Dreams and Things

I really should write these things when they occur. As always, the details of this are foggy to me now. All I remember is that my wife and I had a terrible fight the weekend of her daughter's birthday. Her daughter's birthday was to be held on either Friday or Saturday night. It doesn't matter now. My wife was ecstatic about decorating for it and overall planning for it. I was on call (as always) to do whet she needed me to do. I think the party was to be held on a saturday because I'm pretty sure the fight broke out Friday. We had an argument earlier in the day about something. I remember seething with resentment from not having been able to fully express myself. But I had let it go as I so often do with her. She has a domineering nature and confronting her never ends well. I am meek around her and this in itself infuriates me. It rankled in me and I was left alone in the apartment to wait for her to return from the store with her daughter's birthday cake. She ...

I am writing this a little late after a terrible fight with my wife. It seems like ever since we we remodeled and moved into our new apartment we have had relationship problems that have flared into knock-down, drag-out fights. I can't put my finger on it but something changed and now we walk on eggshells around one another. Since our move we have had two terrible fights and it is the most recent one I am writing about now. It was a Friday (I think) and we had spent the day in Alameda preparing for a Cinco de Mayo party (which also happens to be my nephew's birthday) to be held on the following Saturday. My wife had all sorts of elaborate plans that went awry when it happened that the party was to be held outside, something she had not known. It was impossible decorate anything particularly noteworthy in their back yard so in a rather could mood we did what we could. She complained the whole way home while I listened in frightened silence. I know it's not a good idea to...

My wife stayed over last night. She began moving her stuff back in yesterday and we continued today. I guess she has only technically been here one day. But it feels like two. I don't know what to think. My emotions are roiling around in me. I guess I am happy she is back. I should be happy she is back. But there is a side of me that wants to avoid her in the apartment. I am mute and withdrawn, two qualities she hates in me. But I simply don't know what to say to her. I cannot talk to her about these feelings because will become defensive and angry sand leave to go back to her mother's apartment. I hate these qualities in her. I want to be able to communicate about our relationship and discuss the problems we are both having. I think she is having problems, too. But I have no idea what they are. She tends to express frustration with me or my withdrawal in an angry way. This makes me either more withdrawn (which infuriates her), appease her with platitudes I don...

My wife moved back into our apartment today. It occurred to me that she has been living with her mother for at least a month. I had all but given hope that she would ever move back but continue to use our apartment as her personal closet space. I saw her after my therapy session and she simply announced that she had decided to move back and asked me if I could help her pack. Never in the time she has been away has she ever eaten a meal here nor shared my bed with me. I have eaten numerous meals at her mother's apartment and slept over there with her when she did not want to feel alone. I don't know why this thought suddenly struck me as we were moving her stuff (which was a considerable amount) back into here. In a certain way I feel like I have been excluded from her life except when she needed me. Never have my needs been considered. It's all been very one-sided. I have grown so alone and isolated living here by myself that it felt like an intrusion for her to retur...

It is 5:30PM on Sunday and I am alone in my apartment. I spent some time with my wife earlier in the day. She and her mother were redecorating their balcony so that and the living room were chaotic. I did a few little tasks and left. I told her I wanted to unpack and change my clothes, etc. She called me after a while and asked if I could come back with some of the party stuff and to help her with some planting. I really didn't feel like leaving the apartment. I felt I needed a little "alone" time to unwind from the weekend's celebrations (see my previous post). But I came over anyway and performed a number of small chores in the apartment. I then followed my wife down to the ground floor where she wanted to plant some new plants. I hate gardening. It reminds me of the times during my childhood when my father would put my brother and me to work digging holes and doing grueling manual labor under the hot summer sun. I was hot today, too. I was withdrawn. I really d...

I spent the weekend with my brother's family. My wife and I had another terrible fight in her bedroom at her mother's apartment. I can't even remember now what it was all about. I left the room while she was still ranting and returned to my apartment. I found myself shaking with sadness and loneliness. I called my brother and poured out my heart about the fight and all my fears about the future of my marriage. He talked me down and offered to come into the city to pick me up to come and stay at his house. It's strange because my wife and I had earlier in the day decorated their backyard for the combined Cinco de Mayo and my nephew's birthday party. My wife wasn't very satisfied with how it turned out. I thought it was good. But we called it quits at some point and returned to the city. It was later that evening that we had the big fight. She was livid with anger. It scared me. I actually did not lose my temper. I tried talking her down. Well...I may have thr...

I just returned from dinner at my mother-in-law's apartment that Yaffa had made for the three of us. I was mostly silent at dinner, still seething from the decorating disaster earlier in the day (see my last post). After a while I felt uncomfortable for being so silent. I felt a preasure on me to talk and socialize. This discomfort grew as dinner progressed. I was withdrawn and did not know what to say. My wife left the dinner table before the rest of us to go and lie down for a while in her bed. I thought she was going to go to sleep but when I went in she was still awake but groggy. I think she took too many pills and drank too much liquor. I asked her nicely to move over a little so that I could sit down beside her. In her tired and dramatic way she said there was nowhere to move to because the bed was covered in stuff. I moved the stuff to make room for her. She said I had to move her legs for her. I moved her legs but added that she would have to move her own butt. She sli...

I have just returned home, it is now 8:00PM, from decorating a Cinco de Mayo celebration at my brother's house. It was a nightmare for me. My brother asked my wife and I to do the decorations for the party. The party is tomorrow (Saturday). My wife wasn't prepared for the breezy conditions outside where the party will be held. I this this flustered her. She had planned to do the sort of installation she usually does for indoor parties. We unloaded the car with all of the party stuff at their house, carted it to the back yard, and began opening it to start decorating. I stood and thought about where to start first. But my wife grew very impatient with me and started telling me what to do. It was clear that she was angry. She definitely has a problem with my slow and quiet way of approaching a job. She snapped at me (or at least that's how I interpreted it) and I immediately withdrew. I am so intimidated by her. This is a thought that crystalized in my mind as we were d...

I am in my new apartment. I am in a room that adjoins another in the back. Both are well lit, especially the one in the back. On my shoulder is the cockatoo that I have seen from time to time on the shoulder of a man at the gym. The cockatoo is friendly and I preen its neck and play with it. The cockatoo rolls on its back in my hand and I tickle its belly. The man also has a smaller bird, the size of a miniature parrot that although somewhat nervous around a stranger nevertheless comes to me so that I can preen his neck, too. His doesn't need as much preening as does the cockatoo's. All goes well and I am overjoyed by doing this. My own parrot, a green amazon, sees me and rushes with angry jealously at the cockatoo. The two begin to fight and it is all I can do pry their beaks apart without getting bitten or cut by them. I call desperately to my wife to help. This is not my current wife but the one before her who I loved so dearly. She helps and I desperately tell her to take...

It happened about two weeks ago and I really should have blogged at the time. I now only vaguely remember what caused the terrible fight we had that led her to leave and stay with her mother. But whatever it was it has left me alone in our apartment for two weeks. My wife is by nature an intuitive caregiver. It's as though she reads my mind to know what I need, physically or psychologically. She took care of me hand and foot during the time I was sick from the hepatitis C treatment. I think she got burned out from all of that caregiving. Even a person who by nature is a caregiver can only do so much. She must have pushed herself to the limit of what she could stand. She fell down with pneumonia about two weeks ago and had to rely on me for help during her illness. I did the best I could but it didn't satisfy her. There were some times when I simply did not take her into account. For example, offering to make her dinner instead of her having her ask for it. This is an exampl...