Cluelessness in Candy Corn on the Cob (October 2019)

I know I’m supposed to be merciful. I know I’m supposed to be consciously kind. I know I should make allowances for my husband. Today, I choose not to. I consciously choose myself today. And I am saddened by the fact that it has to be me versus him, because this was supposed to be a partnership. But a relationship that only works in one direction isn’t a partnership, and he keeps actively displaying a lack of support for me. Any support.

For instance, we had to speed down to St. Joe’s yesterday for his Stadol (for migraines, it’s a painkiller.) St. Joe’s is not in an easy part of town to get to. It took time. Yet, my prescriptions, which also include a low-grade painkiller for the same condition (migraines!) are sitting in the pharmacy. They have been there days. I am completely out of even my maintenance drugs. But did we go to the pharmacy yesterday, when he got his drugs? Nope.

It’s not the same pharmacy. Mine go to the clinic pharmacy, his has to be gotten from the hospital pharmacy because that’s a controlled substance that they only have over in a hospital. But that’s one way in which the scale is tilted. We don’t have time for my need, but we have to meet his Right Now.

Maybe I’m just bitchy because the other side of my glasses broke today. Do you know how long I’ve worn them with the one side broken, by the way? Three years. Do you know what he said this morning when I couldn’t find the missing arm? He said “oh we’ll head down to the eye doctor and get another pair.” Uh. No, we won’t. He thought Medicare was covering my glasses. I don’t have Medicare. He does. Adia does. The twins have CHIP, which is very inclusive of glasses (which they do not need.) I…barely have insurance. When he left his job? He gave up my insurance then. That was 2013. TODAY he realized that I have to hang on like there’s a safety net. These glasses were new in 2012. Today. Today he realized that if we don’t save a little money, I can’t fucking see.

He thought I was wearing broken glasses because I haven’t had time to get new.

How many years should you let your wife, who you constantly prate “I love you” at, wear broken glasses without asking if maybe she would like to head down and get a new pair? What’s the optimal amount of time for her to live in shame and embarrassment, exactly?

Bear in mind that you’ve gotten yourself new glasses in the last six months. You paid out of pocket for frames you liked, but insurance covers some frames, plus the lenses. Also, you have a new hearing aid, tandem, for which you paid a certain amount out of pocket because while one ear was covered, the tandem aid was extra. You couldn’t stand the idea that people could call you on one side and you turned your head the other way. That was serious enough for you to spend several hundred dollars (I think he paid seven hundred of the tandem aid.)

And bear in mind that you only need glasses to read, which you do as little as possible, and which you could have done with over the counter lenses. You’re neither near nor far sighted. You just felt that professionally fitted glasses were a better investment.

That’s the kind of cluelessness I’m pissed off about. And I’m just not taking it sitting down anymore. If things are a partnership, and one partner is cared for, then the other one should be, too. If she’s not, why is it a partnership? Call it parenthood instead. At least in parenthood, I knew I’d need to make sacrifices, be both shamed and embarrassed, and go without stuff. I knew, in parenthood, that there are game changers and that I could be pitched one in any and every fucking inning. There’s no cap on ‘em. You can get autism and cancer in the same kid. (I did.) You can get more than one autistic. You can get a child with the attention span of a sixteenth note.

And that’s okay. You’re supposed to deal.

But you’re also supposed to get a partner. Not an extra hurdle. I don’t want to stumble over his stupidity any more. I don’t want to be fifth place. Nor do I want to come first, because the children are essentially first place, but could I not come in at the same place he gives himself? Could he not care for me? He can chant he loves me all damn day, and he does. “I love you” every time I fucking move, all day long. It’s like a nauseating pop song. Like last summer, when you couldn’t move without that Havana song, or Despacito. Only, it’s “I Love You.”

I told him to go fuck himself this morning, though. I had to hunt that arm, and find the tape, and prep the kids, and prep for the dentist, and he comes in and goes to bed again even though he kept me up last night watching movies and I’ve only had four hours of sleep. He could have done something - anything - he could have defrosted my car. He has the scraper thing anyway. But he did nothing. Nothing for ME, anyway. He put himself to bed.

Because his tiredness matters. But mine? Nope. You can fix it with a meaningless “I love you.”