Sunday, Sunday

Well, the inevitable meltdown finally occurred. Or, should I say, is occurring.

As we reviewed the Sunday ads, the subject of my upcoming schedule came to the fore. I leave for a 4 day conference mid this week. She's staying home. Flights were just too expensive. And schedules unattractive.

Anyway, so as NOT to blindside her later, like later this week or next week when I'm back, I made sure to mention that upon my return, later that week commencing Thursday night, I have work related meetings into Saturday a.m.. Mind you, she had this info before and didn't apparently retain or record it. Anyway, too little notice, too late, keeps being an issue according to her.

She, as I was afraid she would, rapidly descended into an unhappy state. This is after a relatively conflict-free past work week (of course, I made myself very availale for her as she was in town a lot -- that always helps -- whether I have the time is another matter...) Probably even more an affect was the fact that she had almost no sleep last night due to her stomach hurting (may not be tolerating the presciption dose of Motrin).

Anyway, I knew she was likely to get very churlish and unhappy.... Hoped otherwise by being relatively proactive with info, but of course it wasn't enough.

She began the rants about not knowing, about what the hell is she supposed to do with herself while I'm out of the house 9 days out of the next 14, etc, etc. I tried to head of having a huge fight by pointing out that's where we were headed....

And, by pointing out that I thought I'd followed "all the rules". She had the info long ago, and I thought I was reminding her of what was coming up. She ranted on some. Making snarky remarks about "it's his WORK", etc.... (this usually precedes her getting more and more upset.) This time, so far not too dramatically, but enough that I was starting to get upset.

To the work crack, I finally said, "Look, this looks like it's headed to the usual place. By later today you will accuse me of being just like your first husband (whose work was "all important (actually it was a camoflage for his philandering)) then of being as bad as your mother, or a combination of both. You'll accuse me of abusing you in some manner as you've done before when we get into this space."

I think I finally said I wasn't going to engage in this any further, but that might have been earlier, attempting to "head things off".

I don't recall her response, only that she was put out that I laid that out for her.... And, I headed upstairs to the treadmill to work off some of my negative energy.

Meanwhile, she came to me not at all, got showered, dressed, and left me a note that "I'm going elsewhere so you can't accuse me of anything else. Have a nice day."

And, I've journaled this while cooling off from my treadmilling.

Now, I'll clean up, do the usual Sunday stuff: trash, count pills, etc.... then probably work on taxes.

No reason for me not to do what I usually do and what must be done on a Sunday in this household. Someone has to be the adult.