Falling Apart at Midnight

I'm sitting here in tears.

What can I say? I feel like I'm going to melt down.

Hubby and I got in a fight, a bad one tonight. I don't even know why. He came home from work, and seemed normal. We were watching TV with the kids, and everything just seemed normal, fine and peaceful.

I'm going to back up a little now.

Hubby had to work this morning, as he does every Saturday morning. I had arranged to have my babysitter come so I could go out to coffee with my friend. This is THE friend by the way, but we are still good friends, despite everything else. We went to the cave, had a great talk, had some coffee and a bagel. Then we went to the nursery and found some great tomato plants, some organic compost, and some seed packets. Next stop, we headed to Wal-Mart, we were just generally having a great time. She told me that someone asked her out, which was a big joke, because he was one of her clients (she's an addiction counselor), but we were joking about it. Somehow it came up and I said, "I'm done." "If I ever break up with hubby, I'm jumping the fence permanently."

I was a little amazed I said it, but she looked at me and said "seriously?"

I told her yes, I was totally serious, and that I was just done with men. That I get all my emotional needs met by women, and that I am finding myself more and more turned off by the male body, the male brain. She just looked at me and said, "well that fence wasn't very high to begin with, it doesn't surprise me."

Anyway, I took her home, stopped at the grocery store and got some stuff for dinners this weekend. I stopped at the mall and picked up hubby's fathers day present, and then headed home.

Fast forward about two hours, and home comes hubby. Seriously when he came home, everything was fine, we were talking, laughing, playing with the kids, and all the sudden either I became very bitchy or he turned into Dr. Jekyll. Maybe both. Anyway, I had gone out on the deck to sit in the sun for a bit with Little Miss, then my little son and I went down stairs to work in the garden. I didn't think anything of it. Little Miss was upstairs with Daddy watching a movie. All the sudden she is downstairs with me, in just her shirt and pull-up. She climbed in my car which I had driven across the lawn because I didn't want to carry those bags of compost all that way. She climbed in and began "driving" my car. All was well. Well she started getting a bit out of control, and Little Man started acting up a bit. Hubby finally came out to see what all the commotion was about. I even told him if he was tired to just grab a chair, get a glass of wine and just sit out with me while I worked.

He finally said "OK" and went and got himself a glass of wine and came back out and then I'm just not sure what went wrong from there. He disappeared back in the house and the kids started going crazy. I kept having to chase Little Miss across the yard, (remember the yard is an acre), and finally asked him to come back down and help me with the kids. He got an attitude with me about it, and finally I told him if he was going to be a grump to go back in the house and leave us alone, that I'd rather deal with the kids by myself if he was going to take his bad mood out on us.

He went back in, and I just kept getting mad. The kids were running, crying and whining. Finally I just gave up. I went back in the garage, and told him I was just going to cook the kids dinner. He got all mad and said, "GO BACK IN YOUR GARDEN". I told him "NO". From there, we got into one of the worst fights that we've ever gotten in, and right in front of the kids, which we never do, since we don't believe in fighting in front of the kids.

He yelled at me that I had a babysitter all morning, but waited until he got home to do any gardening so that HE would have to watch the kids. I got so mad, because he took off all day on Thursday with his friend out of town, to go fishing, I took the kids to DC and picked them up, so that he could have a day with his best friend. I just got so fucking mad. Again, it's like he needs his time, but I don't deserve "my" time.

Finally we got the kids up to the playroom, but we continued yelling, and I finally said, "what do you want a divorce????" He said "NO", I don't, I want you to go back out in the garden and then he threw his pack of ciggs on the floor in the kitchen.

I should have went.

But being me, and the one that can never let things go, I kept up, and told him no, I wasn't going back in the garden tonight, and that I was going to cook dinner because the kids were hungry. I could hear the kids crying up in the playroom, and he kept yelling at me to go back outside. Instead I went up to the playroom and hung out with the kids until I heard him go outside.

Finally, I went down to the garage and I got out the hamburger out and made burgers. He came in and said I'll cook the, and I was yelled at him, "No, I'll cook", go somewhere where you are not inflicting this on us. When I went outside to turn on the grill, he was down in the garden watering. The kids saw him and went down. I finished cooking dinner and called them up.

I then realized I couldn't sit there and pretend nothing was wrong, so I went up to my room and let him deal with the kids.

I stayed in my room and watched TV until he had the kids fed and gave them baths and got them ready for bed. So here is the thing, no matter how mad we've ever been before, we've always said good night to each other, and basically made up, at least a little.

Tonight, he didn't say anything or look at me, and neither did I. We didn't say goodnight. He went downstairs and went to bed. I'm sitting here so fucking upset that I'm having a hard time even breathing without bursting into tears.

I'm not trying to blame this fight on him, although I do think it's his fault. But I know when he gets like this, tired or burnt, I need to give him some time to chill, but today when he got pissed about me going out with my friend instead of "working" around the house, I lost it completely.

So now I can't figure out if I'm upset because of the fight, or the way I behaved, or the fact that when I told him we needed to talk and he said No, and I told him whether we did it now or later we needed to talk, and he said NO.

I'm probably not making sense here, it's hard to keep my thoughts in order right now.

I keep wondering if by telling my friend I was done with men, that I had a real attitude that I was done with it tonight.

I keep thinking I can choose when and where I want everything to happen and how it's going to happen, and then this just explodes in my face, in his face. I am still so upset, I was even considering running off with the kids tomorrow for a vacation without him. Just leave and get away, which would mean canceling our real vacation. The other thing is, that no matter how mad I am at him, or how hurt, I can't take the kids way on fathers day, even if my mothers day was shit. I have a gift for him, from the kids, from me, and cards. I have everything bought for a special dinner for him. Now I want to toss it all in the trash and leave.

I'm sick of this. Goddamn I'm sick of it.

OC