Necessary Details: My wife and I both work 40 hours at the same health center where she is the Accounting person and I am the IT person. We have 2 children who are overly entitled (not my opinion either, I just know that the children have MUCH more than other children their age do - what 7 year old has their own laptop?)… We make enough money between the two of us to cover bills; I am content with my income and my wife believes she's worth twice as much as she is getting paid. The house duties have been a problem but for different reasons; she wants more free time and wants less work to do, I just don't want to do it alone because I know two people doing a job gets it done faster.
The Norm: My wife comes home from work on a Friday night and either makes dinner or she orders pizza. She then attempts to plan a weekend where the family hangs out and the two of us hang out (which normally results in a fight because I don't like her hobbies and visa versa). Something happens and she is seduced into going onto her laptop and the weekend just slips away in a trance for her; meanwhile, I spend the entire weekend panicked about chores and I end up getting mad at her for binging on entertainment and we end up fighting over it. Giving up, I do the laundry, clean the house, and I normally keep myself available in case she wants to hang out. While she's hyper-focused on her Facebook, books, and girlfriends, I am the one to break up fights with the kids, go shopping for the family (getting healthy non-GMO, USDA organic, whole foods), and I sometimes find time to read about tech news on my phone… I used to be a gamer, but I haven't gamed in a few years; my wife on the other hand hated games, but now plays candy crush daily and is level 200 something without spending money…
This Weekend: My wife comes home from work on Friday and has made no effort to make food. This actually has been going on all week. We had take out 3 times and the remaining night I cooked. Instead, she immediately went to the computer and scrolled her Facebook. Seeing the writing on the wall I decided @ 7pm to take a trip to the store and get food for the weekend and shop for the pets. I didn't make it back until 10pm and dinner was still not served/prepared. Instead I found empty bowls of sugary non-gmo cereal where the kids fed themselves… I brushed it off and put things away. She got off the computer for the night and I got on to do work related things. She went in the bedroom and read on her Kindle (norm) but she didn't put the kids to bed before she did. I chose not to too because I had work to do and 1am hit and I finally checked on the kids and they were passed out with the lights on. I then went to bed without saying a word to my wife and she laid in bed reading through the night (she's reading black dagger brotherhood books). The next morning she slept in (which is unusual) and I did the laundry, the recycle, and then had to go to the store again realizing my wife wasn't going to do any cooking this weekend and I had lots of work to do from home; so I bought a bunch of frozen foods (still non-gmo and organic but loaded with sodium) and filled the freezer. So far our kids (7 & 11) had to feed themselves cereal again and my wife barely gave the kids enough attention to give them mac&cheese with peas mixed in (an extremely low par meal compared to our usual). When she was finished off the computer (she was on from time got up to about 5pm) I went back to working from home and she went back to reading… This is where things get weird. She begins to realize (I think) that I am not seeking her attention and she stops her reading to text with a friend. I normally give her a hard time for spending too much time on electronics but I didn't this weekend (negative attention is better than no attention I guess). Eventually she stops texting with a friend then finally talks to me (after not for 2 days) and says "Let's start a new anime series together"… Mind you, I'm busy working, all this work needs to be done before Monday. So I politely reject her and I tell her to entertain herself. She goes back to reading and stays up past the time I went to bed making me put the kids to bed alone again. This morning she slept in and everyone else got up at 8am (her 11am). We didn't talk much except to say hi and she got on her computer. I had a major server error and now I'm at the office…
So what do you make of it? Is she getting depressed that I won't give her the typical narcissistic supply and that I'm succeeding in living without her or that I'm not starved for her attention? What could she be going through to provoke so much reading and otherwise escapism on the internet?
Added (1). By the way, I don't want to make it sound like I don't cook. I do. It's just that going shopping for 3 hours was the trade off for her cooking. She said that since she hates going out in public and she claims she is a "shy introvert" that she would cook if I did all the things related to leaving the house. While I don't think it's a fair trade off, I still go out to the store and do all the shopping… Steaming veggies, serving fruit, and baking fish or chicken doesn't take long; I did it for 3 years… I just can't help but feel that the reason she makes me go is because she wants to be on the computer, internet, or on her other vexes and can't become sober long enough to leave the house…
Added (2). Oh yeah, one more thing. I was on some medication over this weekend for a UTI and so I wasn't on the same meal schedule that her and the kids were on. So my dependency on her went from 90% to 0% this weekend and I think it blew her mind… But I seriously think something else was going on and I'd like your insights.
Читать далее: What is my wife going through and what do I do as a husband?