all so much nappier now.

danza · Post by **danza** » 11 Jul 2008, 18:13

Leroy wrote;

Fast forward two months and I was thinking about taking a couple of Neurofens with my liquid lunch in order to faze out the reality of my environment somewhat. Weddings, heat magazine, babies, Primark....' god I wanted to kill myself. Not saying that being surrounded by an entire room of blokes leering at Page 3 is much better of course. Anyway, I think what I am trying to say is that I would give a kidney to find a single, PO aware doris with intellectual conversation. What d'you reckon the acronym for that is in Lonley Hearts speak eh?

Welcome to my world Leroy, glad to hear Im not the only one. Being PO savvy can be lonely.

Post by **jmb** » 11 Jul 2008, 22:04

Voting "[my partner] is 100% on board" is an understatement - my wife is more the driving force of the pair of us, and was the one who got me to take it seriously in the first place.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 11 Jul 2008, 22:43

leroy wrote:...I would give a kidney to find a single, PO aware doris with intellectual conversation. What d'you reckon the acronym for that is in Lonley Hearts speak eh?

SPOADWIC

How long before we see one sought in the back pages of Private Eye, I wonder?

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 12 Jul 2008, 08:50

Does your partner support you concerning PO?

There should be a category for the "Yes I know we're doomed but would you like a cup of tea dear?" type partner.

Tracy P · Post by **Tracy P** » 12 Jul 2008, 09:01

Oh Biff! I think thats me! I think we are doomed, if I think about it too much, but very much don't like to think about it too much - have a cup of tea and do something practical or fun instead. Mike dwells a lot on the topic and I know its because he is thinking a lot about it. I tend to think about cleaning the bird cage or washing up. Its not that I don't beleive or anything, but I don't see the point in going on about it. Thing is though, we all react to the pressure in different ways - and where I need to think about something else - mike needs to discuss it all.
We do try to compromise on this one.

Now, I have the kettle on....

Pip Tiddlepip · Post by **Pip Tiddlepip** » 12 Jul 2008, 09:39

Milk, no sugar please

My partner used to be the "tea, dear?" type until I showed her "CRude Awakening". She takes it a lot more seriously now.

Pani Kova · Post by **Pani Kova** » 13 Jul 2008, 18:57

Hello, I am a mother to two young children (3 and 4) and wife to a designer who owns 10 pairs of jeans to my one pair. He is slowly getting his head around my PO / cimate change / credit crunch obsession but frankly, finds it tedious and occasionally throws a wobbler at my 'party's over' attitude. He would prefer to get a new kitchen whilst I want to pay off a chunk of mortgage and I only got the double glazing and wood burning stove past him on the basis that they were 'aesthetically pleasing.'

In between house, kids and part-time job, I am trying to get to grips with a new and overgrown allotment (glad I don't have to feed family off it this year...), am working on a transition initiative with some like-minded people who live in my area and am planning to take a permaculture / horticulture course. I do this when my kids have gone to bed because whilst I may be peeing in the wind, doing something constuctive feels better than sitting on my backside and constantly churning about what might happen. I also want to be able to say to my kids that I did as much as I could, even if ultimately, it is to little effect.

I decided to keep some of my plans 'under cover' but was found out recently when my husband was looking for his footie boots. 'What are all these boxes of tea doing under the bed in the top room and why are there loads of bottles of water, packets of pasta and tonnes of tins under the picnic blanket in the utility room?' he asked last week. He didn't buy my reply that I had bought in bulk to get ahead of rising prices and said I was 'ridiculous'.

To those of you who have a partner / spouse who is with you on your planning, lucky you! If anyone wants to swap a designer-gear loving wife who wants to spend their savings on a kitchen, I would be thrilled to exchange my husband for a practical peak geek who loves graphs, charts, statistics, soil, DIY and doesn't feel the need for a foot deep bath to wake up in the morning.

leroy · Post by **leroy** » 13 Jul 2008, 19:11

Hi there panickymum,

Sounds like you have your work cut out there - also sounds very familiar when despite the fact that I am currently single, similar results can be obtained from others. I would store a load of stuff in my Nan's huge loft in her spacious, rural bungalow if I thought it wouldn't get discovered and distributed for immediate use amongst rellies/destroyed.

I used to live in Leeds - got some great permaculture people up there who generally congregate around The Common Place. The Leeds Permaculture society run some great events too, sometimes up at Swillingford Organic Farm in the fantastic Victorian walled garden.

For what its worth, I would rather be up North (if I was a Northerner) than down here - much more open countryside and residual community spirit IMHO.

PaulS · Post by **PaulS** » 13 Jul 2008, 20:18

What an interesting thread. It is a bad time to discover PO now, when there is hardly any time left before the real problems start, when crude production actually start dipping, maybe in a years time, and when house prices are crashing and no-one is buying, so its a bit late to downsize.

I discovered PO in about October 2004. I then proceeded to spoil everyone's Christmas by arguing to my wife and sons that we really need to do something and we need to do it now. We had a few guests at that time and they all thought I went mad. My wife finally agreed sometime in January on the basis, that if she didn't, every time the oil price went up I would be too smug to bear.

That was good enough for me and once we started looking for a farm, she got quite excited.

One other thing I had to promise, and that was not to mention PO to anyone in our new home. She didn't want me and us to be seen as loonies by our neighbours!

Now of course she is fully involved and supportive. Who wouldn't be. Just about everything I was predicting has or is happening. Now she is involved in our local transition group, we grow most of our veges and this year I am experimenting with 4 acres of sunflowers to press for oil to power all our machinery and house heating.

Sometimes she seems almost proud of what we've done so far! Couldn't ask for more, really.

Eternal Sunshine · Post by **Eternal Sunshine** » 14 Jul 2008, 14:47

Hello & welcome Panickymum. Another Northerner.

I also have children (older than yours tho) and an overgrown allotment which I'm glad we don't have to live off yet! I'm sure it's going to be a slow decline (albeit with some sudden jumps) so there's plenty of time for your hubby to come round. Especially some time that there's no food in the supermarkets and you provide pasta & veggies to eat.

Pani Kova · Post by **Pani Kova** » 14 Jul 2008, 15:10

Thanks for the welcome and the shared experience. Interestingly, my experience with my brother-in-law was completely different. My husband mentioned my passion for PO last year upon which bro-in-law googled 'peak oil' and had the same instant conversion I had on 5th September 2006 (yes, I will never forget the date my view of the world was exploded thanks to my colleague saying, 'Have you heard about Peak Oil? Google 'Life after the oil crash.' My, what a stark introduction to the subject that was....). So, perhaps rather than advertising for a swap I should just 'keep it in the family.'

Leroy, re Permaculture, I am thrilled to have found not one but three permaculturalists in my area who are interested in transitiony stuff so I am hoping that they can be my new best friends and rescue me from my novice attempts to grow more than a few potatoes.

Eternal Sunshine, now that's a positive moniker. I think I might just have to change my forum name because apart from the odd 'Foetal Ball' moment, I'm not really a panicky mum. Hoarding a manual lawnmower, 2 walk-in polytunnels and 3 months supply of food is surely just an extremely rational response to potentially challenging conditions. Isn't it, isn't it????

eatyourveg · Post by **eatyourveg** » 14 Jul 2008, 17:48

Yes it is perfectly rational.
Your situation must be very frustrating.

PowerSwitchJames · Post by **PowerSwitchJames** » 14 Jul 2008, 17:54

My special lady may be reading this so I'll be careful what I write

However, I think it is fair to say she is 'on-board' but doesn't (or didn't) think it will get 'that bad' or affect 'our generation'.

screamifyouwanttogofaster · Post by **screamifyouwanttogofaster** » 16 Jul 2008, 13:48

Pip Tiddlepip wrote:Couldn't agree more with Andy, it's nothing to do with gender. I'm a gay woman, I'm the "peaker" in our house, and my partner is somewhere between the top two as well. She said to me the other week, "I'm not quite as into it as you, but I'm getting there." And that's fine by me.

Perhaps some women just don't want to face reality, and yes, that may be to do with children, or wanting children. My best friend has a ten week old baby. I told her the other day that I'll be sharing my wood and paper log supplies with her this winter, as "Bad times are coming". she shuddered and said "Don't say that", in such a way that I knew she knew, but just chose to ignore it.

I can understand that to be honest. And some of it I think is actually a biological protective mechanism. Mum of young baby needs to focus on eating, sleeping and breastfeeding. Having said that, as the children get older I think they can become a driving force for action. I would certainly be a lot less concerned if I didn't have children to think of. Being a mum of young children can make this all seem quite terrifying though, and some will choose to look the other way. Some may need to look the other way (and no I don't think that makes us weak, it's part of the normal functioning of the human mind, and all of us sometimes find things too much to handle, denial is there for a reason, just as depression is).

It should also be considered that because people aren't posting doesn't mean they're not concerned or taking action. Maybe women with young children just don't want to spend their hard-won spare time chatting about something really stressful! Connecting with others and learning about what action we can take is helpful, but I know for me I'm certainly not going to make a hobby out of it. I just get too wound up if I think about it too much. I'd rather do something practical, and then have that cup of tea, and only talk about it when necessary.