Anger Management in The Tightrope Dance (August 2019)

It has occurred to me that I am hugely, massively, hideously angry. I think some of it is for a damn good reason - Spouse hasn’t been doing anything I’d like or I need to happen regularly, from the little shit (back rubs) to the big shit (income, job, security, household stability, etc.) That kind of neglect should make me angry, I feel. Every job he shirks is like five more for me, because not only do I have to do the thing myself, I have to reassure the children that it’s getting done, secure the funding to do it (he doesn’t give me money from our major stream of income unless I beg, basically. I can’t even get $5 to go to Wal-Mart for an ice cream (if I ate ice cream, which I really don’t) make amends to the creditors (such as finding payment plans for bills) and so on and so on. If he did the thing when it was meant to happen, it’d be done in just one or two steps. But he doesn’t, and he also hides things he hasn’t done, so sometimes the first step for me is discovery that something is wrong, which is really, really upsetting.

I mean, we’ve come home to no electricity because he didn’t tell me the bill was in and that we didn’t have the cash and not telling me means I didn’t get the chance to beg for an extension, so instead, we come home to no lights and he’s all like “I didn’t know this was going to happen!” but there’s a rubberbanded notice on the doorknob saying they sent notification and we didn’t pay. That’s happened two or three times. Things like that, I think I’m allowed to get angry.

(No, I’m not home to check the mail. No, he won’t sign over representative payee status of his disability payment to me. No, I cannot force him to, but damn, do I wish that were possible.)

And you know what? Even if I COULD force him to give me that power, I don’t want it. I want him to budget his income and step up and pay bills instead of buying pizza and Apocalyptica albums. ($30 worth, coming right on our twin daughters’ birthdays. He did not buy their gifts - but I did.) And despite preparation for chicken and dumpling stew, we had pizza for dinner. Am I supposed to hide the phone? And the computer? And his keys? He’s got ways of getting what he wants, and he uses them.

But I am not allowed the same freedom. My income is spent before I get it, most months. He’s already got earmarks on my school money. I had to demand enough to buy my books, because he was like “how much? how much? how much?” And when my notice came (in the mail) he had it open and was like “Oh, I was hoping for more.” And I’m like…well, I’m basically seething and thinking “fuck YOU.”

Pretty sure I should stop doing that. But murder isn’t legal. So I’m looking into dedicated anger management therapy here in town. I know it can’t change him. I don’t think changing ME is going to solve much here. But I can at least point to that therapy try when we end up in divorce court (or when I end up in court after he kills himself, like he threatens to do every time I say I’m gonna leave) and point out I tried. We did try “marriage therapy,” but he stopped making the appointments and he stopped taking me (and I wasn’t yet stealing my own keys and taking myself places. Tooth pain made that happen.) (And it was finals month, and I was on campus from 7 to about 4:30, and I depended on him to get there and home again.) And he controls whether I can pay my cell phone bill, so that’s not a guaranteed thing. I often don’t have phone access, food access, transportation access, or health care access unless he wants to do it.

I would foam at the mouth if someone did this to one of my girls. But I’ve been here for 19 years, and I’ll be here at least two more. The Plan is degree-job-apartment-custody-divorce. I’m working damn hard for these degrees.

I think this could be rock bottom. But I won’t be here forever. And maybe the damn therapy will help and changing me will be some magical solution to the fact that I feel like I’m the mother of a guy who’s ten years older than me. I feel like an automaton created to take care of them. Like Rosie, the robot maid off the Jetsons - except I’m fucking dysfunctional and I won’t do it all and I yell and screech when people demand more than I want to do.

If I can’t be happy, then I can at least be loud in my misery. But he’s deaf, you know - and he’s not hearing me.