Yep. I knew it wouldn’t last. The kids were gone last night, and they are gone again tonight. Not that it matters. Will acts this way even if they are here. He drank with the neighbor all day, burnt trash and moved shit around the yard. This morning at about 11, he went outside to work. Around 2 PM, he popped his head in the door to see if I needed anything. He needs beer. He brought some coffee home because I asked. I thought it was nice.
7:30 PM rolls around, and he comes into the house. I said hello, but I am staying here at the computer. I can tell by the way that he opened the door that he is unhappy with me. He makes a certain sound when he opens the door, angry with me. It is hard to describe, but I know it by heart. He paces around looking for evidence against me. I see him looking under the couches and straightening the movies on the console.
He found some Milk Dud boxes in a blanket on the couch. “Mm hmm!” he said, and I know he found what he was looking for. Now he walks through the kitchen looking at the boxes as if he struck gold. I am in trouble now because I didn’t find the kids’ Milk Duds or “whip their asses” for being so careless. That is his solution for everything. If only I “whipped those boys’ asses when they were younger”, then our boys would be perfect and so would our marriage.
He says, “Did you eat?”
Uh oh. Here we go. I’ll be right back…
No Food
He says, “Did you eat?” and I jump up to get him something to eat.
I say, “Yes, I had an oven pizza.”
“An oven pizza?”
“Yes, a pizza from the oven. You can have a pizza or I’ll heat up the pot pies you like.”
“I haven’t eaten all day. Did you eat today?”
“Mostly coffee, but I did have a sandwich sometime around noon. Here, have some fruit salad. It will hold you over until your pot pie is done.”
We sat and watched Monk for a while. My heart started to pound because I knew what was coming next, and I frantically tried to think of a way to avoid it. Eleven minutes later, the microwave went off, I got his pie, put it on his plate and gave it to him. I told him that the second one was in the microwave and I would get it when it finished cooking.
“I didn’t eat all day,” he said.
“Why didn’t you eat?” I asked him.
“Because no one told me there was any food ready.”
“Let’s not go here tonight”, I said, and went back to watching Monk.
“So, you don’t care that I didn’t eat today?”
“If you were hungry, then you should have come in the house and ate.”
“You didn’t think about me all day? I see how it is. You, you, you. That’s how it is.”
“No, I think that you’re a big boy and you don’t need me to come tell you that you’re hungry.”
“How do we do this? How do we do this when we don’t do things like our parents raised us?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, I was raised to expect to be called in for lunch and dinner. Here it is 7:30 at night and I haven’t eaten all day.”
I stayed quiet. He filled his belly with beer all day; it isn’t my fault he didn’t take time to eat, too. The buzzer went off on the microwave, but I did not go get his stupid pie. I got up and went back to the bathroom.
When I came out, he said, “So, what I expect of you doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t think we should talk about this tonight.”
“You never want to talk about it.”
“No, I don’t want to talk about it tonight.”
I gave him his second pie, and then I left the room to get my digital recorder. I turned it on to record, and hid it in my shirt. I may need evidence if only to prove to him what he does. I feel better protected with the recorder. I feel like I am doing something to help myself. I feel stronger and more in control.
Never mind. He passed out before he finished his dinner.
We have this conversation at least twice a year, but it isn’t always as pleasant. I tell him that if he came in the house when he got a break, I would gladly fix his lunch for him; but I do not want to fix his lunch and call him two or three times only to find he ignores me. He wants me to waste my time fixing him a lunch that he usually does not eat because my time is not nearly as valuable as his is. Bullshit. Will is lucky that I am willing to fix him lunch at all.
Related entries: Loveseat and Hunger Issues.
This entry is one day out of the journal I kept while I was still in the marriage. The whole thing, in order, is the book: My Abusive Marriage . . . and what i’m doing in it. Or read the first pages if you want to see whether it’s for you.