So last night (Monday) S spiked a 103.7 fever in the middle of the night, after going up to 105 and back all day. I cared for S (he was vomiting, too) while H called the children's hospital.
Got S back to bed. H said the hospital said if he couldn't keep his antibiotics and Tylenol/motrin down, he would have to come in for a shot of antibiotics. Also said he would need to come in if fever got to 105 again. Then said he'd need IV fluids if he continued to vomit, run high fever, and refuse to eat/drink. They also told H that if S waited 15 minutes to vomit after taking medication, it would be 80% absorbed, so we needn't worry.
What did H get out of all of this information?
"I just don't understand why YOU (me) didn't know about the 15 min. thing with throwing up. Why haven't YOU been on the phone with Children's Mercy?"
I pointed out that I had been on the phone with St. Luke's Hospital ask-a-nurse line, on the phone w/our pediatrician, AND had S at the pediatrician all in that one day. That none mentioned the 15-minute thing. He responded that HE would just have to go lay down w/S and watch over him the rest of the night. Implying that I was incapable?
I had some words w/him in which he pointed out that I should be in our S's room with him instead of arguing with H. Like suddenly he is the model citizen??
This is so representative of our relationship. My #1 complaint, above the Affair and anything else, is that we are not a team. I have always wanted it to be the two of us against the world (in theory at least), that when we face a problem we face it together. I have told him that I imagine a good marriage as one where you are (figuratively) hand-in-hand moving in the same direction, facing life together. Instead, whenever a crisis hits (this goes back at least 9 yrs of our 10 yr marriage), H seems to find a way to make the situation my fault or at least find something I did wrong in dealing with the situation, and to focus on that. When S was in the hospital both times w/dehydration as a baby, H would ask me if I was giving him enough to eat/drink, like it was my fault.
When the pilot light went out on the furnace last month and it was snowing outside and 52* in our house, I had to call H on his fun cattle trip to Denver so he could tell me how to re-light the pilot (ours is a 30 yr old combination wood/propane burning furnace so nothing is straight forward). He just kept pointing out that in all the time we lived here, the pilot had NEVER gone out until I was the one responsible for putting the logs in the furnace. So it was my fault our house was 52*??
Anyway I am going on and on but this is my bottom line point. He says he wants to try, he wants our marriage to work. But he is making absolutely NO progress on the thing that bothers me most, us coming together as a team. I could go off on him about BUYING that stupid hay trailer without telling me, about continuing to bowl w/OW, about having the A in the first place etc. But I don't. And yet he can yell at me b/c I didn't find out some random fact re. my son's vomiting/dehydration? At 3 in the morning? How long do you let them take to try to make amends? To reach out and help make the marriage work instead of me doing all the work?? Frustrated..............
