An Anonymous Journal

Another big blowup today. The morning started off chaotic, with DS being very unsettled from the start. DH tried to let me sleep in so I woke at 730 to a very unhappy little boy. It took a while to calm him down.

Just as he was calming, DD started kicking off. This tends to happen when I’m giving more attention to one than the other. It just turns a bit crazy because they both want mom, dad’s feeling unhappy because he gets overwhelmed when his logical attempts to solve their emotional problems are unsuccessful and he can’t seem to calm them (although he would say it’s my fault and presence making it difficult for him).

As all of this madness was going on, I tried to take DS to the potty after DD was calm and enjoying breakfast just in case maybe his tummy was hurting because he needed to poo. 5 seconds after I was gone, DD was screaming louder and louder and louder and continuously until I left DS to sit on the toilet for a minute while I checked to see why she was so upset. Dad was frustrated, having his typical standoff with her and she was positively melting down.

I then took over for her and asked DH to take over with DS. It took lots of cuddles and time to calm DD after she was in that state, but we got there eventually. As I was walking with her throughout the house to calm her down, I noticed the bathroom was left in a total state – and there was curdled milk and dirty dishes sitting on the floor in the TV room DH was last in last night while I was doing the night routine.

Very frustrated and trying to clean up after DH whilst holding the DD who is still trying to calm down, I muttered to myself out loud that it was exhausting being the only person in the house who ever picks anything up. I did mutter a few things in this regard if I’m honest, and there was a passive aggressive part of me that hoped DH would hear. I should have held it in until the kids were gone. But I didn’t.

DH heard my mumbling and was very unhappy to hear it, responding by directly confronting me in front of the kids and saying things like,”nothing is ever good enough for you.” “Every fucking day. Every day. You have to have a go at me. Every day.” And he was saying in a very aggressive way, “what is it now? What have I don’t that’s not good enough this time?!”

I responded with the line we’ve agreed countless times needs to be respected, no matter who says it. That line is “kids are in the room”. He, as usual, completely ignored me and got mad that I said it so started escalating each time I said it. Finally I shouted, “Kids.are.in.the.room. SAYING THIS HAS TO BE ENOUGH! IT HAS TO BE ENOUGH!!”

Then he responded by saying, “you need to control your temper. Take a break and learn how to control yourself.” I said, “please just leave” and he did.

It was incredible, really. The moment he walked out of the room, everything calmed right down. Both kids were calm and the temperature shot right down. He stayed away for 5 minutes or so before coming back in and saying nothing. Which was perfect. The peace continued and the kids were totally settled.

Then I asked him if he would like to talk in another room since the kids were occupied. He said okay. Then we had a big talk.

His message was that I’m too mean, I need to be nicer, and I responded by telling him I feel the same. The conversation ultimately became about whether he lies or not. He basically said he’s super honest and gave me an ultimatum: admit he doesn’t lie or he’s leaving the marriage.

I told him he lies all day, every day about little things – and I can only assume big things as well. He spins stories, makes things up, etc all of the time. And I won’t be bullied with threats to break up our family into pretending the opposite is true. He asked for examples, so I gave him a couple of recent ones:

• The mug: after a tense day of constant disagreements, my favourite mug was discovered broken. Not a big deal really. What was off about it was the fact that the mug had been in the sink, but it was broken and moved to the table on the other side of the kitchen with no explanation. And it had a little tiny piece of sushi on it (I.e. it had been broken in the sink after our sushi meal, which meant it could only have been him or me who broke it). Why move it? Why not tell me? And when I asked about it, he denied it and told me he can’t defend himself from my imagination. Wtf? So he definitely broke it. But he just lies. Denies, and attacks me back. It’s madness
• Nighttime Sabotage: There was one incident where, immediately after I asked if we could try keeping the kiddos’ night routines separate, he sent DS running into DD’s room which wreaked havoc and created a bunch of drama. And this was 30 minutes after we’d had the conversation. When I asked why he did that, he said he was trying to lock the upstairs gate and DS just snuck by him and ran in. When I explained that didn’t make sense because DS was naked, he said the new reason was because he’d made it to the bath and undressed him before he slipped away while he was working on filling the bath. Why two stories? Because you’re lying. But why?? Then he said DS was upset for not being able to be in DD’s room, but this was also not true. We could hear him. He was fine. Another pointless lie. Why?

These are just recent examples. But he lies all of the time. Is it sinister and intentional? Or is it simply because he’s emotionally immature and incapable of having difficult conversations in a mature way? At the moment I think it’s the latter, but it’s just not fair either way.

We did have a bit of a breakthrough though. I’ll put that in the next post.