u/Responsible_Lab_1201

We have a very long driveway that needed an overhaul. We have issues with drainage during heavy rains so we hired the contractor that worked on the house for former owners because he already knew where the issue spots were. We did a walk through with him and he gave us a quote of $27k, we agreed on $25k and his crew got to work. Two full days for a new layer of asphalt.

Concern #1 immediately after they left the first day it started pouring rain. They had just finished about 1/2 of the drive minutes before.

Concern #2 he mentioned multiple times that due to the curves it was a lot of “hand work” and that if he had his big machine it wouldn’t have been so much trouble but that it was in the shop for repair.

These are the AFTER/FINISHED pictures of how they left it. We did a walk through and pointed out a number of areas of concern and asked them to fix. He swore up and down that it was normal and that after driving on it for a week or two it would settle out and look great. He also swears that he’ll come back in about a month to make sure. I feel like we got taken for a ride. We paid him 85% and told him that he needed to come back to fix the issues and we would pay him the rest. Are we overreacting, or did we get taken for a ride?

TLDR - contractor replaced our driveway and left it looking unfinished to our eye. Swears up and down that within a week or two we won’t be able to see any of those issues that we pointed out. Asking the community to either back me down or confirm my assumption that we got swindled for subpar work.

Throwaway account — my partner and I are established professionals in midlife, we’ve have been together for 5 years, and live together; we were previously together a number of years ago for an additional 3 years. We’ve been talking about kids for a couple years but we both need to quit smoking before that can happen. We talked about quitting for over a year and finally came to a mutually agreed upon date. That date came and went without quitting and without discussion, mostly due to outside stressors (both their personal struggles and house buying.) They threw out a new date and we both agreed. That date was two weeks ago. I quit, they didn’t.

I had talked to them about how I was preemptively slowing down on smoking ahead of the quit date to taper off, they were supportive but changed nothing. I didn’t think too much of it because they’re better at cold turkey than I am. We had a whole conversation when I had my last cigarette, they listened but didn’t mention anything about when they were going to have their last cigarette.

Fast forward two weeks and I finally asked them what they’re thinking regarding quitting — they point blank said that they really don’t feel like they’re in a place to quit right now and don’t have any plans to do so. (They have been struggling with mental health, so I am sympathetic.) Nonetheless I was stunned. After some silence and processing I asked when they were going to talk to me about how their mind had changed on this and they basically didn’t have an answer. Said something about how it’s their decision and it just didn’t feel right and they lean on the “safe space” they have when smoking.

I am trying to retain my sympathy for what they’ve been going through, but I’m so completely let down by the way they went about communicating their decision (or not communicating anything really.)

Am I overreacting here? Like, I’m using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) to help with the cravings, and it’s been working fairly well despite the fact that they’re still smoking around me when we’re home together. But I’ve been really struggling with kindness towards them at the smallest things that irk me. Snapping at the smallest annoyances. Obviously, I know that in order to get through this I need to find a way to let it go, but hot damn it’s difficult right now.

#smokeless-and-annoyed

Does this look right?

AIO? Partner Still Smoking