Last night and this morning were absolutely brutal. :A: and I fought a lot and didn’t resolve things until it was almost time to leave for work today.
Before she went to visit her parents and return some items to Target, she said “maybe tonight you can help around the house?” and I said yes, I was resting now but I’d hep later. I played on the computer while she was out because I didn’t know what chores she wanted me to do. When she got back, I kept playing, even though I knew stuff had to be done – I figured she’d tell me when she had a task for me, that’s usually what she does. Finally around 1:00am, she said “so…maybe you’ll help me tomorrow night?” And it all went downhill from there.
She switched off the TV abruptly so I turned off the computer, and we both lay there in the dark at opposite edges of our king-size bed. I curled into a little ball and tried to sink into the mattress, but finally I was exhausted. I leaned over, kissed what seemed like her arm under the blankets, and said I was going to go to sleep. She said “okay” rather coldly, and I turned onto my side and promptly failed to sleep. I said I was going to sleep in the office because I didn’t like lying there like that, and I took my robe for a blanket and a pillow from the foot of my bed. Amanita came in and purred at me for a while; I petted her a little bit. I finally realized there was a bookcase full of things to do, so I got up to turn on the light and noticed the TV was on and muted in the bedroom. I tried reading for a few minutes but failed miserably; went to take a peek into the bedroom and realized she was asleep, not watching TV. I failed to read for a few more minutes, and then headed downstairs to lie on the couch with a real blanket and watch muted TV with the captions on.
I found a rerun of an early MadTV episode and tried to watch that, then found some celery to munch on because I wanted food as consolation for my misery. It wasn’t satisfying, and after a while I turned off the TV, folded the blanket, and went upstairs to have a serving (that’s 20 bites) of ice cream. If it has to come out of my bank, fine – I just felt so awful I wanted it anyway. When I finished around 2:30am, I took the USNWR and Newsweek upstairs, turned off the TV, climbed into bed, and read with my little flashlight. After a short while :A: asked if I was planning to go to sleep at all, and I said I hoped to; was my flashlight keeping her awake? She said it was all the moving through the house and everything else, and when I heard her moving her glasses I quickly turned off the flashlight and managed to fall asleep.
When I woke up this morning around 6:05 (the alarm was set for 6:45), I immediately noticed she wasn’t in the bed. I decided I couldn’t take it anymore and quickly got dressed and prepared to leave. When I got downstairs, she was on the couch in the den and said “morning.” I said “hello” and finished getting ready to leave. She asked if it was time to go, and I said no, I was going to walk because I’d missed my walk home yesterday and would again tonight. She seemed to accept that, then asked if I’d gotten any sleep. I told her I had, and she said “that’s nice, I didn’t. I had a shitty night.” She said she’d come downstairs because she didn’t have her usual pillow so her neck hurt and she couldn’t sleep with it hurting. I was trying not to cry as she got up, folded the same blanket, and said that she knew I didn’t care, that I’d forget about it in a few hours anyway. I was stunned by that, and let her walk up past me. She made a few more hurtful comments from the top of the stairs, then said we could either talk about it now or I could leave as planned and she would stay mad all weekend. I stood there for a few more seconds and then followed her into the bedroom.
She said she’d gotten out what she needed to, and so she wasn’t as pissed anymore. I continued to stand there in tears and almost speechless, and she asked if I even really understood why she was angry. I said I did and I was pretty much right, and we talked about it a little more. When she said she wasn’t going to kick me out and she still loved me, I started sobbing loudly and she invited me over to sit next to her and get a hug. We talked a bit more and I finally calmed down; she didn’t want to lie down and cuddle with me because she’d have fallen asleep and not been able to drive me to the bus stop, but she let me lie down with my head in her lap and she petted my hair for a while.
By the time we left around 7:10am, we were finally able to joke a little bit again. But that was really hard. I’m amazed I don’t have a terrible headache from all the crying.
