I know you’re right. I know it. I just haven’t worked up the temerity to do it yet. I had just about screwed up the courage to drop the ‘I don’t feel important to you’ bomb on her when W launched into a rant about herself and her dogs. Apparently, a friend and neighbor had a talk with her on Friday about her obsession with the animals. So W got her dander up and called me to vent. She told me that she had given this friend a piece of her mind. Then I got the enhanced version of the rant.
This is a pretty comprehensive rant that runs down all of the injustices rained upon W. Most of it revolves around how much she does and how unappreciated she is. To be honest, I’ve heard it so many times before that I was only half listening - I already know it by heart. For some reason, I don’t seem to be a target, but everybody else is. The kids are the main targets. W works and slaves, devoting herself completely to doing things for this “bunch of ingrates” and gets no help and no appreciation. Well she’s tired of staying so busy doing everything for everybody else and getting nothing in return. Now she’s going to do something she likes, something for herself. And if anybody doesn’t like it – too bad. Then she assured this friend that I was just as invested in this rescue thing as she is.
OK, I know that was my chance to say, “Well, actually, I’m not.” and then launch into my list. But that didn’t happen. As always seems to be the case, this rant had all taken place on the phone while I was at work. Call me silly, but I just don’t like to do this kind of thing while I’m at work. I already spend too much time doing things like writing this, but at least this is quiet. I just don’t want to get into a discussion of our marital problems where everybody around me can hear over the cubicle walls.
I took off at lunchtime on Friday and went home to batten down the hatches before Rita got here, and W, of course, was off attending to some dog stuff. I secured what I could and headed off with D17 for the football game (if you remember, I move band equipment). It was homecoming, so there was a big halftime to-do and the game ran really long. I didn’t get home until after midnight. W was already asleep.
She jumped up early on Saturday and took the dogs out. Then she came back to bed and actually initiated. After we ML, she offered to take me out to breakfast. I know it’s another sign of weakness, but after being freshly .., uhhh, freshly …, ML to, and freshly fed, I didn’t even complain when she told me that I had to go to a microchipping event. D17’s BF was going and they needed me to move him. He has Spinal Muscular Atrophy and is wheelchair bound. I’m the only one in the family who can lift him in and out of the chair and the van. His usual powered chair won’t fit at all, but we have a smaller one he can use and a normal, manual one that we take sometimes. So I went without complaining.
Yesterday, I just plain wimped out. W did throw a fit after church, but I just let it pass. She was working on fixing lunch and got mad because the kids hadn’t taken the dogs out. There was a brief rehash of the Friday rant wherein she yelled about having to do everything herself. Then she took the dogs out and refused to cook. This may be another place where I need to do a 180, but over the years I’ve developed a habit of just ignoring these outbursts. If I respond, she just gets more riled up, but if I ignore them, they usually blow over pretty quickly. This one did just that. She pouted in the bedroom for about 20 minutes, then came out and finished fixing lunch. The sad thing about the whole thing, apart from my own wimpiness, is that the kids were in the other end of the house and were completely oblivious. They didn’t even know that she had had the blowout.
So here we are starting another week where I’ve done nothing toward resolving our problems. I did call the C though. I’m in on Wednesday for a little advice on how to proceed.
