I am just about SO ANGRY that I would spit fire (if I could). All of us agreed that after today's long day, that it would be a good idea for all of us to get an early night's rest so that I can be fresh awake for work in the morning, and so we all can get some needed rest.
I've been going overtime since our second child was born, I have been waking up in the middle of the night multiple times taking care of our first child while my wife tends to our newborn. I've also taken on most of my wife's daily load of responsibilities which means that I've been pretty busy. On top of my usual workload of my three-hour total daily commute, and the classes I've been taking online to get an electrical engineering degree, my schedule has been quite full.
Normally, my wife wakes me around 5am when my son starts crying and wants to come out of his crib. No problem. I usually take him into our bed and he naps for a bit and then we both wake in time for me to go to minyan. Not tonight.
My wife woke me up, and I answered lovingly "yes dear, how can I help?" Her brother (in first year of med school) came to get him, and she said "No, Zoe can do it. You've already gotten him twice tonight." She asked me if I could get our son, and I said sure with a smile. I took him out and he started to cry. When I brought him into the bedroom, she giggled and asked why I brought him into the bedroom at 11pm.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?" I thought. She woke me up at 11pm to get the baby when I just went to sleep an hour earlier?!? I couldn't help but feel betrayed, tricked, and that she had plotted against me in a cruel way to wake me out of my deep sleep just for her to get her kicks.
Now it is three hours later, and I haven't gotten ONE BLINK of sleep, as I am filled with anger from this event. She apologized, but as far as I'm concerned, this is a wrong that is a serious withdrawal from my trust account with her. I cannot believe she would do a thing like this to me, especially after all of the extra work I've put in to take care of her after her having the baby! This seems sinister, evil, distorted, disgusting, and wrong. I feel cheated out of my sleep, and I feel as if her passive-aggressive, sly trick on me should elicit nothing but disdain from me towards her. On top of that, my brother-in-law who has been staying with us to "help out" was sitting on the couch playing emulated video games, so it was no sweat for him to get our son rather than waking me up for it. I feel SO deceived and taken advantage of that three hours have passed and I have not been able to get back to sleep and I have a long day of work tomorrow. I think this was disgusting of her.
I hate thinking that the truth is that she honestly didn't realize that waking me up would be a problem, and that she was probably tied up nursing the newborn and so she asked for my help. She had no idea that I would think that it was 11pm, and so it took her by surprise that I took our son out of the crib as if it were 5am. Then again, she was surprised when I turned into an angry flare in front of her eyes, just as she was complimenting me how helpful I've been to her.
I can't help but to notice how much my anger has been being felt since our little girl was born just one week ago. I have been having so much anger inside of me that I feel as if I am emitting fumes and heat, and that I am burning up my insides making me ill and weak. I can't focus, and I can't calm down. I also started exercising last week around the same time and this burst in anger coincides with the burst in energy I've received by the exercise. I know they are combined, especially with the amazing amount of pressure and stress that I am under trying to keep our family and its health both physically, emotionally, and spiritually in good condition.
I'm also quite distraught by the sincere mess and lack of organization that has infiltrated our home since the baby was born, and I cannot help but to blame my brother-in-law and my wife for allowing such a mess to come into being. I know my wife should have slack for stuff these first few weeks after the birth, but still, my brother-in-law came here on the premise that he would be here to help. Honestly, he has caused more of a mess than he has helped out, and I cannot confront him because he is my wife's brother and doing so will only further distance us in an already troubled relationship.
5 comments:
Feel so sorry for you...
You know I feel your pain. I'm up at five in the morning and my wife is a stay at home mother. We have a week old daughter and a three year old little boy. I come home I clean, wash dishes, bathe our three year old, I wash clothes, and I do all of this with narcolepsy. My high pressurejob is working with 24 juvenille sex offenders, all of which are ADD. It angers me that she has the responsibility of two normal kids and is acting like this is some tour de force. I feel so angry towards her. It is causing me to look for ways to be away from home. I would rather work overtime than be here. She says I should take a leave of absence to bond with our daughter but I know it is so she can pawn that responsibility soley on me. Give me 80 of disfunction at work instead of 80 hours of manipulation!
Hello there. I read your comment and giggled to myself because I understand how you're feeling. [I actually thought I took down all my anti-wife postings, but I suppose this one slipped through the cracks; I figured that trashing my wife on a forum in which she can't defend herself was not fair.]
In sum, I think your approach is correct, but your view of reality is skewed. Your capabilities are clearly better than your wife's self-perceived capabilities. You just happen to know what you do is nothing compared to what she does, but she disagrees. Changing diapers and dealing with the draining energy of kids ALL DAY who have unlimited energy and who have unlimited needs are much more difficult than dealing professionally with people you're not emotionally bonded to with blood. Perhaps you're not appreciating how difficult things are for her and that you're not dealing with the reality that she's just not that good at this as you are.
Regardless of whether any of this is true, bottom line, as a husband, you have the duty to be supportive and to understand that in her perception what she does is dead hard, and if you want to keep peace in the house, you need to start seeing things through her eyes even though you would do things differently.
I often look around the house critically and think to myself, "if I were running this place I would do EVERYTHING differently." Well I am not; she is, and my wife does the best that she can, even though I so often disagree with how she approaches things.
Truthfully, looking for ways to be away from the home doesn't seem that bad of an idea, if you can pull it off, just to regain your composure and approach your situation with a level head. I know my wife struggles when I'm away from the house for too long and she gets overwhelmed with the kids, so I stay close by, but I have on many occasions found reasons not to be home just because I was avoiding a fight because I was in a critical mood.
I must speak harshly, that your attitude and approach of whether she is evil or not is completely inappropriate. I know this because I recognize it in myself. You MUST (let me repeat MUST) see things through her eyes as if they were true and you must lie to yourself that what she feels is reality because otherwise your world view and her world view will clash over and over. You can, however, bring her closer to your world view, but this takes lots of time in terms of months and years.
I hope this was helpful. You've inspired me to write something now.
Disgusting excuse for men. I feel sorry for your poor wives and children. they need a strong, decent, honourable male role model. not you sorry excuses.
I agree. It is now many years later and I have learned to appreciate the needs and stresses my wife experiences, and I was a very selfish asshole on many of the so-called "problems" I had with my wife. I wish I could turn back the clock on many things that happened, but the damage is done, and all I could do is be better now that I'm a bit older and a bit more mature.
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