I plan to answer another question today but wanted to write out some of my feelings about this last weekend to try to make sense of what happened.
Friday I took Caleb to a fishing trip with his class in the morning. Becky was feeling a bit sick. After our fishing trip, I brought Caleb back and went to work. I came home that night and got things ready and went to a Father’s and Son’s campout with Caleb.
That night Becky got feeling really sick.
Saturday I came back with Caleb about 11:00, after going shopping with him to get Becky a mother’s day surprise (cards and gift).
Becky was still feeling not too good but we all went out shopping for flowers and plants for the garden. Becky had a coupon for Hickory Kiss so we picked up some food their for lunch and brought it home.
That night we had Andy and Steph over to watch the Jazz game. At this point I started feeling the same way Becky had been feeling – really sick to my stomach. I went in to the bathroom a couple times, not sure what was going to happen.
Eventually I puked my guts out.
I was feeling terrible but didn’t tell anyone I puked until later when Andy and Steph had left.
I puked again at about midnight and slept downstairs.
The next day (Mother’s Day) I still felt awful. I really wanted to help but had no energy and had a terrible headache. The tough thing was that I felt Becky was mad at me for being sick. I asked her a couple different times what was wrong and she said “Nothing…” but I know here well enough to know otherwise.
I tried to sleep things off during the day. The headache continued though.
Yesterday evening, after the kids went down, we had family council. We planned the week and then Becky told me how unhappy she was. She said she feels like I don’t give 100% to help and support her. She says she feels like most of the time, I’m not thinking of her at all and worried about myself primarily. She said that, if it doesn’t change she needs to find that support from someone else like her Mom, a friend, or whoever.
I didn’t really know what to say.
Do I think I can do better? Yes
Do I feel I’m doing a lot? Yes
Do I feel I’m overwhelmed too? Yes
Do I know what I can do to “be more helpful and more supportive”? Not really, other than continue to keep this in my mind and look for opportunities.
Do I feel resentful about the whole conversation? Yes; I’m trying to think about “how I got the ball rolling” but I’m not really sure. Yes, I feel Becky has a lot on her plate. Yes I know what she does is really, really hard; but I do feel like sometimes she makes things harder than they need to be: she is always scrubbing the floors, polishing the tables, picking up, vacuuming, etc. – things that just can’t be “perfect” with 3 little ones who have lots of energy. She seems to be very short-fused with the kids too, which I have been as well.
So, I’m not sure what to do. I feel like, no matter what I DO do, there’s always something in her eyes that I could be doing better or more or less of or with a better attitude or whatever.
I’m grateful that I have the intuition to write all this down and hope that by doing so I’ll find solutions that help all involved.
Until later…
Nate
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