In the interests of fairness, I must admit that Tab is not exactly a slacker himself. He does much of the food shopping, most of the laundry, and all of the boys' bathing. He also does all the car, yard, and house maintenance and fixes the things the boys and I are constantly breaking. He has a fulltime job in addition to a busy schedule of freelance wedding and portrait photography.

[Yes, this is a new design. I found that too often I want to include information that just doesn't fit neatly into the narrative flow of these entries. I've seen many other online journals that use these nifty side-bars, so in the grand tradition of the Web, I stole someone else's source code and modified it to fit my color scheme.]

Learn to be a Vulcan

I feel stretched so thin, like a piece of pie dough that has been rolled out too vigorously and has torn in too many places to patch. My life from morning to night is filled with Have-To's: have to get the kids up and dressed; have to get Daniel to school and Tab to work; have to attempt to stay on top of the housework; have to pick up Daniel and Tab; have to plan, cook, serve, and clean up from the meals; have to get the kids to bed; have to do the dishes and make lunches for the next day; have to keep up my work for the Press so that I can get paid so that I can pay the bills I have to pay.

I accept this without complaint...well almost without complaint. After all, I chose this life so that I can be home with the boys. I never expected it to be easy. But what upsets me is when Tab makes me feel that all I do is not enough. When I am under the most pressure to finish a project for a Press deadline, he becomes irritable because I can't spend as much time with him as he would like. The funny thing is, I know he appreciates me because he praises me to others. Co-workers and friends of his will often tell me that they admire me because Tab has told them how much I do. Why can't he tell me that?

We fought last night. It was 11:30 and I was finishing up the sample pages, expecting to take my shower and get to bed by midnight. Tab was going to bed and said goodnight. But instead of giving me a hug or kiss, he held out his hand as though to shake mine. Now this is a gesture I've come to loathe because it is something he does "as a joke" when he feels I've been neglecting him. Usually I can ignore it, but after feeling stressed these past few days to get the sample pages in by Friday, I became angry. And he got angry because I was angry and, after all, it was meant in fun, right? It's not his fault if I've lost my sense of humor, is it?

To make a long, tiresome story short: bitter words were exchanged and tears shed, along with much stomping up and down the stairs before we both ended up in our bed in a state of temporary truce some time after 2:00 a.m. It took me nearly another hour before I calmed down enough to fall asleep.

This morning we were speaking civilly but not warmly to each other; but after he got to work he left an apology on our answering machine and sent a funny e-mail card saying he was sorry. I apologized, too, for taking quick offense. We seem to be back to normal now, treating each other with our customary affection, but gingerly lest we reopen healing wounds.

What continues to upset me is the feeling (borne out by experience) that I am somehow not allowed to get angry with him. If I get upset about something he does, his reaction is to get mad at me for being angry, and thus we end up in a huge fight. It seems unfair, somehow. Pop psychology advises not repressing your anger but instead expressing it in order to work through the issues. But how can we work through anything if we both end up yelling at each other? I'm starting to think that not expressing my anger with him is perhaps the best course. I tend to get mad easily, but I get over it quickly. If I let him know I'm upset, then he gets angry, too, and the incident escalates into a fight. But if I keep my ire to myself eventually I get over it.

I found myself thinking last night, in the midst of our argument, "I wish I were a Vulcan."

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