Some post-vacation venting that I didn't want to include on the blog my family reads:
I got home from the airport at 10:30 at night, right on schedule. Mike was already in bed, and didn't get up to, like, hug me or anything. He acted a combination of "I was sleeping" (10:30 is when we usually head for bed, so I think he could probably stay up an extra 5 minutes without difficulty), and like I had only been gone a few hours rather than five days, and like I was kind of annoying him by taking 5 minutes to unpack my toothbrush (after traveling for twelve hours), I guess instead of getting into bed fully-clothed and turning off the light. THEN HE WANTED SEX. What. an. ass.
Also, I'm so angry with him for clipping the bird pull on the lamp, I can't even tell you. I realize it is a VERY SMALL THING in The Universal Scheme of Things, but it's upsetting to me, and also tells me that he couldn't cope with the kids and probably did it in a tantrum, because the rational thing to do would have been to either tie the pull up (the lamp is on a switch, so it would be okay to disable the pull for even a long time), or if the situation were TRULY UNBEARABLE, then perhaps MOVE THE LAMP TO ANOTHER ROOM. But snipping the pull off with scissors so it FOREVER AND FOREVER has to be plugged into a switch outlet, and we can ONLY turn it on/off using the switch? And the bird pull is what made me want to buy the lamp, and I'd SAID SO when I brought the lamp home.
So whether he meant it like this or not, it made me feel like he was punishing me for leaving. "See what happens when you're gone?" combined with "I'm sulking and not acting happy that you're home" makes me feel like DOING SOME BODILY HARM. Seriously, this is the kind of crap that rots marriages. It also undoes a lot of the positive effects of a vacation.
very annoying. you have every right to feel like doing bodily harm.
ReplyDeleteI may or may not be especially husband-sensitive slash cranky lately but wtf? I hate when they act like that, and then no apology or even acknowledgment that they are being tools. I am so sorry about the lamp... and the sex? UGH! "I thought you were SLEEPING!"
ReplyDeleteAss.
ReplyDeleteOh, that is simply infuriating. We've been in a SEASON over here too. And, though I know from experience that the winds will change and I'll feel soft towards him again, it sure doesn't help. Also? I can see how people let too much time go by in the shitty seasons, and then cannot find their way back to each other. As in: I can REALLY UNDERSTAND how it happens.
ReplyDeleteMan, being married is HARD.
Also? The lamp thing would make me SO PISSED!
Of course he wanted sex anyway. Of course he did!
ReplyDeleteThat sort of shit makes me livid. And now your vacation buzz has totally been killed and you have to spend the next week cleaning up the disaster after the last few days he spent with his own children.
Ass indeed.
HA - my verify word is "condm". Coincidence?
Wow, you have every right to be upset. It makes me mad just reading all that!
ReplyDeleteI am so upset for you. It just seems so mean to have you come home to such a negative vibe. Where was the "Welcome Home Mom" banner?
ReplyDeleteNext time you go away, budget for a full-time babysitter to come to the house, or send some of the kids to your parents/friends. When Mike asks why, you can show him the pictures from this trip's homecoming. Maybe he'll be sufficiently humiliated by the prospect that you don't think he can handle his own children for a short period of time that he'll step up his game.
I deleted my "the pull cord would happen in our house" comment at the other place because it would happen, but not out of anger, just out of a weird male fix-it-in-an-"expedient"-way thing.
ReplyDeleteI'd be upset, too.
I'm SO sorry! I know EXACTLY how you feel. You have so much restraint. I would have screamed, cried, and probably thrown something. This kind of thing does rot marriages. It's currently rotting mine. My husband only gives a shit about my feelings in the context of how that impacts him. He doesn't care that I like the house tidy...until I get distant and pissy about it. Then we have to pay my therapist $80 an hour to get husby to the place I'M ALREADY IN. For fuck's sake. You have ALL my sympathy. I wish we lived closer or something. We could go to Target and eat cheap Nachos and vent.
ReplyDeleteNowheymama- And it totally COULD have been that way with him, too. I'm just mad and so I'm putting the worst possible spin on his behavior. (Speaking of the kind of thing that rots marriages. Sigh.) I think to myself, "What is the ONLY WAY I would be so nuts as to snip the pull cord?" and then I think, "I'd have to have been wild with irrational rage." But of course for him the answer could be, "I'd have to be kind of dumb and not really thinking it out, figuring that we can still use the switch so what's the big deal?"
ReplyDeleteThis kind of behavior still bugs me, but we've talked about it and I KNOW it comes from I-need-a-place-to-hang-this-pan-so-I'm-going-to-put-a-nail-in-the-wall thinking, not, man-hanging-this-pan-here-is-going-to-piss-Sarah-off-well-GOOD thinking, which makes a BIG difference. I still try to encourage him not to do it, though.
ReplyDelete:)
I'd tell him how much it upsets you.
I have this kind of crap in my house too and it kills me. What really upsets me about it is what you talked about -the sense of punishing you. Like the laundry thing. In my house my husband does loads and loads of laundry and then it's like I should be THANKFUL for him doing it - he was only helping! And for us it's an underhanded nudge that I don't do enough laundry. And then I'm like - I'd don't want your freaking help on anything because I know it comes with a cost. Cost 1 - cleaning up after your "cleaning up" and Cost 2 - having you walk around like you're the greatest thing in this house because you watched your kids over the weekend so that I could relax. I would like to see how my husband would respond to that kind of look-at-me-aren't-I-fantastic bs when HE spends all weekend doing his hobby crap. But NoooooOOoOO, for me it's just expected and nothing to marvel at that I'd take care of the whole house over the weekend.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, clearly that's our issue and may not have anything to do with this situation.
My husband has done many "snip the cord" things. Because he's a big baby and can't handle the kids. oh, he's mr good dad as long as they aren't say, making noise or getting in his view of the game, or you know - being kids. But if they do any of those, then watch out. He truly believes that he's the only person EVER to be irritated/inconvenienced by kids (or lines or crowds or traffic, etc), and he deals with it by taking worse tantrums than the kids ever did or will.
ReplyDeleteI'll go anonymous here just in case, but my husband has been unemployed for seven months, so I've dealt with a lot of Lamp Pull incidents. I feel your pain. You have every right to be mad.
ReplyDeleteEvery day my husband is unemployed makes me angrier, especially when he picks a fight about something totally stupid, or waits until I get home to do something he could've done during the 40 hours a week he's not working (cleaning, sending out resumes, etc.) ARGH.
Ohhhh just reading this pisses me off. I have learned in general to take Torsten's actions at face value. So if he shrinks my jeans in the dryer after I've asked him repeatedly not to put them in the dryer--it's not because he doesn't love me, it's just because he's not paying attention.
ReplyDeleteSTILL. I'd be pissed, too.
Oh, honey, I feel you, and I cannot even imagine how livid I would be about the pull-cord. And the giant mess at your house after you went out of your way to make sure the house was nice for him before you left.
ReplyDeleteI had the handsy husband yesterday when I got home from being away, too. And you know where I was? At my mom's because my dad had a heart attack and open-heart surgery, and I made the six-hour trip there and back twice in the last week, and I had an early conference call for work this morning. Really? You can't just let me sleep?
Thanks for this blog. I'm sorry your husband is so clueless, but it helps me to know that I'm not alone and that all these "little" things really do add up for normal people, and I'm not just irrational.
I hear you, sister. I'd probably murder Alex in his sleep if he'd cut my lamp.
ReplyDeleteAnd, frankly, if you can't stay up five extra minutes? No sex for you.
I think the hardest thing about the lamp pull for me would be the fact that it's unfixable. There is no quick repair, putting it back together. It's DONE. Final. Can't be undone. My hubby does things like this, too, in a "male fix way" like someone above said. I've learned to deal with it, but it still makes me sad inside each time. The permanence is what gets me.
ReplyDeletesheesh, and he still wanted sex. that kills me. Sorry you had such a rough homecoming!
ReplyDeletewhoa, comment verification is pultab, like pull tab, like lamp cord? Am I stretching here?
Along with a lot of people, I can so relate to the messy house aspect of it. It hit home when you said this is the kind of crap that rots marriages. It's not that love isn't there, but what happened to the common decency and respect and the going above and beyond stuff way back in the dating days? We've been through way bigger problems, but not too long ago Brian literally laid on the couch and watched football while I cleaned the house up around him. I mean, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I even thought of you as I tore out of the driveway and went to drown my sorrows at Target. Makes me wonder how much of Target's profits come from pissed off wives exacting low priced revenge.
ReplyDeleteOh it sucks. The constant CONSTANT "can I go and do this?" I actually asked my husband this morning if I could go and get dressed. WHY the punishments for going away? Is it because we are SAHM's? Is it more even if you work outside the home? I wonder. And I'm sorry. Welcome home anyways. :)
ReplyDeleteGuys just do not seem to connect sex with anything else but...sex. It's in a box by itself - and regardless of what's happening in LIFE - they just want sex.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I HATE coming home from a vacation to a messy house. Wouldn't it be such a GIFT if they'd tidy up a bit for your homecoming once in a while?
Id. I. Ot.
ReplyDeleteHim, not you, obvs.