WHG: Chasing that rabbit with the pocketwatch

[workinghardguy]

She came home last night before I went to bed. I was in the kitchen getting things ready for the morning. We had a brief convo as they had just handed out the February wrestling tournament schedule at practice last night. I simply told her which tournaments I wanted to take S to. One is on my weekend and one is on her weekend, so I asked her if it would be ok for me to take him and that she was free to say no.

She looks at the dates. The one on her weekend she has to work anyway so she says it's fine. The one on my weekend she says she probably can't make because she's planning on hanging out with her friends all weekend as it's "her last weekend of freedom" (the next weekend she works and after that she's in the rental house and on her own). Then she gets very sad and starts to cry some... saying she's going to get "worst mom of the decade award". Asking me what kind of mom misses all of her son's tournaments? What kind of mom does that?

Then she goes on and start crying even more because "there's so much work to do in the new place... so much cleaning... so much repair." That people say they'll help but then they don't show up, and that it's impossible to do it all alone.

And this is where I just don't know what to do... I don't really feel comfortable being her sounding board on these issues. I don't want this whole thing, so it's hard for me to be present and empathetic. At the same time, cutting her off with something like "I don't think it's appropriate to talk to me about this" seems cold and uncaring.

I finally just listened for a little bit... maybe 5-7 minutes. I said that I know it's hard but it will pass, that everything doesn't have to be perfect. Then I used the time as a reason to end the conversation and go up to bed.

I tried not to placate her or make her feel better. I don't see that as my job. I didn't tell her she wasn't the worst mom but I didn't pile on either. I tried to just listen without judgment or comment. I feel like not offering a comment or assurance comes off as judgmental, but maybe it doesn't.

Personally, yes, I do feel that she is falling down on the mom duties. That partying with your friends is not a good reason to miss two of the three tournaments your son is in. But I can't control that and it's just my opinion. So I keep it to myself... "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all" is where I'm at I guess.