February 18, 2005

• Ass clown.

  
  

  (Just let me preface this to say, that I do still love the guy (more's the pity!) and he has some redeeming qualities. Or I'd have left him waay before now.)

  
  

  So it's Saturday, right? So I get up late (because it's my turn to sleep late this Saturday) and I've slept badly. I have been worrying myself sick about money and finances, and at 4am I came to a resolution. I am going back to work. No, I don't like it, yes, I think it's shortchanging my youngest (she's two) and holy fuck - do I hate him for it. But the bottom line is, I don't have to be slammed on the head with a two-by-four to get it.

  
  

  My husband is lazy, self centred and infantile. He's lots of other good things, but the plain truth of the matter is - these are the faults that will sink us, if I let it. Note I said 'I'. As in me, my, mine. As in 'all about me', 'my worries', 'my reaction', 'those kids are mine'.

  
  

  I've tried to change the way he looks at things. Tried to force him to grow up, to take responsibility and to just suck it up. He can't. His will is stronger than mine. His capacity for selfishness is greater. And I can't sit back and watch this family go through yet more money worries that leave us sniping at each other, the kids needy and clingy and our house like a battle zone.

  
  

  So I am going to take control. I will get a full time job. Not a high power one - I owe my kids more than an 80 hour a week mum - a job where I get to the office at 8:30 and leave at 5:30. No prospects, no challenges but just a little job that keeps us ticking over while the hub takes forever to grow up. He can get the same.

  
  

  He will assume more responsibility for things around the home - he can learn to fucking cook and he can bloody well serve dinner before 10pm even if he is tired, he can learn what it's like to parent lovingly on 4 hours sleep and he can make my damn lunches(as well as his own)  and dinners for half the week. He can iron half the clothes which includes his damn shirts. I will do the other half. Because it's his existential angst - he can sort out childcare. He can be prepared that I will want to go out with my friends and cut loose, and he can stay at home and "babysit". (Let's see if he thinks it's babysitting when it's part of what he does all day). He can look after the kids for an entire day on the weekend from breakfast to bedtimes. In turn, I will do the same.

  
  

  Let's see if the man who breaks down and screams at the kids 'that he just wants 5 minutes to himself' after he's looked after them for the morning can hack having to do both that AND work outside the home.

  
  

  Remember folks: This is the man who has noticed I am updating my resume, has figured out that I am barely speaking to him, has been told that I am mightily pissed at him but 'will get over it', has had to cook dinner twice this week (bacon and eggs and tuna sandwiches. Humph.), and has heard me say that I am looking for a job --- and still has yet to talk to me about what is going on with us. Has yet to discuss what his being jobless means, or how we are going to manage, and has fielded frantic phone calls from his mother about the direness of the situation because I just won't.

  
  

  Hasn't asked me yet how I feel about this, him and what's happening. Except to nervously ask me about 20 times a day if I am 'all right'. Which is about 19.875 more times than normal.

  
  

  This is gonna be interesting, don't you think?

  
  

  I feel all tingly with anticipation. My life might actually be better.

  • 10:18 pm
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