Pwah! You guys were awfully fast... I just used it as a placeholder until I could get back and edit my thread for the real post URL. You must have tried it in the first 1 minute and 20 seconds of it being up before I edited it...
Well, kids, I actually got my butt to a lawyer's office today and filed for a D from my paper H (actually a very dear friend). It was a really weird experience. I won't go into it in detail here because I don't want to offend anyone for whom it might be painful to read about a D from an M that wasn't real. Suffice it to say I'm relieved, I guess... and I'm hoping it will clear some of the blockage that's been clogging up my works.
S. and I had a very difficult 24 hours. After the big financial conversation of two nights ago, he went off to work yesterday only to stay really late working on something that was dumped on him at the last minute for today's deadline (he works Thursdays and Fridays at his freelance job, which is his former employer he left a year or so ago). When he got home, I was asleep.
This morning, he got up without a word and when he came back upstairs, I was sitting in bed and he started with "Good morning. [pause] I don't see how I can make it to the baby shower tomorrow. I'm really stressed out and I can't miss a whole day of work [on the house]." He came and sat next to me in bed. I was silent for a long time, then I said "OK, well, it's OK, don't stress out about it." He said, "It's really bugging me because I want to go, but I feel like I'm not close to them and there are other things coming up later in the month I know I'm going to want to do, and I can't lose this day of work and then not be able to do anything later in the month when I'm more burned out."
I asked what was coming up, and he said his MF is coming into town in August (he is a work friend whom I like very much who got transferred to run the Paris bureau of their news organization). I said something about that was nice, and then after a while I said "I did some baby shopping yesterday for the [friend's] shower - I'd love for you to help me pick a few things out for them. I bought things we can use, too, so whatever we don't give them we can keep." Then I showed him (in my hands - he never made a move to take it and look at it) the Baby French CD I bought for our petite chou and told him the booklet that came with it was packed with great information about bilingualism from infancy (we are planning to speak two languages to her) and that I had read the whole thing on the subway home yesterday, was he interested in taking it with him? And he said quickly, "I don't know when I'm going to have time to look at that." So I quietly packed it up and put it aside, and he said "Maybe I can look at it on the subway."
And I started to cry (silently). I just felt like the last couple of days he's been so hard on me, and every interaction is all about HIS stress and he's totally projecting it onto me, and he can't even talk to me. I tried to stop, so he wouldn't get stressed because I was crying, and I got up and started to get dressed. He got up, too, and went downstairs. I took longer than usual to get dressed, and then I heard him leaving - no good-bye, nothing.
I was feeling like dog poo (he NEVER leaves without saying good-bye) when a handy H2H helped me get through the hurt and anger part so that I could at least postpone bringing up how much that hurt me until I could say it clearly and nonjudgmentally. When he came back to shower for work, S. came in and said semi-cheerfully “Hello!” I just said Hi and kept working in the study. He cleaned up and then came in to say he was leaving. I barely looked up. He leaned over for a kiss and I obliged, then sat there looking at him.
He said, “I’m probably going to be late again tonight.” I said “OK.” He said, “I’m going to be late again, so don’t wait on me for dinner.” I said, “OK. I’ll talk to you tonight.” Then he said, “I’m sorry.” Pause. Nothing. “I’m sorry this is so hard. And I’m so stressed out.” And because I'm sick of it always being about him, when I've been working 7 days a week, too, I said, “I’m stressed out, too.” He said “I just don’t know how I can go tomorrow... [etc, etc, same crap about the shower as earlier]” and I let him say it all then said “I have to get something out by 12:00.” (It was 12:00.) He said “OK, I’ll see you tonight.” and that was it.
As far as the stress goes, I GET IT. I KNOW he’s stressed, and I’m trying to validate as best I can. But I mean crap! I have my own stress – I’m working 7 days a week, and I have my own “other people’s deadlines” to contend with! And in case no one noticed, I have a 22-pound watermelon under my blouse! I’m not telling him AT ALL about my own stress because I don’t want to get into a “who’s more stressed” competition, and I don’t want to burden him with my stress (a courtesy I was really kind of hoping he’d return). Maybe, as a result, he sees me as “just fine” and so feels it’s OK to unload onto me.
Anyway, he has just called from work to whine once again that he “really wants to go to this shower but he just feels he can’t lose a day blah blah…” and I am still making it OK for him not to go (which is probably why he keeps bringing it up, because I’m not taking the bait and begging him to go or acting upset that he isn’t). He asked me if I was going. I said “Of course I am!” and he started again on how he wanted to, but… and I just cut him off and said we could talk about it when he got home, if he wanted to.
Anyway, I’m getting to the rambling part of this post. Mainly, I wanted to say I got the ball rolling on the D and vent that S. is making me nuts. Thanks for listening.
