My Bitch List, Part 6

Will Festivus ever end? It’s doubtful. I’ve got 20 years of pent up rage going on here. Today’s Airing of Grievances: vacations, drama queen antics, holidays and funerals. Of course, it wouldn’t be complete without yet more stupid doormat behavior on my part.

• He agreed to go on vacation with us and then ended up almost ruining the entire trip for us because of his so-called panic attack.  He blamed it on various things- pricking his finger on a cactus, being dehydrated, drinking too much water after he got dehydrated.  We went out for breakfast the next day and he was shaking.  Eating fucking breakfast was too much for him!  I find it amazing that now that he’s fucking his cousin he’s miraculously cured.  He can get in his damn car and drive hours to get in her pants every weekend.  He can hightail it up to his college class reunion and spend five days there.  I never hear of him panicking or having issues with the driving.  It’s a miracle!  Praise Jesus!
• Looking back on it he seemed to revel in all his illnesses and disasters.  He would proudly tell that story of how he drank too much water and nearly ruined the vacation for us.  Of course, he didn’t phrase it that way.  it was more of, “I thought I was dehydrated so I drank a bunch of water, and wow, let me tell you about all the side effects I had from that!  I spent the entire vacation in our hotel room.”  My mom pointed out that he was rather proudly recounting his psychotic break in the psych ward when he responded very poorly to a medication.  It ended up causing hallucinations.  He entertained us with various stories of everything that happened when he was in this state of mind.  And strangely enough, I was the villain in the story.  I shit in his car, I snuck alcohol in his room and tried to “frame” him so he would have to stay longer, and I was just plain mean and nasty to him.  In reality I was visiting him every day for the entire length of the visitation time and running out and buying books, gum, etc. to keep him from being too bored.
• More stupid from me. I fixed and brought him his plate every night.  I would make dinner, put it on a plate for him and take it to him.  I remember sitting around the table one time and he joked, “What are these for?” upon seeing a serving spoon.  Ha ha ha.  Oh, that’s so funny.  Seriously, folks; I would put his tacos together for him!
• His job was the only thing that mattered.  Every time I would make noise about going back to school for a more marketable degree, or going back to work he would let me know that it had better not affect him.  He didn’t want to have to pay for my classes even though it would end up bringing in more family income.  He didn’t want me to take a job where I had to travel, or where I would have to work nights or weekends.  Basically, if I got a job that was awfully cute but I was still expected to do all of the housework, laundry, child care, grocery shopping, cooking, etc.  Oh yeah, and if the kids were sick or had the day off from school then I needed to arrange for child care or call off because his job was way too important to do any of that.  Plus, he had lots of television to watch in the evening so he couldn’t be expected to make dinner or schlep kids around to activities.
• He was the biggest drama queen!  Every little thing that went wrong he blew up a million times.  If something was wrong with the A/C then by golly that was going to cost thousands of dollars to fix.  If the toilet ring was loose and needed repair it was going to cost thousands (or perhaps only hundreds in this case) to fix.  Our daughter brought her guinea pig into a restaurant in a lunchbox when she was five.  He FREAKED THE FUCK OUT!  Swore the health department was going to shut down the restaurant, we’d have to pay the fines, we’d have to buy everyone’s dinner.  There was never a simple solution.  He borrowed trouble.  Geez Louise, calm down, assess the problem, and then act.
• He couldn’t be bothered to take his kids to see his family but he expected me to drive an additional 5-6 hours when I would go out to visit my family so that I could take the kids down to see his mom.  They *never* met us someplace or came up to where we were.  It was always me putting them in the car and driving the whole distance down to them.  To make it extra special then the return trip home would be extended by about 3 hours.  I once ended up on a 100 mile detour because he had insisted I take the kids to see his mom and the route I normally took to get back home was flooded.  About 5 miles from my exit I was sent on a detour around 10:00 at night and I ended up driving an additional hundred miles.
• He wasn’t big on holidays.  He did a little better once the kids came along, but he was perfectly content for the most part to do very little.  When the kids were younger we would go out to dinner for our anniversary and then finish up the Christmas shopping but in the later years I did all of it.  He might go out and buy them one or two things while he was shopping for me.  He did decorate the outside.  But I was the one that regularly took the kids to be with family over the holidays while he was content to sit at home by himself.
• My favorite holiday was Mother’s Day (that’s sarcasm, folks).  When I lived close to my family I would get the kids (or kid when there was only one) and take them down to my mom’s house.  I spent the entire day there, tending to my kids.  It never occurred to him to take the kids so I could have some free time (when my kids were young- preschool age and younger- I rarely had any time to myself so this would have been a treat).  For Father’s Day he was given the entire day to do whatever he wanted, usually without kids.  I would again take my kids down to my mom’s house, and if I didn’t go down there, then I would wrangle them up and take care of them.  He also usually got a child-free Easter when we lived close to my mom.
• I spent many holidays with him at our house and me with my family because he chose not to take time off and be with me.  When we lived close to my mom I would take the kids down there for Easter; he would stay at home.  Mother’s Day, Father’s Day- already went over those.  We did spend pretty much every Thanksgiving with his family when distance wasn’t an issue.  We would celebrate Christmas with them at that time, too.  This was his choice because he always got more time off at Thanksgiving than at Christmas.  When we were close to my mom we would all go down for Christmas Eve.  Whenever we lived several hundred (or thousand) miles away I would usually end up going by myself.  When we lived down south he never came up with me.  When we lived out west he came with me twice (and we did visit with both of our families).  The rest of the time I would make the trip with both kids by myself, to both families. And I drove.
• I drove 26 hours straight through the night after packing my suitcase and both kid’s suitcases plus boarding two dogs at two different places to be with him after his father died.  I also had the house relatively picked up for when he came home and had finished the laundry, thinking I had an extra day to get everything done.  I also notified the school so that the absences for both kids would be excused and they could get their homework and finish it while on the trip.  That’s pretty much what any loving spouse would do, right?  Yeah, when my grandfather died he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to make the trip with me.  He only went because I insisted after my mother had an absolute fit upon hearing that my husband wasn’t going to go with me (and this wasn’t even her father!).  He didn’t go with me to either of my grandmother’s funerals, or when my step-father died.  Come to think of it, when my former father-in-law’s father died my mother, my daughter, and I all went down to be with him while my dear husband stayed at home.  I went because I felt called to do so.  I guess he just didn’t give a damn.  Or maybe it was because of work.  It was always so important until he started fucking his cousin.  Now it’s amazing how much vacation time he can take.
• In that same vein, although he couldn’t make it down for his step grandfather’s funeral (a man he had known since he was 15 and saw quite frequently when we would make our trips down to his home state) he was able to make it to his cousin’s funeral (a man he had seen maybe 3 or 4 times in the 20 years we were married).  I’m sure the fact that he was looking forward to fucking his other cousin played a huge role in his desire to go to that one.  Bonus points for the fact that he refused to take our daughter down with him so she could see her grandmother since it would interfere with his ability to fuck his cousin.  Double bonus points (or maybe triple!) for taking that opportunity to introduce his whore to his dad’s side of the family.  Klassy!