I Don't Mean To Complain But... in Book Five: Working Through the Maze 2018

Now, really, I don’t mean to complain but when there are perfect examples of things I do want to bring them here to shed a little light onto the world.

I got home from the gym around 5:00. Wife was already home from work and the Chiropractor. I got in, she was changing into her workout gear, so I started a load of laundry and did some stuff around the house. Except, Wife didn’t start her workout. She started obsessing about her cosplay again. And how she needed to buy four more things. But as the internet wasn’t working as fast as she wanted, she started doing that thing where I start feeling anxious. She starts yelling at whatever crosses her line of sight, she starts swearing, she gets more and more angry and more and more focused on her rage. An hour later (an hour of just the seething rage), she gets up to start exercising. And then starts rage-lamenting that it’s past 6:00. She then turns to whining about not wanting to do her exercises. The whine gets interrupted by a crack of thunder. So… she throttles back into Rage-Lamenting because what is she going to do NOW if it is raining outside?! ROAR.

She then turns on the TV to start Grand Tour Season 2 for her exercising. This involves wrestling with our internet capable TV, then rage-yelling at Amazon because it is telling her to sign up for a 30 day trial, even though she signed up for one yesterday. Which leads to her rage-muttering how she hates technology. She’s broadened her anti-technology rant to screaming at her phone for “not fucking updating on the weather” so she stormed outside, throwing the sliding glass door loudly across the track. She turned, looked at me and barks… “So if it stops raining, will that be the end of it or will I get caught in a second wave?” Best I can manage is a timid, “I don’t know.” She storms back in, selects a group of exercises on her phone, then yells at the TV a bit more before starting her routine.... at 6:30.

SO… no exaggerations, no assumed emotions… in fact, I’ll offer an assumed emotion just to make things potentially clearer.......
Knowing my Wife the way I do, I can say that a large part of her rage in events like this comes from her anger at herself. And I know that.

BUT… this is what happens. Her rage kicks up… she hyper focuses on her rage… stays at peak rage for however long it lasts. Meanwhile, trying to live and work around that? Sends me into an anxiety-riddled panic. I don’t want to be the accidental or inadvertent target of that rage and I certainly don’t want to be the intentional or direct target of that rage.

As best as I could… what I have just conveyed is the objective honest truth of my life from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on May 29, 2018. Her increasing rage, my anxiety. Thus why… at least as far as my family goes… the objective response would be “Suck it up, over-sensitive snowflake. Grow a pair, pretend to be a man, and deal with it.” And maybe they’re right. But… it is still hard to shake that she goes from 0 to Enraged in naught point naught naught naught five seconds… but something like saying “I love you” takes me literally asking her to say it.