Stressed out

I have some very mixed feelings lately about our living situation. As you know, Jim is now staying with us for probably the next three months. That's specifically what I have the mixed feelings about.

Jim is a great guy. I like him a lot. He's polite and super-helpful. He eats whatever I cook and he is appreciative. He's done a LOT for us in the last few weeks. Probably the most important thing he's done is get DH off his duff and participating more in life. And for that, both DH and I are grateful. He also built our new chicken/duck digs and fixed Frosty's dog house and also fixed our deck, which was sinking into the ground like the Titanic. Just yesterday he started to gather firewood, he's got about 2 cords gathered now. That's wonderful, because I was thinking I was going to have to buy some to make it through the winter. I really appreciate everything he's done. He's stepped in to do a lot of the things that DH used to do, but isn't able to right now. I can't explain how grateful I am.

On the other hand, we have a 2-bedroom house. 2 baths. 7 (or is it 8) indoor cats, 5 dogs. Frosty used to live outside until the neighbors complained about her barking--that's another post....anyhow....

I absolutely hate having company. Even for a day or two. I hate the lack of privacy. I hate the fact that I can't talk about husband-wife stuff anyplace but our bedroom. (Not like we talk about anything risque, but sometimes I like to talk to DH without anyone else being there). Even when DH wasn't having problems with bipolar, I hated company. I really get stressed out. Now that DH is having problems with the bipolar, I get more stressed out than ever. I go into the bedroom, there's DH, as usual, lying on the bed, no room for me, watching TV. It doesn't matter what time of day it is, that's what our bedroom looks like. So no privacy there. And Jim is sleeping on the couch in the living room, no privacy there. And I used to really enjoy building up a hot fire and falling asleep on the couch, so that bugs me too. I could still fall asleep on the loveseat, but since Jim is sleeping in the same room, it kind of weirds me out.

The other bedroom is DD's. So when I need "alone time", there's absolutely no place to go. I walked in from work this morning and I was so angry about it all. I WANT MY HOUSE BACK. But then I feel bad, because Jim does so much, I don't want him to go, necessarily, I just want our house to grow a bedroom so that I can have some time to myself.

I'm kind of worried about how I'm going to make it through three months of this, holidays included.