180: A Timely Reminder

 I wrote yesterday about staying because of guilt.

Well, this morning I got a timely reminder of why, despite good times now and again, I need to make a move.

Our son is in the middle of important exams and, by all accounts from school, has worked pretty well through the year. He is on a mid-term break and She is working from home.

When she isn't here, he gets up of his own accord mostly and is down to his books by 10:30 or so. Today, there was much nagging and he stayed in bed. Then there was some diatribe which went for many minutes as she vented about something. I was in a meeting on zoom and so I did not get the subject. But it almost doesn't matter - it was loud and it was rude.

Yes, he takes time to do what he is told but that would be in common with 99.5% of teenagers around the globe. And, of course, nagging is the most effective way of getting someone to do something - everyone knows that!

She creates the tension and the drama but then expects everyone to get on with things as if nothing has happened. Does she speak to anyone like that outside her immediate circle? Yes, as it happens - call centre people or shop assistants. The common denominator - people who will not answer back.

I also discipline our son from time to time but in a fashion that is more low-key, trying to explain - as I would in a professional setting.

But, anyway, though a small incident, if I needed a reminder, this was it. A leopard does not change its spots and I need to escape before I am devoured.

Evening update: My son is clearly made of stoic material - as I have noted before when he has come under stress. I wrote that, 'Our son – unlike me – is a bounce-backer and in that sense more like you. He will take your punishment and then be as cheerful as before but how long will he carry on like that?'  in a rather long post: 71: What I really think but cannot say

So, by the evening she was chatting away to him about our upcoming summer holidays and he was fine with her. I would have stewed for days. But then she has told me in the past that confrontation is good and just because I don't like it does not mean that she will not carry on doing it.

The pleasant atmosphere at the end of the day creates amnesia ... perhaps I am just a snowflake but there will be a next time and a next time and a next time ... after twenty one years can there be a last time?

179: Generally peaceful but small examples

Life has been ok lately - she goes to work, I work from home and look after most things. Trying to keep it peaceful for our son who is in the middle of public exams.

My brother, who lives a couple of hours away, invited us to lunch. For 1 pm. I said we would set off about 11 am - theorising that even with bad traffic we would be there for about 1:20 / 1:30.

So we get ready to leave as planned and, all of a sudden, she says she has to go to the shops. In the end, we do not really leave until 12. Luckily, traffic is not terrible and we arrive by 2.

A small thing really. But it reminded me of Entry 112: Toxicity and point 2! There is no apology from her, just, 'we set off late.' It is a lack of respect - perhaps unconscious - and a need to control. For her own appointments, though, and to meet her friends, all is always on time.

The last few weeks we have had friends and family over and I have done most of the cooking. Her brother and another friend were coming over and, as usual when she is cooking, everything is stressful and last minute and messy. When I cook I never ask for help. But this morning, 'do this, do that ... I didn't ask you to do that ...'

'Do you still have a headache?' she asks.

'A little.'

'Thought so. You are slow when you have a headache and become like your brother.'

Thanks ... particularly so as I only appeared slow because of your multiple instructions and often contradictory ones. And how typical to bring my family into this - her's of course are paragons of virtue. 

And they're not bad in reality - I like them. But her parents would routinely turn up an hour and a half late to things - to everyone to be fair, friend and formal alike, and it would be ever so charming!

While drifting around blogs myself, came across this.

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/dear-gt/after-32-years-im-ready-to-leave-my-wife-and-take-a-chance

This is clearly not my situation but I am well aware that what I am thinking is in common with millions of others. And, in some of the comments in the blog above, I see the effect leaving has on the partner. 

But do I stay because of guilt - because of the effect it might have? She is about to turn 50, has a job, is outgoing ... tells me often that I am stupid ... can she not survive?

178: Feel free to comment!!

Been seeing a few hits recently on this blog.

While this has been entirely an exercise in self-counselling and a stress reliever, I have always kept it open and kept it anonymous.

But, hey, if you are reading and feel like chucking in a comment, please do so - it would be good to share some thoughts. 

I am one of many millions in this position ... I get that. But, like everything else in life, the experience is both common and individual.

To reprise a famous quote from Joseph Conrad: 'Only the young have such moments. I don’t mean the very young. No. The very young have, properly speaking, no moments. It is the privilege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection.

'One closes behind one the little gate of mere boyishness—and enters an enchanted garden. Its very shades glow with promise. Every turn of the path has its seduction. And it isn’t because it is an undiscovered country. One knows well enough that all mankind had streamed that way. It is the charm of universal experience from which one expects an uncommon or personal sensation—a bit of one’s own.

'One goes on recognizing the landmarks of the predecessors, excited, amused, taking the hard luck and the good luck together—the kicks and the half-pence, as the saying is—the picturesque common lot that holds so many possibilities for the deserving or perhaps for the lucky. Yes. One goes on. And the time, too, goes on—till one perceives ahead a shadow-line warning one that the region of early youth, too, must be left behind.'

For sure, I am at the other end of life to the 'young' and many shadow-lines have come and gone, but 'the landmarks of the predecessors' and the 'picturesque common lot ...' still hold true. 'One knows well enough that all mankind has streamed that way.'

I feel I know what I must do, cliched though that is ... but can I?