And Two Days Later

There are many days that I ask myself why I bother.

Why don't I just get it over and done with. Spare me the pain of going through it, and you the pain of reading it.

So last night Mrs_C says she's going to this seminar thing. She tells me her sister is dragging her to it. That she isn't really that interested in it, but she's doing it for her sister. Some religious Christian thing.

Fine.

I go work out with the boy (daughter is not old enough to use the facilities yet - she goes to grandparents).

When we are all back at the house later in the evening and we're trying to get the kids to go to bed (always a trial), Mrs_C begins telling me about the thing she attended. I listen while I am bagging at the kids for the fortieth time to get the hell to bed.

She tells me some things and then trails off about it. I figure she's finished the description of events. We go watch Star Trek re-runs and I ask her more about the event. She all of a sudden blurts out "Well if you weren't interested then, why should I talk about it now?"

I'm thinking "What the hell?"

Something around an hour and a half later I have an idea of what's up. Without a moment by moment commentary, here's the gist of things:

- she actually did want to go to this Christian seminar thing. She just thought I would pooh-pooh it, so she tried to put it onto her sister.
- she wanted to go in order to do something new because Mrs_C believes that the criticism of her that she doesn't have outside interests is accurate.
- she was excited about telling me about it, but when I didn't pay full and direct attention to her she felt rejected

The conversation leading to all this ran from "You don't want to listen to me", to "You are only still here [in our marriage] out of committment, not out of love" (yep, skirted that one with a brilliant verbal piroutte and diversion), and "Because you once said that you wanted to leave me, and I didn't know that - you are hiding things from me, and I don't trust or believe you".

We worked our way through by 2 am.

Did I mention that the next day (that would be today) I have just about the biggest day of the year at work? And she knew it. And I'm up until 2 am soothing her troubled brow. And Mrs_C stays home from work sick, but I still have to go in sleep deprived, groggy, and bitchy...

Yep. Pretty much biggest day of the year. Meetings - with large groups, question and answer sessions (being grilled hard), briefings, presentations - very much the need to be in top form.

I did OK. I sloughed some of the stuff to some of the new guys under the guise of giving them floor/air time and stood in the background. My boss cut me some slack and picked up some of the harder sessions.

But I shouldn't have to do that.

I'm pretty resentful right now.

It's not fair.

I'm trying so hard.