I am fortunate to have an understanding wife who understands my feelings and who is so flexible when it comes to relationship building. As you know, yesterday was the one-sided fight where I accused my wife of conspiring against me by waking me up and not letting me know it was still early in the evening (11pm) while I started my morning routines as if it were 6am.
Obviously I realized that she did not know what was going on and why I was angry, and in the morning over instant messenger (this is such a helpful tool for Shalom Bayis) I explained my feelings and apologized for overreacting.
I also told her that just as everybody was sick last week and I took care of everybody's needs, now I was catching that flu that has been going around our home (I would venture to say it is a sick-house because we have ALL the windows covered in plastic and thus there is almost zero ventilation. Thus, it was only a matter of time that the cold would get to me as well. Well it did. Headache, aches and pains all over my body, drowsiness, and an involuntary cough which is just tempting me to cough up the phlegm that has been building up in my lungs. I have been trying to fight this for a few days now before I actually got sick, but as much as I tried using homeopathic remedies and precautionary remedies like Zinc and herbs, it was no use; I was doomed to get this cold.
So I explained to my wife my situation and I told her EXACTLY what I will need. I let her know I will be unable to function at full capacity as I have been and even though I will try my hardest to keep things orderly, I cannot promise I will be on my feet. She understood. I also asked her to be more sensitive and nice to me when she asks me to do things that are counterproductive to being able to function at work and hold up my end of the responsibilities I've taken on since the birth of our second child. I told her that I would go to the ends of the Earth to give her what she needs and to take care of her, but all I ask in return is a bit of sympathy and empathy for my hard work, just as I frequently acknowledge and sympathize with her overnights with our newborn. I asked that she simply acknowledge that she knows what I am doing for her is difficult, and that is all I need to keep going. She understood and agreed.
I came home last night (the one still going on now) after work, and hung out with her for a bit. I put our son to sleep (a very trying experience because he simply does not enjoy going to bed), and then sat on the couch and spoke to my wife. Shortly afterwords, I headed off to bed only to have woken up and hour ago (3am) with excruciating pains in my shoulders and an ill feeling. So I woke up, covered my shoulders in Ben-Gay muscle cream, took the laundry out of the dryer, set the downloading of my nightly news podcasts in motion, took some Theraflu tea (medicine) and wrote this blog entry. This was the plan before getting up. Thank G-d I was able to complete it. Now I'm going back to sleep for another 3 hours to wake up for minyan.
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