September 30, 2009

Another night, another drunk. She spent most of the dinner hour yacking on her cell phone out in her smoking lounge. Then afterwards she chased the kids out and told them to go run around the block. I was upstairs. They asked me to go for a walk with them. She got mad at that and started ranting about how they needed to run. I took them for a walk. It is hard to talk to her while she is drinking, especially when I think her drinking actually affects whatever it is she is complaining about. She just goes ballistic if I suggest that her drinking is the cause of any problem whatsoever. At least, she does when she is drinking.

September 29, 2009

I got home determined to talk to my wife about our future. When she came home, I went back into her smoking lounge with her and started to talk. I pointed out that her father was not doing well and our time in this house was going to be limited. I also told her that her addictive behavior was making it very difficult to plan or do anything. I also told her that her lying about planning a recent Happy Hour at work pissed me off. (She had told me that her boss planned it. A few days later, she slipped up and said that she had planned it.) After a few minutes of this, she decided that she just had to go to the bathroom. Then she never came back. I realized that she had been acting funny and sure enough, there was an open bottle of vodka under the towels. I dumped it. Later, she realized what I had done and got angry but wouldn’t directly say why. She sat in the chair and sulked all night.

September 28, 2009

I still want to try to talk to my wife. But not tonight. Apparently the trial she was an alternate juror on came back with a hung jury and no verdict. She is quite upset and so, naturally, has to get drunk.

Then she started the usual crap. She ate a couple of bites of dinner and bitched about it. Grilled cheese sandwiches and clam chowder. Things she usually likes. But tonight she couldn’t eat provolone cheese and made a big deal of finding the sandwich with swiss cheese, pawing through them all and opening each one and inspecting it. I had bought oyster crackers to go with the chowder, which I don’t particularly like but she and the kids do. So I got them as a treat for them. She opened the box and dumped half the box into her bowl, making a big mess. She then took two bites and refused to eat any more. And sat there sulking for the rest of the meal.

She spent the rest of the evening bitching. She complained that they were doing their homework after dinner. Then, during the one show I wanted to watch that evening, she demanded that I go online and sign the kids up for swimming lessons. Which we couldn’t do anyway because we can’t afford it until payday. I told her I couldn’t do it and she got all pissed off and then spent the rest of the night sitting like a drunken bloated spider just waiting for anyone to say something she could pounce on and argue about. It wasn’t fun and soon the kids and I went up to bed.

September 27, 2009

I wanted to talk to my wife about her drinking and our future. I wanted to try and make some kind of plans with her to get us out of the situation we are in. Nope. She surprised me by holding back a bottle so she could ruin Sunday, usually a safe day as the liquor stores are closed and she generally can’t manage to save a bottle that long. Maybe she found one she had forgotten about? It happens.

Anyway, she got drunk and was mean to the kids and nasty to me. She badgered our son (and me) until I clipped his finger and toe nails and then made the boy go up, with her, to take a shower. He asked me to go up there with him instead of his mother because, “You know, Dad. She’s not herself.” I told him I’d come up in a few minutes and make sure things were okay. That worked. How sad is it that my son doesn’t like to be alone with my wife, his mother, when she is drinking?

September 22, 2009

Another disappointing evening of drinking. When she got back from jury duty, I tried to talk to her about some of the things she had said the night before. The way she kept arguing with me about the kids instead of doing something about it, the way she picked fights with me over nothing and the hypocrisy of her telling me that the kids were out of control as she stood there drunk and obnoxious.  She made a noise like she couldn’t understand why she says and does things like that, that she was sorry and then she went out to her smoking lounge and got drunk. No fighting, though, so I guess that’s a good thing.

September 21, 2009

My wife got off her trial early. (She is an alternate on the jury for a criminal case.) By the time I got to the house, she was ensconced on the couch watching brain dead TV. She sat there with the kids all afternoon while I was grocery shopping and then came back here and made dinner.  by the time dinner was done, she was well into her bottle of vodka. She started harping on the kids about showers and combing their hair. The usual things she does while drinking. Showers were taken, the kids combed their hair and by then it was bed time. I took them up and read to them for a bit.

When I got back downstairs, my wife starts bitching at me that the kids made a big mess down here. Okay, it was a big mess all afternoon while you were sitting in it, with the kids right here, why is it an issue NOW, when they are in bed? Then she informs me that the kids are just out of control. Unfortunately, for me, having my alcoholic, drunk, wife telling me that the kids are out of control just reeks of hypocrisy and a rather sad, pathetic sort of irony. Rather then argue, I just ignored her and went to bed. I read myself to sleep and was trying to do that when she starts in on me again.

She tells me that when her mother got back Saturday (from a road trip to South Carolina), her mother told her there was an ink mark on her new couch in the TV room and demanded that we watch our kids more closely. My wife decided that I was already annoyed with her parents and she didn’t want to piss me off, so she didn’t tell me. No, she waits two and a half days until I am trying to read myself to sleep and she is drunk, then she tells me. Like that isn’t going to piss me off. Then she also tells me that there is another sticky stain under the armrest cover and she thinks it is gum. But her mother hasn’t seen that one yet, and won’t there be a big stink when she finds that? My wife goes on and on about this and I just totally ignore her as she is just trying to get my goat and drag me into an argument (right as I need to get to sleep so I can get up at four am for work.) Finally she stomped off into her smoking lounge (muttering that I was unbelievable and how she was done with me and the kids) and I went to sleep.

The next morning, I got up and looked at the ‘ink’ stain. It wasn’t ink. The kids probably did it, but it wasn’t ink. Then I looked at the ‘gum’ stain. It wasn’t gum and I took a damp dish towel and cleaned it off in less time then it took my drunk wife to tell me where it was. (She was a bit confused and couldn’t figure out what to call the arm rest and its cover.) This afternoon, I got back from work and asked my daughter about the ‘ink’ stain. She didn’t know anything about it (surprise!) but she got a damp paper towel and wiped it right off the couch. I guess it wasn’t ink after all. It turns out that my wife never spoke to the children about the stains even after having two days to mention it to them. No, instead she saves it for when she is drunk to bitch at me about it. And the kids are asleep by then so I couldn’t ask them or punish them or anything else.  She couldn’t have been a good wife and mother and just dealt with the whole problem without even involving me. She claims she didn’t want to piss me off and yet, she comes to me with it the first night she gets drunk! What a plan!

September 18, 2009

My wife has been drinking several nights this week. Talking to her Monday hasn’t helped at all. Not that I really expected it to, I guess.

September 13, 2009

Tonight I tried to talk to my wife. I had to speak quickly, I could see that she had a bottle and had already opened it but not drunk too much, yet. I told her that we used to be partners, that it used to be me and her against the world. Now it doesn’t feel that way so much. I had told her on Sunday night that I was tired of not seeing her from Sunday evening until she woke up from her hangover on Saturday morning. She got mad at that, but didn’t argue the reality of what I said. I wanted to talk to her some more, but she basically turned and fled and then got drunk.

September 11, 2009

It was a family gathering at my in-laws house (where we live). My wife never does well with those, but this one started out alright. In fact, as long as her siblings were here with the babies, well, toddlers, now, she was okay. Drinking, but okay. Then they all left and things slid downhill fast.

Our daughter announced that she wanted to run for class president. We both thought that sounded great, but then my wife started getting all carried away with the whole thing. She demanded that we start writing her speech and that I should be helping our daughter, RIGHT NOW, because, “she has nothing, no sports, and this is her only hope at a scholarship for college.” At nearly eleven on a Friday night. I asked her to stop saying that our daughter has nothing, I don’t think it is true and it is discouraging. Of course, that started an argument and meant that I was an asshole who doesn’t love our kids. I decided to go wash up for bed and tucked the kids in and choose to ignore any further drunken rantings by my wife. This pissed her off, but she chose to go sulk in her smoking lounge rather than fight with me. All to the good, as far as I was concerned.

September 10, 2009

Drinking again, but no problems.