I was thinking about Old Dog's wife shifting his weekend plans so she could "help" buy shoes for his 12 yo son, and it got me thinking about whether I treated H that way during our marriage.
My memories are of me almost always doing those things alone. BUT, when there were weekends when we wanted to get out of the house, we'd look at one another blankly, say what shall we do, and typically H would suggest going shopping with the three kids. Almost always.
So we'd find ourselves in the shoe department at Nordstrom with three tired, bored kids with strong opinions, a huge bill for all those shoes, everybody tired and cranky (especially H and me) and we'd go home and all just scatter when we got home because we were so sick of looking at each other.
My suggestions weren't much better and on the rare occasions we did what I proposed H wouldn't help prepare (for example, checking the diaper bag, dressing toddlers, etc.) so by the time we left it was late in the day and I was GRUMPY.
I'm not sure we had any family fun for six years. Date nights were absolutely no better (and anything more creative than dinner & a movie typically got shot down).
This was partly my fault but he could have been much more of a leader in our home too. He could have had a few suggestions from time to time. He could have engaged when I tried to talk about what kind of a family we wanted to be. He could have freaking put shoes and a clean diaper on a kid before we left the house.
Sometimes it is so frustrating to look backward and see how I permitted us to live. To see how long I was willing to tolerate that shallow, joyless lifestyle. I should thank STBX for walking out. My life is better now.
Me42, H40 D12, S8, S7 A revealed: 7/13 Sep 4/14; Agreed to D 1/15
