"You're Going To Get Yourself Stabbed."

I got home last night from work at my normal hour. I arrived home in my normal car. I unlocked the door with my normal key, and then I unlocked the deadbolt with my other, normal key. I didn't enter through the window, or come down the chimney, or make any unusual noises. I went outside to coax the dog in, and I stood there and petted her for a while. When I came back in from the backdoor, my husband burst out of the bedroom holding a large hunting knife in the air.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!?" he screamed at me. "I was screaming your name! Why the fuck didn't you answer me?"

Perhaps he was screaming my name. Perhaps he'd been making sure it was me who had come home in my car, entered the house with my house key, and arrived at precisely the same time I always arrive home. Perhaps he'd genuinely been surprised that his wife was coming home from work...and so maybe he had been shouting my name and gotten afraid when I didn't answer because I was outside with the dog. Maybe that happened...but I'm not sure why.

I stood before him, the knife still held in the air, a wild, angry look in his eye. I felt strangely calm, but rather confused.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?! You are going to get yourself stabbed acting like that! Jesus fucking Christ!" he ranted.

I realized as he stood there, still threatening me with a knife, that I was in a moment that felt pretty unmanageable, and I said a little prayer. I didn't respond to him for a few moments. I also, slowly, realized that there's a real good chance that he wasn't concerned about who was coming in the house at all...there was just too much he could have done to confirm that it was me, like look out the window at my car in the driveway. There was no need, also, for him to continue to hold the knife like that, so menacingly. There was no need for the yelling.

"Do you think this shit is funny, you acting like that? Are you playing some kind of fucking game?" he asked.

Finally, I responded, "No. I've been at work for a long time. I'm not coming home to pick a fight with you. I didn't hear you calling me because I was outside with the dog."

He finally lowered the knife and walked away, slamming the bedroom door, and shouting at me over his shoulder. I collected my purse and books from the kitchen counter, and I went and took a long bath.

Honestly, I think he wanted me to know that he is very angry about how I wouldn't let him bamboozle me out of money. I think the whole display was a pretense to scare me, to take power over me. He wanted to threaten me with a knife because he doesn't like it that I'm growing, setting boundaries, and standing up to his manipulation. He's scared, and he wants me to be scared, too.

I am not sure what to do with this incident. I have promised myself that I won't live with him if he's scary...that I won't be afraid to come home anymore. I wasn't quite afraid of him, knife-wielding maniac that he was...but I'm not sure that my calmness wasn't just the way I respond to crises now. Crisis after crisis after crisis has made me rather indifferent, rather still on the inside and out. Maybe I should have been afraid.

Today, I'm wary and distant. He is presenting lots of interesting shaming behaviors, and he seems to need desperately for me to feel like I've done something wrong or like I'm at risk of losing him. I'm not afraid of losing him. In fact, I'm more afraid of not being able to let him go.

His Present Obsession.

My husband's most recent obsession is with a weight bench. I'm pleased with him obsessing and compulsing over things that aren't heroin, and working out is certainly a good alternative. We had a falling out this morning, however, about his desperate, life-or-death need for weights.

He's found a weight bench on the side of the road, and he dragged it home. Next, he finagled his sister into purchasing a bar to accompany his bench. The only thing he needs to complete his set is the actual weight, so he's done a pretty good job of scavenging it together.

He called me today and told me that he was going to get his aunt to take him to buy weights for the bar today, but he needed me to tell his aunt that it's ok. He thought he'd found a remarkable shortcut to avoiding paying bills. His aunt deposits the money that she owes him directly into my account because she doesn't like handing him cash, and I've told him that I won't take any money out of my account for "toys" for him until he has deposited enough money to pay his bills for the week. His loophole was to ask his aunt to take him directly to the store and purchase the item for him, and he seemed dreadfully confused at first why I would say that his idea wasn't good. Then, he became angry when I refused to tell his aunt that it was ok with me for her to spend money that he should be giving me to pay bills on weights. And then he yelled a lot.

I've been at work all day, so I didn't think much about it. Now, I'm between my day job and my night job, and I'm furious. I thought it might do me some good to write about it, to kind of quell the rising obsession. I don't want to go home to an unpleasant husband, so I'm starting to dread the time of night when I head that way.

I hate that feeling.

I Hate My Husband Redux

Goddamn.

I have been making such a concerted effort to be positive, trying to find real hope and seeing progress in the stupidest little fucking things that my husband does. No matter what, though, it seems like he somehow thinks that I am treating him unjustly.

He is tattooing at the house again tonight. All night long last night, I couldn't sleep well because it was so cold in the house. I assumed it was because it's cold outside, and I kept waking up and piling blankets on myself until I was finally able to sleep. This evening, I went to check the thermostat, and I saw that he had turned it on to air conditioning and set it at 61 degrees.

Now if it were 98 degrees outside, 61 would still be a ridiculous setting. However, it is not anything like 98 degrees outside. It's something like 50 degrees outside. I turned the air over to heat, and when he came home, I said, "You left the air conditioning on 61 degrees today. Could you never do that again?"

As I thought his behavior was ridiculous, I am sure I asked him with a tone that was rather cold; however, I didn't berate him, I didn't point out that I was the one paying the bill and that he shouldn't even touch the fucking thermostat, and I didn't yell. I just asked.

A few minutes later, he came downstairs and turned the heat over to air conditioning. I said to him, "Why don't we turn the whole thing off, and that way you won't be hot and I won't be cold?" and he blew up at me. "YOU TREAT ME LIKE SHIT. AS SOON AS I GET HOME FROM WORK, YOU ATTACK ME ABOUT SOMETHING. YOU WANT ME TO FEEL LIKE A FUCK UP ALL THE TIME."

Blah Blah Blah.

There are so many things about his tirade that make me crazy. I am pretty sure that I offered a compromise position on the thermostat that was more than reasonable. And while I understand that he has been at work all day and that he is tired, I have also been at work all day. I am tired. I am tired and I don't want to be cold.

Additionally, I've been going to work all day for the last two months. I haven't exactly come home every day to a clean house and a warm reception.

I know this is part of addiction--this wild self absorption. I know that I need to detach from the situation. I know that by being angry at my husband and engaging his assinine behavior, I am only messing up my own serenity.

It's SO HARD to detach in these situations. I want to scream at him, "I AM TREATING YOU FAIRLY." It's not right for him to make me feel like I'm being unfair.

I am being beyond fair. I'm being awesome. I'm being amazing...and I give him credit for his little successes, like yesterday morning when he admitted that he had stolen money from the guy he's tattooing. I want credit for my good behavior, too.

The most frustrating part, I think, is that I was doing the thing where I was trying not to embarass him in front of his client. So he gets to stomp around and rant about how I run everything around here and I control everything--which presents this image of a husband whose shrewish wife controls all the temperatures in the house and all the money and the car even though he works hard and contributes his fair share, and GODDAMN as the man of the house he can have the air be 61 degrees if he wants to!!!--but I can't say, "...but I only have 84 dollars in my checking account, and you aren't paying bills right now, and I can't afford 61 degree store bought air, so goddamn it go to hell..." because I'm trying to do better in front of people.

I tried to give him an opportunity to make up, too. He was sitting at the kitchen table eating food that I'd bought for him, and I asked him to come talk to me. He stomped into the bedroom, screaming, "IT'S THE SAME THING EVERY DAY. YOU TREAT ME LIKE SHIT." etc. etc. etc. He left me sobbing and went to rant to his client about how I'm a drama queen and I treat him like shit all the time as soon as he comes home from work (as if he's been going to work regularly, duh).
Enough ranting.

Sometimes, when he has been unreasonable, he needs some time to think about it, and then it's better--like the time that he had a fit about how I said he might have hepatitis. The next morning, he apologized, and he said he'd be better if he could. Maybe tomorrow that will happen.