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She told me this morning she had to “clear something with me”

She was mad that I didn’t call the kids at all this week while travelling.

She was mad that when I got home Friday evening I was on a call with Braden for 20 minutes after getting home while Nova wanted my attention. I should have been off work when I got home.

She was mad that I announced that I would have to work seven days a week for the next two weeks leading up to our stores grand opening.

She was mad that I had to take aeeting on Saturday at 11 when I had said I was going to take Henrik to baseball.

She was mad that my meeting pushed to 12 and then I didn’t show up until 1:30 when the game was almost over.

I think that’s about it. I’ll give it to her – this time she didn’t come out sideways at me. She was methodical and calm in expressing her anger.

I said, I’m sorry that you are upset. You’re right, I could have prioritized this all better. You’re right.

I didnt want to argue. I didn’t want to get defensive and spiral into a fight. I’m done fighting.

Even though I worked 16 hour days this week and slept probably 4 hours a night Monday to Friday.

Even though we are in the final three weeks of a project three years in the making, that my entire job performance is riding on, that is the biggest capital spend Earls has ever spent at 16 million.

Even though jet lag and finding time to eat this week was a challenge.

Even though I made it up to Henrik and hung out with all morning today.

It was because my parents had raised me in their image. I was taught what the meaning of the world was not in a way that I could find it and understand it, but what their version of the world was. Their value system that I should just listen to it and follow it because it was their value system not ever being taught how to actually rationally figure out what my own values are, but my own understanding of what is right and wrong is my own morality. My own ambitions And then, when I hit an age where I was betrayed by them, it shattered my trust in them, as well as the models that they race me under. My whole world fell apart.

Just collapse with everything I understood the reasons behind everything led to me seeking escape for the overwhelming avalanche. A psychic break. I tried to patch with drugs and alcohol. On the first time I experienced getting high, getting drunk became escape from having to face my own sense of having no model . The overwhelming anxiety is that that caused. Next 456 years I chased that feeling. I pursued it. I wanted to stay in that state of feeling this attached. But there were consequences to staying detached. Consequences both in terms of my life, opportunities, and ambitions, but also consequences in terms of internally, one consequence being now seeking ever more effective or interesting ways to detach into escape reality. Eventually, the external consequences feel further need for the internal consequences, vice versa and a spiral. Eventually, I hit my own gate my own threshold for what kind of collapse and pain I’d be willing to endure. I also noticed that logically this path wasn’t going anywhere and I had enough. I guess that’s a self-love or passion or the need to stay alive to give me just enough reason to want to stop before completely annihilating myself. I truly believe that the people that you see killing themselves over drugs on purpose or having no ability to stay sober are the results of Losing that last bit or never having the ability to have that last bit of self flow of self-awareness of willingness to want to stay sober. The last bastion of one zone consciousness with that last part of me that was gasping for air finally was at its last step. A complete psychic breakdown had occurred, and suddenly that core was able to break through all of that impending drive towards self-destruction dust began a bounce back that wasn’t consistent but was persistent long enough for me to build back support in place through AA through being humble over run over again so I could build back those layers of protection around that core. Now being able to rebuild these layers of values of personality of self reflection, like layers of an onion around that core this time was able to build exactly how made sense to me. Not my parents, not anybody else. But people are not able to get sober sometimes it’s because they allowed other people‘s versions or morals or outs to craft their own onion skin layers. They weren’t authentic to them and they wouldn’t last when tested.

I have gained insight into how our personality and consciousness are formed and influenced by experiences. The brain, while composed of soft matter, consists of a complex matrix of synapses, akin to switches that can be activated or deactivated. There are billions and trillions of these connections, and similar to heating a bucket of steel bearings by warming just one, the activation of one switch influences others in close proximity. When new stimuli are introduced into this network, they cause changes accordingly. Each stimulus impacts more than one connection; thus, every time we see, hear, or smell something, an electric charge—albeit minuscule—is introduced into this neural structure, which alters the associated pathways. These pathways retain the activation until something else intervenes to deactivate them. This process occurs with trillions of neural connections responding to an immense array of experiences and sensory inputs each day, shaping the intricate composition of our lived experiences.

It’s an organic electrical chemical soup that has the ability to be changed electrically and chemically from the electricity and chemicals that our body creates a signal pathways to our nervous system or through our hormonal system, respectively. It is like this, how trauma can be imprinted in our brain, sometimes they stimulus is so impactful that it will affect a lot of switches or maybe more impactful switches That have a longer memory just to say they’re more difficult to switch off once you switch them on maybe it takes more of a charge electrically speaking to turn that one off that a typical switch whereas some switches like a piece of road that looks like every other piece of road Will be sensed, but not necessarily imprinted very deeply, which is why you can remember things that are very impactful another Monday and things are easily forgotten. Different people‘s brains have different abilities to hold onto to memories like this or more resistance to the switch switching but it to say this certain switches take more charge or more chemical to change them back with the switch. Everyone has a different tolerance for this. Some people switches are very sticky or not. This is genetic. This is what’s actually passed down through your jeans and as evolution have it we’ve been trained over time to hold onto switches that are very impactful. Maybe we saw our mother get ripped apart by a lion 10,000 years ago And we never want that to happen again so our brain increase a very deep impact in our brain, so when we go on and have children that charge that switch is passed on to our offspring, passing down these messages of self preservation tour offspring over millions of generations that is what evolutionist overtime we adapt to avoid the things that killed our ancestors.

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?

XEI

XGRO

VRE

VXF

1991 Lego

1999 Guitars

2001 Making electronic music

2003 Street art

2019 Electronic drums 

2017 Vaping

2020 Cosplay

2020 crypto mining

2020 gaming/twitch

2021 Woodworking

2021snowboarding family gear

2023 snowboard waxing setup

2021 handguns

2022 Rock climbing

2022 Mountaineering

2012 welding

2023 streaming hardware for Henrik 

2023 Lock picking

2024 Drones

Somedays you wake up with a cold

Somedays I wake up with depression

At first you’re not sure if you are sick, but you feel off

Your nose is a little sensitive

Your throat is scratchy

There’s some lung congestion

Mental cloudiness

Cloudiness is how it starts for me

I’ll wake up and not know who I am

I spend a whole day remembering what my job is

I get a deep sense of uneasiness

Tension from a sustained string note

It grows to anxiety about doing anything

Fear of talking to people

How to answer the benign question “how are you”

Pending doom

Let’s revisit every conversation you’ve had

And see how big a moron you are

Why were you such an asshole to your mom

And your dad before he died.

As the sickness grows

Your sense of self retreats

Until the darkness becomes you

You become darkness

In the absence of who you thought you were

Sadness fills the vacuum

Personality Hoover

Achiever

Analytical

Focus

Restorative

Significance

Hello again. It’s back. The darkness. Heaviness.

I have reasons!!

My day was frustrating at work. My boss micromanages me. I should have her job. I should actually have her boss’s job. But I made poor career choices five years ago and now here I am.

My kids are fighting constantly.

My house is such a mess and my kids won’t help me clean it up. The clutter causes me so much anxiety.

I just want to blot it out. Numb out.

I’ll look elsewhere for my dopamine. Video games. Candy. Porn. How pathetic. I know how to get healthy dopamine. All the ways – job, kids, house, relationship. All are fucked.

After a long day for both of us, after dinner debriefing.

C starts talking about next week plans when we are both working

N we will make it work, I’ll be home when you aren’t

C starts reciting from their phone verbally the schedule for next week, that they already had texted me earlier today.

N I need to write it down, I can’t understand it verbally.

C rage. Well just read it in the calendar then it’s in there. Ya know what?…. Rage. Mocks me in a big dumb idiot voice “I don’t understand it I need everything written down”. Shuts down, gets angry, storms off, goes to bedroom

Rest of night putting kids down is short tempered, cold.

My reaction to the initial rage is hurt, shock, feeling abandoned, betrayal, loneliness. Inability to reconcile until it’s on her terms when she wants to. Until then she’s completely shut off. 

Then I react by withdrawing, not wanting to be around it, scared of being yelled at, not wanting to fight.

I really rarely want to fight with her. It’s no fun, what would be the point? It’s a zero sum game. It’s a trap.