Of shoes and ships and ceiling wax, of cabbages and kings...

I have been literally delinquent in posting here and not for lack of fodder to feed your voyeuristic souls! You may want to get a snack before you continue reading. Perhaps a bag of popcorn?

My sister got married at the beginning of August. The wedding itself was amazing. My husband, on the other hand, was a horror. He acted alternatively like it was HIS sister getting married and like a spare tire one had to lug around. Over Shabbos he made a HUGE to do about the fact that he wasn’t invited to the Shabbos Kallah. Telling me how it was sexist and that he should be allowed to go. I hate being guilt tripped about something so asinine! I mean COME FREAKIN ON! It is a FREAKIN Shabbos KALLAH!! For the KALLAH and her friends!!

Then, at the wedding, I asked my husband to take our son to the Kallah room so he could rest since he was all wired and hadn’t had a nap. The music was very loud and he needed to be away from the craziness for a while. He said “NO. I told you we should have a babysitter and you chose not to get one so if you want me to watch him we will stay in this room because I want to watch the dancing.” Mind you, he wasn’t actually dancing. He was just watching. I, on the other hand, had been dancing WITH our son the WHOLE time IN my arms. All 32 pounds of him. So I took one look at my husband, picked our son up and walked out of the room to the Kallah room. He came in a bit later and I basically told him to go away and leave me alone with our son.

Regarding having a babysitter, it was impossible. I didn’t know anyone to hire who lived in Baltimore, we wouldn’t have been able to afford to put the person up in the hotel we were at and the hotel was too far from the community for my husband to drive anyone back since he wasn’t sober. There would have been no way to drive a person to Baltimore with us because we had no room in the car.

Life, as I know it, is status quo. There were two times since I last posted that I made a HUGE effort to make things better with my husband.

One was prior to our weekend trip to California for my husband’s grandparents’ birthdays. I made the biggest effort then. Honest to G-d I did. I was sweet and friendly and affectionate. I was caring and considerate and even-tempered. Packing for the trip went smoothly, the ride to the airport was fine, the whole plane trip went off without a hitch, getting the rental car was easy sailing…

(Enter HITCH, stage right)

I said to my husband that after we stop at the hotel and put our stuff down, we should go to the grocery store, pick up stuff for the weekend (Our Shabbos food was being catered but we would be stuck in the hotel since the party would be on Sunday at his aunt and uncle’s house but we were staying in the hotel, not near an eruv.) After we get the food, I said, let’s pick up the pack ‘n play and then I would like to be able to rest a bit, take a shower and bathe our son and then we could go to his aunt and uncle to visit for a while before Shabbos.

His answer? NO. Not “Let’s compromise somehow.”, but a very clearly spoken “NO.”

So I said to him, “How about you leave us at the hotel, go to your aunt and uncle, we will rest and shower and then call you to come back and get us? That would be a good compromise and that way you can visit more with your relatives.” His answer? NO.

So he shlepped us to his aunt and uncle’s house and we didn’t get back to the hotel until 35 minutes before Shabbos. That gave me enough time to take a shower WITH my son while my husband went to the store again for some drinks which we had forgotten to buy the first time we were out. (Which I had never done before alone, usually my husband would take my son out after because he is so slippery and I am scared I will drop him when taking him out of the tub if I am wet also. Besides, how am I supposed to get him dressed while I am all wet?)

Naturally, you can imagine that my mood went the way of the stock market after 9/11. (I know, weird analogy, but I have 9/11 on my mind lately.)

That trip was at the beginning of September. After that we had a few therapy sessions where it was a lot of back and forth about how I am not acting like I should be, not showing affection etc and that I have to work on US just like he does. He even went so far as to say how I am not acting like a wife. So our therapist pointed out how I do act like a wife and made mention of what a great mother I am to our son. At which point he said “I could hire a nanny for that.” Isn’t he just a marvelously wonderful man?

So a couple weeks ago I decided to give it another go and try to be nice and affectionate etc. Without going into any details, he appreciated the gesture as any man would. Then, and I honestly don’t recall, he did something to piss me off and it just escalated (or deteriorated) from there.

He has also been complaining a lot about how I exclude him from get-togethers. So we had a huge shouting match about it wherein I explained to him that the get-togethers he felt excluded from, he was INTENTIONALLY excluded from with the exception of one. Allow me, my loyal reading audience (assuming you haven’t fallen asleep yet) to list these get-togethers:

1. Spa Day – I went with 2 female friends to a spa in northern Jersey for manicures, pedicures, massages and facials. Yes, he was NOT invited.
2. Mani/Pedi and Indian Food – I went with 3 female friends and my sister out for manicures and pedicures and then for Indian food. Yes, he was NOT invited.
3. My birthday party – I didn’t organize it!! My sister and a female friend (I will call her D) did and it was just the three. He complained that he wasn’t invited and I told him point blank “You knew about it, they called you to see if that date was ok. If you wanted to be invited, YELL at them not me!”

Then there was the get-together which ended up sort of being a birthday party for one of my girlfriends (D, you know that I still don’t consider it enough for you!! Next year will be BIG!!) We went to a comedy club. Me, my husband, my sister (who he didn’t want invited because he felt that it should be the ‘adults’ and he doesn’t see her in our age group – she is 9 years younger than I am – so he didn’t want her to go) and our female friend who had arranged for the evening in the first place. That get-together he went to.

Finally, there was the birthday outing for my sister. The last of the three of us to have a birthday and D and I decided to take her to Stomp!. Originally, I had not wanted to invite my husband since the idea really was to have the three of us (me, my sister and D) together. There was to be a street fair that day in the city so I thought (silly me) that all FOUR of us (my husband, sister, D and I) would walk around the fair and then my husband would take my son home so that D and I could take my sister out to eat and to Stomp!. My husband strongly disagreed with this idea (and that is being complementary to the fight that ensued when I brought up this plan.) So in the end, my sister and D went to dinner and we all four met up at Stomp! after we took my son back home to a babysitter.

Let me not forget to talk about the street fair itself. It was the street fair for the 92nd Street Y which meant that it had crafts and stuff for kids to do. So we went to the tent where they were making little honey dishes for Rosh Hashanah and Challah covers and wouldn’t you know, all of a sudden I was toting around TWO children. Because my husband insisted on doing a Challah cover. I sat working with my son on his honey dish and my husband made his Challah cover. I don’t need to spell out what the problem was with that situation.

So I had a reason for writing all this. He pointed out to me that I had not done anything for his birthday (which was 3 weeks after I had a metal plate and screws put into my leg). I found that to be very unfair but I am still valiantly trying to plan a 29.5 birthday party for him that will, G-d willing, take place this Sunday. I attempted to invite his friends, but darned if I know who they are. I honestly don't think he has any.

Two recent incidents come to mind of yet more examples of how I honestly wonder why he is fighting me to keep this marriage going. (Yet, during the writing of this, I have forgotten the other incident so I will only write the first one for now.)

On Monday I was having a phantom gall bladder attack. We have begun to take the train in to the city now that my leg is nearly fully healed, but that morning it took my husband too long to find his key card for his office so I insisted that we drive in so I wasn’t late to work. I thought that since we had the car in the city, maybe he could leave work at 6:30 as opposed to his usual 7/7:30, of late, and take us home so that I wouldn’t have to shlep my son on the train all the way home (2 trains and a bus are required for the commute). So anyway, I called him at 5:30 to see if I could come to his office and we could leave by 6:30 and I told him I was in pain. He told me he had a new intake client who was supposed to be there at 5:00 who hadn’t yet shown and so he didn’t know if he could commit to leaving at 6:30, that I might have to wait until 7. So I told him to forget it and I went home on my own.

If you are still reading this, then kudos to you! Comments, as always, are warmly welcomed!