Too Tired to Fight

My husband was having a moment this weekend (okay, it was more than a moment). For
days I asked what was going on, if he was feeling all right. I got little to no response or outright
aggression. As I was ready for bed and on my way Sunday night, he announced he was bored
with his life. I heard this as a criticism of me and our life.

My first reaction was to fly across the room and murder him. Was he seriously saying that all of
the work I was doing was not enough?

Instead, and only because I was too tired to fight, I calmly asked if he wanted to clarify what
precisely was upsetting him. He unpacked how he was feeling. Work was frustrating him, our
finances tiring, intimacy lacking, and he felt like everything had become about our son.

Still feeling defensive, I thought to myself, I get up at the crack of dawn, often after being up
multiple times over the night with J-man, while he soundly sleeps on the couch. I creep out of
the house and to the office in order to get in enough hours to get out by 6:00 or 6:30 p.m. Home
to make dinner. Clean-up is his job. That’s my “free time” when I play a bit with J-man before
I do the bath and bedtime routine. By the time I’m done putting him to sleep (usually well after
10 p.m. and sometimes 11 p.m.), I just want to go to bed. On most nights instead I come back
down so we can visit and unpack the day. What more could I do? Mounds of laundry, grocery
shopping, organizing and paying the household bills? Oh wait, I already do that.

By this point I was totally lacking sympathy. He was still talking about all of the things he’s
doing. They are all true.

He does get J-man up in the morning and he does the drive to daycare, toast in hand. As you
can imagine J-man’s never eager to wake, so organizing him in the morning is exhausting. Most
of the time my husband also does pick-up at daycare and gets me on the way home. His play
time is while I cook, and J-man’s usually a handful. He’s hungry, tired, and in desperate need of
some mama time. The truth is neither of us have much time that isn’t occupied with chores and
J-man care, and we both lack sleep (arguably l lack the most sleep).

Thus my second reaction: he is right about us not having enough me or we time. He is right
that our finances are frustrating. Thus my new job, which just compounded the lack of sleep
and lack of me/we time. We lack exercise, and often healthy food choices are abandoned for
convenience. We could really use some help with organizing everything that needs to be done
in our lives.

So I did what I could. Told him that I have my days of feeling the same and that I’m sorry that
things are tough. I gave him a big hug and said it’s almost the holidays and we could both use
a break. I gave him a kiss, ignored his comment about not thinking he could ever do the “baby
thing” again, and told him it could only get better.

Lesson learned? Sometimes it’s good to be too tired to fight. To listen, to sympathize, and to
let your partner vent without taking it personally (I know, hard unless you are too tired to fight). Parenting is hard and so is life.

-Sleepwalking Mama


[image: three red balloons II by Beverly LeFevre]