An Anonymous Journal

Came out of nowhere too.

In fact, I spent time yesterday thinking about how nice it will be to add a bit of balance to my little online journal project with a dose of, “this has been really lovely” for a couple of days.

It was genuinely pleasant over the weekend. There was no fighting or bickering to speak of. Disagreements over how to handle the kids as usual, but nothing that escalated into shouting or name calling.

Then it happened again. He snuck wine throughout the afternoon as soon as he was sure he wouldn’t be driving to do the daycare pickup. But he never appears drunk… only ever slightly questionable presentations of a less than sober husband are ever spotted.

If I’m totally honest, I did see an unusually childish response to our 2 year old saying she preferred mom do something vs dad (also probably another sign of drinking I should look out for). He just kind of responded with a slight look of having taken offence. It wasn’t an overt show of angst or anything. Just a tiny hint of an overreaction to a 2 year old’s very 2 year old comment about mom vs dad doing something for her. I can’t even remember what it was. I just remember his look.

The total giveaway is when he picks fights. He’ll find anything he can pick at to revive an old dispute or previously resolved disagreement.

Today was laundry. We have this never ending drama with laundry. The kids have nice clothes and he ruins them in the wash on the regular. And he never finishes a load – leaves it in the dryer or throws clean clothes on the floor in a pile of chaos so we repeatedly wash the same stuff over and over again. Growing ever so frustrated with this, I asked him if he would just let me do the kids’ laundry from now on.

I thought we’d agreed on that as the compromise, but we haven’t apparently. And tonight it was his launching pad for another fight. He started picking the fight in front of our son during his night routine. I saw it coming and said goodbye to my son and raced downstairs to avoid fighting in front of him.

Then it began. He raced directly into the laundry room, removed clean towels and threw them on the floor, started a random load of kids laundry because we were “so behind” (This weekend I finished every article of their clothing – bar one small load that didn’t get brought to the laundry room until later in the weekend) . Then he berated me nonstop for not doing enough laundry, leaving the kids clothes a mess, etc etc.

Nights like tonight make me wonder what the hell the point of all of this is. After spending the weekend working my tail off to accomplish so much, he just wipes it away because he’s had a bit to drink on his own on a Wednesday and didn’t know how to manage his real frustrations which i suspect has more to do with our 2 year old than me.

Awesome. Having the time of my life.