Better Left Unsaid in Book Four: Ichi-no-Tani 2017

Sometimes… I think I should just.... fucking quit. At life.

So… I woke up this morning at 6 am because Wife worked at 7 and I wanted to be awake to help with serving Breakfast and making sure she was awake on time. I woke her up at 6:30 and… she. was. FURIOUS. Apparently, despite her calendar saying 7 am… she had gotten permission to work at 8 instead. So, my “caring gesture” of “trying to help” was an irritating, horrible action that interrupted her sleep and dammit didn’t I pay attention last week when she off-handedly mentioned that she was going to go to work late no matter what. So… that’s how my day started. When she did get out of bed… still furious that I had dared wake her… I asked if I could make her her breakfast so that she would have more time to do whatever it is she wanted to do that morning. Her very angry response was “NO! There is nothing you can do. I can’t believe you woke me up.”

Then she went to work… and I did not go back to sleep (despite wanting to). I did dishes and laundry and played video games.

Wife comes home shortly after 5. Immediately starts bitching about how the pharmacy RUINED her day because her STUPID FUCKING DOCTOR said she could get her refill on September 11… and HOLY FUCK is that wrong because on September 11th, Wife will only have two pills left… her stupid, irresponsible, fucking doctor. And I’m sitting here going… “holy fuck! So… if something isn’t exactly as you want it, it is a catastrophe?” Then she grabs a bunch of cleaning products and storms out the door. I run to her and ask “What are you doing?” to which she responds, “Cleaning your car. You are driving a client this week, right?!” And storms off. I grab shoes and a t-shirt and chase after her and she is (I kid you not) scrubbing the dials on my car radio because “This car is fucking disgusting! Filthy!” I insist several times that it is suitable for a Prostitute (since that is the client I am transporting) but nope. My car does’t meet with Wife’s requirements for clean; so she has to keep going. However, she does have the time (and wherewithal) to tell me “Start chopping up vegetables if you go back inside.” Wait… why? “We’re having the risoto for dinner.” To which I said, “You mean the same risotto we had for dinner on Thursday, that I had for lunch on Friday, that I had again for dinner of Friday?” Apparently… yes. Because fuck it… if Wife is buying the ingredients, and we are cooking (I do most of prep) then why NOT have the same thing for every fucking meal? I told her flat out… no. We’re not doing that. I’ll cook one of the FOUR Bertoli Skillet meals we have in our freezer. At least that way I’ll get to eat something different.

I start cooking. I take care of the laundry and dishes. Wife continues to (essentially) detail my car because she thinks it is disgusting to have dust in a car?! She comes back in… we’re okay. For about two hours.

I don’t know what specifically set it off. But I hit pause on the Netflix, think about how impressively tired I am, think about the fact that I have another 10-14 hour day tomorrow, and hear Wife bitching about the fact that she has to be in Photo tomorrow “early” (8:30 a.m.) and how her entire day will be ruined and she’ll be so depressed and how much she hates photo.... I snapped. I’d had enough. Honestly. The only thing she does is bitch about work. She doesn’t talk about anything else except how much she hates her job… and after 6 years of it… I snapped.

I yelled at her. I told her that HONESTLY she could be making MORE money and BETTER insurance on Day 1 of working at US Bank or Wells Fargo or working a Principal Financial Call Center. To which she said, “And I’d hate it even more, so just no.” Which… of course… pushed me even more. So I was… honest. I was… open. I told her that for the entire 6 years we’ve been married, I’ve heard “I hate Wal Mart” more than I’ve heard “I love you” and I was fucking sick of it. I painted for her the picture of Omaha… a happening city of Music, Theater, and Friends that she repeatedly said was one of the worst things I’d ever done to her. So fine, fuck it. We’ll move back to Iowa. HELL, as a Prosecutor in a small town, WIFE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO KEEP WORKING! But she chose to keep a Wal Mart job part time because she didn’t want to just stay at home. But… while we struggled with Tiny Town and while I tried to learn a job with ZERO help… Wife kept bitching about Wal Mart. We move to Des Moines. I take a job that I’m still kind of excited about but it offers ZERO funds and ZERO insurance. Wife is saying how her “life is worse than ever!” now. And frankly… I’ve had enough. If I wanted to experience this kind of constant downer, I would have married Aku. She was crazy, violent, and tried to kill me… but at least our sex life would be PRESENT.

And so… I told Wife, in no uncertain terms, that I was DONE with her song. I actually said, “Wal Mart is terrible, I hate my life, I’ve never been this miserable.’ Top ten hit from 2012, lost ALL OF IT’S APPEAL five years later!” And… Wife is trying to make me feel like I went overboard. By telling her the “I hate myself, I hate Wal Mart, I’m so miserable” chorus has been THE ONLY constant in our entire marriage… (accurate).... apparently, I’m the asshole. So she has decided to not speak, not make a noise, for the last hour. Because when a “Holy shit, stop making everything in our marriage about how much you hate the job you’ve had for fifteen years” speech erupts… the mature response is The Silent Treatment. Christ.

And while Wife (likely) thinks I come here to bitch about “how terrible” she is… I’m actually here because I don’t know something. She is making me feel like I’m the monster for speaking up about this. Am I? Considering our entire relationship has been 70% “I hate wal mart”, 10% “we’re weird, but we mesh” and 20% “inside jokes”.... I mean… am I unreasonable to (while going through a significant job issue… again) be just.... done with her constant “I hate Wal Mart, I hate life, someone do something!”