Nightly I am accused of being a bad father, or that nobody likes me, or that I should be killed or maimed, that it would be better if I was dead, or that I tricked Heather into this arrangement of being together, or of having a child.
The pain is that I could lose Heather. I am accused of being inconsistent, but for about six years now I have almost never taken off of work, provided, and maintained the home (I'm accused of the opposite naturally, but to the contrary, I have remodeled our kitchen and laundry room and a bath, and built for my new company a workshop, which is towards advancing my capacity for providing). I have started a business and purchased a van which has greatly increased my efficiency. We were losing money when I started the company, for a full year, and I couldn't get used to it, I thought it was just because I was starting out. But one day in October or so I checked in on Heather's account to learn she had blazed through 6 grand in discretionary spending at mostly thrift stores, mostly on stuff that makes a house a home so to speak, things that get tucked into corners. I have tried to turn the finances around by instituting an allowance to our shared account, of 2 grand, from which our pet food and medicine comes from, and our family food and any other discretionary. She protests that "I want my own account where you can't see what I'm spending", and insists that this is financial abuse. Meanwhile I have never spent money out of the shared account, save for in a pinch when I had no other card, for a lunch on the go recently a few times, but aside from that she has whittled the shared account down from 17K to nothing (while I would seed it at first every month or two on her request, and more recently via automated transfer of 2k monthly). Since it's institution she has run out of this money typically on the 20th of the month every month (the deposit goes in on the 4th). I usually will give her a few hundred dollars cash to punctuate that this is it; and, how could I not feel like I am talking to a child? She is immensely immature and will not have a financial conversation with me, and I have tried many times. When I bring up our spending, and how we should understand or cash flow versus expenses, she takes it that I am brow beating her (I'm not), and begins accusing me of being broke, and worthless. I have to steel myself against the tumult, as what am I to do? We have a beautiful little yard and two miracle dogs, and a miracle daughter, and Heather is great with the daughter, it would seem until I get home.
Often it is the case that while I go to start the day, Heather stays behind and wakes whenever (I don't know, because when I ask her she believes it is an accusation), and goes out to do her work, (which she resents me calling anything she does a 'job', but only insofar as it means that she is beholden to any responsibility), and her work includes raising the child with a great childhood, where Heather has finally developed her child nature group, for which I am very proud of her for doing; she had talked about it for about the five years I've known her, and it is going well, and Edith, our daughter has a large group of friends now and understands much about groups, and nature, and all that. But my point being, when I get home from my work (I am trying to work long hours often to get my contracts done so that I can get paid, in hopes that I can outpace Heather's spending- the cost of living too, I get it, but truly the discretionary could use some discipline and honing, about a third of the time Edith is asleep, at 6:30, 7, or so. Well, Heather will usually insist that that's it for the night, and go run an errand or 'go to bed', she calls it, which is where she puts on headphones and scrolls her phone. If you insist she hang out she will rebut you're pathetic and needy, but this is after not talking- at this point like ever. Edith invariably wakes up if she's napping at 7pm, and then it's my job to put her to bed, "because all of the other dad's aren't pieces of shit" and actually do things for their families etc. The pattern obviously is everything is an accusation, or accompanied with and accusation, or becomes an accusation. Everything must be laced with vitriol, and often threats. This happens openly in front of the daughter, and I don't know what to do about it. From many accounts online, (I don't fixate on abuse accounts, but I literally think that meme of your phone listening to you plays into what is served to my algorithms online) the tactic is to not react to accusations, especially if not true. There's a story of the buddha where he's getting heckled; and the heckler can't get the buddha's attention, and he gets madder and madder, and then storms off. A disciple asked why didn't you tell that guy off right away, and buddha said allegorically; if you give me a great gift, but I do not accept, who does the gift belong to? The disciple answered, I suppose it is still mine. And buddha said it is the same with insult.
But anyway, it is a shame because Heather will act like she consents to teamwork and the ideals of independence and hard work and having a two or three kid family, and getting married, and moving into a house, and working toward a future, but actively works against it at every turn it seems. She will relapse into eating fast food, and feed it to Edith, She will threaten to leave me in the strongest words she can access, often accusing me of trapping her, and being a bad person. She overspends and threatens to kill herself, and me, or to make sure Edith never sees me again.
Last week she made a series of accusations which (I'm always trying new methods to resolve or direct the energies that are flying around into the greater good for the family, while trying to curate what Edith is experiencing out of the situation, and I said, "Look, it's okay, I understand you're overwhelmed so let's go run the chores together, and Heather wanted a beer and a carwash, so we all got in the car and when I started driving to the car wash it began. "You are driving like a piece of shit! You are fucking up my car! You're going to get us in an accident!" And this is very common in a car with Heather I have learned. If I am driving, I will get picked and yelled at and bullied. (On the way to her parent's once, still in our neighborhood she started laying in with "you are a piece of shit", and within a few blocks warming up she started calling me a "nigger cunt". I pulled over and then she called her mom hyperventilating pretending I was being irrational and abusive for keeping her from her parent's house.). So this carwash errand went somewhat the same way, where, after a few miles, we were at a red light, and I said "you know what, I was trying to do you a favor, but I don't have to do this, and I can't take you to run your errands unless you apologize". And she said "for what, you are a piece of shit", and I usually at these moments raise my fist in front of my face to protect against any punches, because she will lash out, and I turned around at that red light and began driving back home. She dumped a drink into my lap, a cold coffee, but I drove home. Edith fell asleep in the car on the way home and when I got in the driveway I began unloading my work van, which is a task that I had to do, and Heather stayed in the car with Edith scrolling on her phone. Most of what I see of Heather is her on her phone, and I don't get to inquire what she's looking at or whatever. So I'm unloading my truck and Heather slips inside and packs a suitcase and brings it out, goes to the car, puts the bag in and starts backing out of the driveway. I meet her at the end of the driveway and say, "can I ask you something?", "Yeah", "Where are you going?", and she answered what I thought was "Mom's", but what I later learned was meant as a sarcastic joke, "Mall". She had turned off her location to me in earlier tiffs weeks ago, so I couldn't see where she was. I called her mom after an hour saying that Heather was likely coming her way to visit, and I tried to maintain the veneer that Heather is having a hard time (and her and her mom had been in a spat that day too), so I guess she decided to go ahead and drive to visit them after all, and her mom thanked me for the information. Well, Heather didn't show up in Jersey after the typical time, so as I was doing my chores around the house, I thought hey, it's Friday, I'll turn off my location and go have a beer at a bar. So I turned off my 'sharing location to Heather' on my phone and left the house. (this was also a ploy to flush Heather's bluff) Heather began serial calling me to which I ignored. I don't worry too much about Edith insofar as it is out of my control in times like this. I don't mean to play it light, I am terrified, but Heather is very good to Edith and the mother daughter bond is like nothing else, just a shame that this toddler is experiencing kidnapping and nights in hotels. That's where Heather was. She drove to the other side of town and got a $149 hotel. She texted me that she was calling because "Edith wants to say goodnight, and is saying where is daddy." I texted back. "Daddy is literally at home, where are you?". This had an effect on Heather because she packed up Edith and started driving around town looking for me. I was not at home. She went to a woman's house that runs a non-profit that represents my career advancement which I volunteer for's house (how does Heather even know where that person lives?) and a few bars, and actually she ended up finding me at a bar called Cupid's, where I was actually having a bad night anyway because I was being very ill-received by the locals socially, and when Heather arrived, Edith was asleep in the car again, and within earshot, and I got Heather a beer and we chatted with the locals, as if Heather wasn't an absolute nightmare- we were a facsimile of the people we could be (if front facing pleasantries were maintained for example), and we were ill-recieved by the locals as a couple. Locals made remarks openly, like, "well, I've been trying to get out of this conversation anyway, so..", and to my name the classic "what's your real name" (this one kills me because it was coming from a twink who should be used to the land of you are what you say you are, but I digress). The attitudes were terrible, but you know what they say about traffic, you aren't in traffic, you are traffic. Heather and I drive separate cars home and slept in the same bed with Edith in between. The next day we connected on how terrible those people at the bar were, and never again. Heather said she needed that 'stay-ca-tion' of a hotel trip, but would not acknowledge the context, and that she had overreacted and kidnapped our child without telling me where she was going, (This is when I was informed she said "Mall" as a joke and not "Mom's"), and besides the fact that financially, we are unclear whether we are even operating at a loss or not in the business, we don't have money to dick around with. She played it like she just needed the space, and that if I were to push the subject further, I am just trying to instigate and look for attention.
Here it is typical. The conflict has in some ways passed, so I could just enjoy the moment, and wouldn't that be stoic, or zen; and usually, I try to get a half-point in and then shut up and hopes it lands germ into her mind, but since I am now about 6 years in, I wonder if it is getting better or worse. Certainly, as I feel that I am working towards my goals and actualizing a company and a nice home, and supporting the family, if anything the stakes are only getting higher, and all the more precarious are the arrangements amidst someone that will leverage her life, or your life, or you child, or the house, against just to be right in an argument, or to make one feel inadequate, or.. I don't understand the endgame.
Her theory is that she needs to get the thoughts out or they will fester and become larger. I believe to the contrary, you must be the curator of your thoughts and tongue, or you can exercise malice. Things beget things.
She is an active force against the home, and when she is not, I rejoice in that, however, usually she is.
I am not over deluding myself, as I am strong and can take the weight, but there's something odd about a person that hates you by her own words, whom you otherwise share a beautiful life with. There is forward movement, but it is against the constant throwing obstacles into my path, bombing my relationships by either outright being mean to these people on purpose, or by accusing me of trying to fuck them, or their wives, and making it increasingly difficult and not worth it, sabotaging any meetups, and clumsifying any communications.
Again men's advice type content online says I need to stay grounded, and I understand that, and I understand the power of delusion- one can follow a delusion into success through hard work and persistence. So I do that, but I pray to God that this person will simply turn around and take the other yoke, to pull in the same direction. What we have is beautiful, and we could actually catalyze it by pulling in the same direction, or try to sabotage it by any means possible to see if it is real. It strikes me as profound self-hatred to try so hard to destroy one's own life, and in that way too it makes me sad.
Perhaps it is self-hatred that keeps me in a relationship like this. I do not let the negativity in when it comes my way, but I do listen, and at times, there is truth in the unkind words, and I find it fascinating that someone could even think or go through with saying some of the things that Heather says, it is something unique to me and I used to think it almost funny, and now I just think of it as she's warming herself up for some display like breaking a plate on the floor, or breaking something that she knows I like, and I think about the time it's going to waste, and I think about the time it took for me to earn the money to have a nice thing, for her to break, to try to prove to me that I'm a bad person? I mostly think that this will take so much time, and I just have to ignore the abuse until it gets okay again.
Something else is that she's sometimes good in the daytime, but that's when I work, and when I get home it begins essentially, that she wants a break, but there's usually chores yet done, no dinners, dishes, laundry, groceries often need to be gotten and dogs walked. I like all of these things, but suffice that if she needs a break, I will grant a break and step in, and so often she will lie, that she's going to take a shower, and I will hold it down for an hour then- huh, that's a long shower, and I go to check and she's in bed scrolling with headphones on. She will scorn you if you suggest hanging out or telling me about her day, usually saying something like "Fuck off, you are so annoying". And I am over time realizing that in our relationship she has regressed into a middle schooler almost high schooler. There is a lot of unresolved stuff in her life at that age, and she is now living there, and I am her annoying parent, and she does not need to have any sense of money, or trajectory; and perhaps I enable this behavior. I stay guarded, and tentative (because I cannot assert myself as a parent might a pre-teen), but just stay on my toes as I try to interface this young woman coming into society with our family goals and motion, and hope she doesn't sabotage it.
All the while she maintains a nature group meetup with mothers and kids, and it seems like she is doing her goals sometimes, and not others; certainly not with me. She seems to hate me. Where was I ?
So the pattern of me working (often late hours to try to get projects done), and her being burned out, and me having to do chores and about half the time bedtime when I get home (To a baby that has sometimes napped from four to 7:30, and therefore is not in the least tired, while Heather scrolls to take a break), to me waking up early to get out of the house to work, and since there's no communication happening, at some point like on weekends it's time to either go to Heather's family's house or to some event like tomorrow is a 4th of July fireworks thing in a neighboring town and some of her nature group friends will be there, and is that a good thing to cancel from or? Because nothing is resolved. If I choose not to go, then I am somehow the fuck-up, (and I know how to enjoy myself despite the home life being one of extreme language and threats), yet nothing has been resolved. The event becomes just another thing to leverage. I hate this treatment of events. Like, you can't not take me out on Valentine's Day, My Birthday, Christmas, Anniversary, Mother's Day, Labor Day, and in this case it's a 4th of July party where to bail, I would be a huge "piece of shit", (which is so inordinately offensive to me as an expression), but so much is unresolved. Why daily do you refuse to talk to me, except for barking orders at me and saying that other husbands do it for their wives? Or trying to emasculate me? Or threatening violence, or taking Edith? Why will you not tell me what you did that day, no debrief? And why when it's time for a Fourth of July fireworks thing am I a "piece of shit", for not suddenly co-signing this facade?
Not to call our relationship a facade, but the notion of going to events to do fuckall while I cover for you and you only try to undermine and contrast yourself from me in conversation. At the Cupid Bar, some stupid conversation between us and the locals was heating up a little and the guy was staring me down for some reason getting heated, and I was looking right back, not too serious if I have to fight I certainly will, but where were you, you retreated to under his arm for some reason. It's egregious. I don't know what to do except let it play out, because I have places to go and can't slow down to play in undercurrents. To let it play out I must also find the beauty in, and you can join if you pull in the same direction; and as it is now you happen to be in based on you not actually leaving, just making things hell. So maybe you enjoy it that way; I don't but I will not make a rash choice because we have much in common namely Edith.
