Who Controls the Heating in Your House?
My hubby and I rarely row. In fact, I would say we’ve never had a proper row. There have been two occasions when we could have, but it just didn’t happen. This is because on the first occasion, I locked myself in the bathroom. Hubby came along with a screwdriver and undid the lock to show me how futile it was to hide in the ensuite and we just burst out laughing – so that was row one.
The second time was a bit more serious and I slipped out of the house during the night to express my unhappiness, but as he never woke up, he didn’t know I’d gone and it was all wasted on him – row two that never happened.
Mostly we have debates, or expressions of opinions, whereby we often throw verbal ‘terms of endearment’ at each other, but it’s all tongue in cheek. We respect each other’s views or agree to disagree – life’s too short to waste on petty rows and yet….
Every winter we have the same debate which we just cannot resolve – who is in charge of the heating stat?
So Who’s Right?
I work from home and very conscious of not heating the whole house when I’m only in one room. I’m also in and out of doors a lot with our dogs, so I dress accordingly for the cold winter weather, in jeans and jumpers and the essential thick thermal socks.
My hubby comes home from work, has a shower and puts on shorts and a t-shirt and pads about in bare feet on the stone and laminate flooring. He wants to be comfortable after wearing a shirt and tie all day – I get that. The heating is on at a nice even temperature of about 18 degrees and we sit down in front of the telly.
After a while, he feels cold in his summer wear and turns the stat up high. I then start to swelter. I roll up my sleeves, I take off my socks and sometimes I take off my jumper and sit there in my bra to prove a point, but it goes unnoticed. I can’t stand being overheated, it makes me feel woozy.
“Why can’t you put some trousers on if you’re cold?” I ask.
“Why can’t you take some off?” he replies.
“Cos I’m dressed for the winter and you’re dressed for the summer.”
“Well I’m comfy like this.”
“Well I’m trying to save money on the heating bills and it’s cheaper to put a cardy on than turn the stat up.”
“I pay for the heating, so I’ll have it as high as I want.”
I grit my teeth, because if I don’t I know we will have a row.
Last year I bought him some snuggle socks and that helped for a while. If your feet are warm it tends to keep the rest of you warm, but now he forgets to put them on. This year, I offered to buy him a slanket, but got an expletive response and the situation has been complicated further by the onset of my menopausal hot flushes. I’ve explained that I could sit there naked and it would make no difference when the flushes took over and nearly begged for the stat to go down, but it always falls on deaf ears.
New Tactics
Last night we tried something different. He turned the stat up. I went to the loo and turned it down. The next time he got up for something, he turned it up and when I went out for a drink, I turned it down. This must have happened about four times over the course of the evening, until he said, “Have you turned the stat down, it’s cold?”
“Have you turned it up?” I replied with a smirk as he got up and increased the temperature yet again. Not long after, I went upstairs with some laundry and as I tried to sneak it down, he must have heard it click off and called out, “Turn it back up,” in a tone a father would tell a child.
I popped my head round the lounge door and we both sniggered, but the problem is still not resolved. We’ve been having this debate for ten years now and will no doubt have it for many more, both of us believing we’re in the right. We can’t find an answer, but nor have we fallen out over it either.
Although, don’t get me started on who owns the remote control for the telly!
Who controls the heating in your house? Do you have the same problem? Or if it’s you, please tell me how you manage it!
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Man in shorts image courtesy of StockImages/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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