It seems to my husband that after all our years together, I have become a complete and utter bitch. He believes I am mean and incorrigible towards him. No one else—just him. In fact, my husband has gone so far as to accuse me of creating this cold-hearted personality I magically switch back and forth between, simply to rain my bitchitude on his happy parade because I have nothing better to do with my time.
Bahahahahaha!
How I wish I could say that were true. Unfortunately, my brain is not that highly evolved. It does not have an area of gray matter designated to the control and manufacturing of my every thought, feeling, action, want, need, and/or desire associated with him. That would probably qualify as some sort of superpower.
I HATE to break it to him, but I am not that kind of awesome. (Yet.) It’s highly flattering but not realistic for him to think I spend my day obsessing over ways to fuck his shit up. In reality, it is him fucking my shit up. He’s only getting the end result of that deal because he chooses to be oblivious.
If my husband took the time to stop and think for just a moment, he would see where my nagging, nerve-grating bitchiness is originating from. Maybe if he listened to my endless explanations with an open mind, he would understand. It certainly does not take a specialized brain section to figure out why the brunt of my frustrations land his way, whether intentional or not.
However, he is not soaking in my frustrations.
My husband is completely ignorant to the direct impact he has on my life, even when he is at work. Everything he does while he is at home affects everything going down the line. It is like a domino topple happening over and over again.
Simply by being himself, my husband can throw our routines off kilter, unbalance the tables of fairness, put a wrench in our plans, start mealtime drama with the kids, and create chaos out of organized situations. There is no thought given to what I do, when I do it, or why I do it on his part. I don’t want to control him or tell him how to do his parenting, but in that same breath, I sure as hell expect him to be on the same page as me. People in a partnership stick to one set of guidelines for consistency’s sake!
Being a stay-at-home parent for the past five years, I have become fully aware of the flow of our household. How each individual family member creates the familiarity and comforts of home when put together. I have also become cognizant of every little nuance thereof. The slightest glitch or hiccup in our system will cause a trickle down of calamities, which sometimes can go on for days.
Seriously. It makes me feel like I am going insane while constantly scrambling around to do damage control.
When I wake up, I don’t expect to walk into a kitchen disaster from my husband’s 4 am, after-work meal. But I do. Nor do I expect to find oil streaks all over my entry walls when he’s got a locker room at his job for changing out of his uniform. Yet it happens every day.
His coffee cup is left on the end table every afternoon when leaving for work. Opened mail and sales ads strewn right alongside it. Empty medicine bottles clutter the medicine bin because it is too hard for him to throw them away … I guess. Dirty clothes litter the bathroom next to the laundry chute. Toothpaste globs are left in the sink. My husband leaves a trail of evidence in his wake reflecting his every movement throughout our home. All would be forgiven if he were busy clearing the wake our children deposit behind themselves, but NO. He believes it is part of MY role in this household to be everyone’s personal maid.
How am I ever supposed to deep clean this damn forsaken house when the time I have to do so is being wasted by picking up after both the children and the adult?
The answer is I fucking can’t.
There is no good reason why the dogs can’t be let out when he gets home from work at 3:30 am; he knows they will piss on the carpet otherwise. Or why he can’t clean up the yard on his own without making the kids help, just to be sure it is done right a couple times out of the year. My husband even has the nerve to make himself a snack while I’m cooking dinner, right in front of the grubby beggars I just banished with a stern, “You and your hungry tummies will have to WAIT.”
The job title ‘stay-at-home-parent’ does not include live-in maid, built-in landscaper, on-duty repairman, or personal slave anywhere between stay and parent. So it really is no wonder at all that I am the biggest bitch of all time in my husband’s perspective.
Because I am.
Just not for the imaginary reasons he thinks. If my husband would open his eyes to reality for a minute, he would see this bitch is simply an overworked and undervalued mom trying to survive this journey to insanity and beyond—without the help of a conscientious husband to back her up.
Until then, my bitchitude will continue to reign under the guise of my dual personality super powers. Maybe I’ll live it up a little while I can—things could be a lot worse than being a Super Bitch who rains on her husband’s lazy parade.