Sorry. I shall explain (but it is dull). My wife is working on a big paperwork project. I support her. It’s not fun but it has to be done. I said I would do other stuff (like all washing up dishes etc). Saturday evening was utterly wonderful. We had been at a wedding and I was directing the choir. The married couple had said we could come to the tail end of the wedding reception because they were doing a bandaoke - do you have those in the US? You can guess what it is. Anyway, we went with our boys. One of the boys sang (very well although I say it myself), and we danced. There was some closeness, then as we were just watching and standing at the edge, my wife stood behind me and to the side holding my hands anf kissing my neck and a few other very positive signs. Nothing overtly sexual but not a million mikes away. It was the best moment in 14 months. We went home, nothing else happened. That was Saturday.
Sunday - very big day for me. Two church services including one very big one as part of our local music festival (in fact the festival opener). Big pressure. Wife is at home working on big project. I do morning service. I come home. I have big prep work to do for the important evening service. I make lunch. I take dogs for a walk. I do music prep. I don’t pick up slack elsewhere but rightfully think today is not a day where that will come up as an issue (how wrong can one be).
Wife knows that this is a big deal, the service, and she supports me. She also knew I was going to stay after the service for the drinks reception. So, rehearsal goes well, service goes well, and I stay for the reception. I stayed for just over an hour. I had 4 (very small) glasses of wine. Get home, no wife and no kids. Gone to get take out food, and don’t get me any. There was some chicken I said we might cook but it had gone off (so said my wife - don’t think it had but irrelevant), so evening meal was unorganised and I possibly should have done something about it before (being the chef in the house), but the day had been very difficult. So I was on a high when I got home. Then there was an argument. This I will précis: she says me being out for longer than predicted was a big trigger. She thinks I am flirting with women (not much to flirt with in a church I can tell you!), and she says she is still being my maid and picking up around me all the time, and I hadn’t picked up dog poo nor mowed the lawn (both of which I said I would) but it had been a long day. At her most cutting she said she never wanted to live with a man again, and if I dies tomorrow she would live on her own. In fact she said there are times even right now when she wants to live on her own.
She finished by saying that on balance life with me is better than life without, but it’s not much of a compliment. I argued a bit but knew it was going nowhere. Went to bed in a very bad mood indeed.
Now, you can analyse the crap out of all that if you wish, but the air is much clearer now. I had to follow up yesterday morning and ask if she truly saw me as the 60/40 better option that I didn’t want to be some she settled for and put up with. She changed the narrative and said she was just hyper stressed by the project.
Thanks to
@Blondie @Jlied and
@Androg - you guys (and many others) are immense. Writing this down does help. Pop psychology view could be that the closeness of Saturday night and the distance of Sunday night is no coincidence. Scared of the closeness so push me away however unreasonable. But the tone of the words were really mean. As I said, my control was good, but I was quite close to saying “you know what, why don’t we have a month apart - after that if you like not picking up after me, you can decide about the future”. That’s what I could have said, but luckily didn’t.
Porn free existence has made me way better at managing these situations. Oh, in case you were wondering, no it never crossed my mind to watch porn in all that arguing. I had the tiniest urge to MO, but didn’t. All’s good on that score, and indeed all is back to (relative) normality as of yesterday and today.