I’m tired of my wife’s bullshit. I’ve been thinking a lot about divorce lately. Fantasizing about what it would look like, feel like. I think we’ve been sticking together for the kids for years. I ignored warning signs early on in our relationship and have suppressed my feelings for 17 years in this relationship. I feel most alive whenever I am not around her. My kids are better when she isn’t around. I feel stressed when she is around. Even when she’s not, I am just calculating for when and how I will next “be in trouble” when I do something she seems as unsatisfactory. She’s very critical of how I act. “why did you say it that way to that person” “why didn’t you tell the waitress you work for the restaurant? Now you’ve made it awkward” “I don’t feel comfortable drinking because you were never supportive of when I started drinking – you used to give me no pity any of the times I came home drunk and felt sad and emotional or when I was drunk and puking or when I was so hungover you wouldn’t give me any slack – you would make me still get up with the kids.” All of that is horseshit. I was always supportive of her exploring her drinking and would cover taking care of the kids as much as I could when she was out and when she was drunk and when she was sick and couldn’t be there for the kids. I was there. But she doesn’t see it from my perspective. Years later she just feels resentful at me for not taking care of her. Two week ago, on our last date, the topic that she brought for discussion – of all the wonderful things in our life she could bring for discussion – she brought the fact that I don’t like to go to bbq’s for drinks with our kids friends parents. That I’m such a prude because I don’t drink and that I’m boring. She called me rude because I would rather fly my drone at the park with our son than sit in lawn chairs drinking beers with our 6 year old’s friend’s parents and talk about mind numbing shit that I don’t care about. I don’t want to make friends, but she does and felt that me not drinking and not willing to talk hockey with the other dads blocks her from that experience. They was what she brought last time. I’m too antisocial, I don’t like chit chat or making new friends or sitting around talking about nonsense. That I don’t give her what she needs. This time it’s that I was cruel and unkind to her when she’s been wasted in the past so now it’s my fault she can’t enjoy drinking.
I’m just so exhausted by this relationship. I feel better alone. I feel better with so many other people.
Then she will have good days and be so supportive of me. Tell me how proud she is of me. I’ll watch her love our kids and it feels good. I’ll admire how good she is at taking care of people and I love how much purpose she feels in her job. I feel satisfied that I helped her develop into that person. I love that she supported me in accomplishing my career goals. I like when we talk about projects we want to do together – like building a new house – but I know we don’t actually work well together. We always just fight. Or if we aren’t fighting, it’s a struggle.
I can’t remember the last time we actually enjoyed each others company. We hang out because we have to. Because we have these three people that we made who we have to raise together. It’s best when she is not around. I hate how she gets mad at the kids when she’s frustrated. I hate how she gets overstimulated and puts in her earbuds and listens to a podcast and ignores the kids and me when we are trying to talk to her. I hate how 6/7 days she leaves a mess on the bathroom counter. How every fucking day I put her brown sugar away after she takes it out of the cupboard for her coffee. How she never ever empties the lint from the lint trap in the dryer. How she gets so many parking tickets on her car.
She has said that I should find that cute and I should take joy in the opportunity to take care of someone I love. I don’t ever feel that way. I feel disrespected and resentful.
Most of all I resent how she is always defensive and can turn cold so fast. Today she hugged me and I said “are you okay? I’ve been feeling that you’re a bit angry and snappy lately” she pushed me away and instantly turned to ice. She defensively told me that “Also, I have been nothing but kind supportive not bitchy at all for the last week and a half. I don’t know when I’ve been snappy and grumpy other than this morning right now. I am obviously at my end with being at home with the kids and working and handling everything so maybe just a little bit of respect and support”
So whenever I don’t like her hair trigger temper how she yells at me or the kids, or whenever I ask her if she could please cleanup after herself, it’s immediately thrown back on my that I do the same thing or don’t support her or always think my way is the best way.
I’m exhausted by all of it. I’ve written these accounts so many times over the years. Journaling my feelings about it. Obviously each time I have managed to reconcile the feelings I have and open my heart to her again and again. Because there is a connection between our hearts that has always been there regardless of all this bullshit.
But the fact is that we don’t like to do
The same things. The only things we have in common are our kids and most of our values. We both feel that the other doesn’t support them in the way they need or is the person they want. So what do we do?
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