Not a Wasted Word

My husband and I are about to get 24 hours of together time. Without the kids.

It’s been a while since we’ve had this. A couple of months maybe? I know some people go years without a night out alone (how they manage to keep their marriage strong without one I DON’T know), but we try to take advantage of living close to my parents and take a 24-hour date night every once in a while. When it’s been over two months, it feels like it’s been a long time.

Things between my husband and I have deteriorated somewhat in the last month, which has been very stressful. I’m worried that it will take so long for both of us to decompress that we won’t manage to reconnect in any significant way, but hopefully the decompressing will happen, at least.

Of course my husband still has his man-cold, and my throat has felt scratchy for almost 24 hours now, so I’m worried I’ll come down with it at any point. I’ve watched four people I know get some intense laryngitis in the past couple of weeks, and my husband’s cold had it, so I’m really worried I’m going to start feeling horrible any minute now. Laryngitis always gets me.

My husband also rammed his knee into a wall (don’t ask, I didn’t) and is now limping around like a middle schooler trying to get out of PE. (Yes, I know, I’m not a very kind, nurturing wife.) So yeah, we’ll see how this date night goes.

The good news is tomorrow we are going mezcal tasting with my friend and her husband and I’m really excited about it. I love going out with my husband and other couples, because I am reminded how incredibly smart and funny he is when he’s being himself for other people. It’s almost like I get to see him through someone else’s eyes when we’re out with other people, which allows me to look past so many of our entrenched issues and remind me why I fell in love with him in the first place. If I manage to stay well until tomorrow afternoon, it could be just what our marriage needs right now.

Because the entrenched issues remain, well, entrenched. I haven’t brought up how hurt I was by my husband’s behavior on Wednesday: he DID sulk for most of the evening, finally declaring that he didn’t appreciate that I asked him to do pick up to teach him a lesson. Actually, what I said was I hoped it would help him better understand my perspective surrounding pick-up, but hey, I guess we hear what we want to hear. We definitely need to talk if that is what he heard.

And yet, I don’t want to talk. Or better said, I don’t know what to say. Even if I figured out what to say, I wouldn’t know how to say it. I wish I saw a therapist so I could go over all this stuff with her, and show up to a discussion with my husband armed with all the right phrases. I KNOW that how you say something is more important than even what you’re saying, at least sometimes, and I know I SUCK at saying things the right way. And honestly, I’m not even sure what I’d like to get out of a conversation like that anymore. It feels like we’ve had that conversation SO MANY times, and it doesn’t seem to get us anywhere. It’s hard not to feel hopeless about making any progress on that front.

Then again, maybe I’m not giving him, or us, enough credit. Things have changed, just very, very slowly. And I suppose every one of those conversations moved us incrementally towards positive growth. Still, each one has also taken its toll. It’s hard to know if we’re coming out ahead.

I try to remember how good things felt between us, just one month ago. When I can get a hold of that feeling, I know it’s worth talking it out. I just wish I had the right words ready when the time comes.

Wednesday are usually my one day to get a workout in during the week. Sometimes I can squeeze one in somewhere else, but Wednesday is generally sacred. Except yesterday there was a meeting to communicate our concerns about the delayed construction to the board, and well, I felt I should be there. Of course it ran late and then I didn’t have time to run before I picked up my daughter and her friend from a drama class they go to together.

I was feeling really frustrated, especially since I really HATE picking up from the drama class because it’s a PITA to get to, and there is no parking, and it takes forever to take the friend home and then get back to our house.

{Then why do the class? Because our daughter has been interested in drama and we aren’t very good at signing her up for outside classes, so when my friend said her daughter was going, and she could take them, I jumped at the opportunity, because I couldn’t get up to the city in time to get them over there. So my friend takes them from aftercare to the class and I pick up. Also, my daughter really likes it. So I suck it up and do it since our daughter never does anything while her friends are constantly taking swimming lessons, tennis, soccer, softball, art, and other fun stuff.}

So I was stewing in frustrating and anger about missing my workout, when I remembered my husband had attempted to go back to work but had come home after lunch because “that was a BIG mistake.” He could pick them up for me!

So I called him, and of course he was not at all interested in helping me out. First he felt too shitty. Then he didn’t know where it was or how to get there. (Um, GoogleMaps much?) Then I wasn’t going to be home with the car in time (I picked up our son AND was home in PLENTY of time).

I had already cancelled my call to Guatemala because I knew he couldn’t manage bedtime by himself, so I was feeling pretty frustrated that he wasn’t going to do this for me. I ALWAYS do afternoon pick up, I was the only one to drive them both to all their swim lessons, I took my son to his soccer, I take our daughter to Girl Scouts. I do freaking EVERYTHING afternoon or extracurricular, and he couldn’t do me this one solid?

{Also, once he had me take our son to school when I was staying home with the flu and it was FUCKING awful, and I had to stand in line at a Walgreens to get myself medicine and the line literally parted so I could go first and pay, after which the woman CHANGED registers because she didn’t want to be near anything I had stood in front of, that’s how bad I looked. So in my mind, asking my husband to drive when he has a man cold isn’t off limits.}

So I told him fine, I’d do pick up but he had to do bedtime, and I’d workout then. Except I HATE working out that late, and I knew he’d be slacking and I’d end up picking up that slack after working out so I called him back and said, nope, he was going to pick them up and that was that.

So I rushed to get our son and brought him home, then handed over the keys so HE could drive through that super annoying part of the city and HE could park four blocks away, and HE could herd the two girls back to the car and HE could field questions about whether or not there was a treat, and he could sit in traffic on the way to the other girl’s house, and then HE could drive back to our place.

{I was really nice in getting our son because he gums up every part of that sequence, ESPECIALLY the driving part because he wasn’t desperately to participate in their conversations and games and they want nothing to do with him, which never goes over well.}

I’m now almost done working out and he is probably just dropping off our daughter’s friend, if that, and I am SO HAPPY I stood my ground, even though I’ll end up doing bedtime by myself, and he will probably pout until he collapses into bed, the poor sick dear.

Things between my husband and I really have been better, which I think is why I’m so baffled (and frustrated and hurt) by our recent exchanges. I think it’s the cumulative effect of some stress at work for him, my increased responsibilities at my daughter’s school, and his parents glaring absence. They used to help us, and especially him, a lot, and they just aren’t here anymore. I suspect it’s hitting him harder than it’s hitting me (although I REALLY miss how they used to pick up our son once a week).

Whatever is going on, we’ll have to find some time this weekend to talk about it, because I don’t want things to keep being like this.