A Saturday: His and Hers

I woke this morning, after a bad dream - to discover that my wife changed all the passwords on my workstation - and had called her friend to take her to church early so she could discuss how I am constantly cursing in front of my daughter.

Last night, my daughter and I tried to talk to her about why she refused to eat with us, or be with the family all day. Or why she shouted at a friend of the family when she visited with her son. My wife tried to throw her out of our home, and make her son go away - he had come over for a playday. I tried to mediate the fight, but she shouted at me to go away. So I left, and went down to the trampoline to jump with my son and his friend. When our confused friend of the family walked around to the backyard, saying that she had to go - I calmly explained to her that she did nothing wrong. And it was going to be ok. And so she left to run errands and my son had a happy playday with his friend.

I took the kids out through the woods to find a christmas tree. My wife did not go. We returned. She wouldn't look at the tree. I cooked dinner, and she wouldn't come to the table to eat. And then we watched a movie, and she wouldn't join us.

Earlier that day, my two children had been fighting in the morning - and I was trying to teach them how to talk it out. So. I had them both tell me their sides of the story, step by step - I had made it on the scene right at the end of the argument, where my daughter had felt compelled to close out the application my son had been running on his workstation - and tear the headphones off his head. And her version of what she was doing was .. "I had removed the headphones and politely asked him.." .. and we ended up getting to the truth.

But not before my wife burst onto the scene shouting and pointing the finger at my daughter and telling her she did wrong. I thanked her for her input. And then I said, I can handle it from here.

We ate a cold breakfast together because my wife kept barging in on the conversation and accusing my daughter of wrongdoing, or telling everyone how evil I was, etc. etc. but finally the children and I had an objective recount of the argument, where we discovered that she had in fact, torn the headphones off my sons head and not simply removed them in a demure fashion - and my son had ignored my daughter, and not just immediately responded to everything she said. And we were fine.

So, I was washing the dishes and my daughter decided to help in a bid to increase her allowance. This is of course, before the events of the afternoon.. I was looking for a dish or something and I noticed something strange and out of place and I said.. "What the f-" but I didn't finish the word.

Of course, this now qualifies as the reason why my wife just called the choir director and had her come pick her up to go to church - so she could spend time with the pastor, in counseling - to save her from the horror of my presence. She also informed me that she would tell another person at church, that we know - if it was right to say such things in front of my children.

Yesterday, my daughter and I tried to go over the events of the day and to ask her what was the real issue - but as I recounted what had happened she screamed and dropped to her knees and so I just walked out of the room and took a shower.

There are two totally different versions of a Saturday being considered here. One of them is hers. And one of them is his. And to be perfectly fair, its almost been that kind of week. The difference between now and I suppose, before - was that she would be given some traction - I would try to respond or if I was really annoyed I'd let her know. And now she doesn't get anything from me. I agree with her when she shouts at me - and she keeps shouting for a few more lines before I calmly explain that I just agreed with you and then she looks slightly confused and walks off.

I am pretty sure part of this has to do with the fact that she felt I was standing too close to our friend of the family. But I'm not sure. I think, in the end, if she would experiment with polyamory it might be a good thing - I feel as if somehow , a third person out there that could be a sounding board to her - to get an objective view of facts and events - would be a good thing, even if at the cost of marital fidelity - whatever that really means.

I mean, if you're married to someone, in my view - its almost an invisible bond that is uniquely incognizant of space and time - you could be thousands of miles away and still be thinking of someone. So, anyway. My daughter and I are heading to church. I'm supposed to sing.

But while I'm standing up there in the choir - I'm wondering quietly to myself why the old testament is so full of guys with multiple wives. Shouldn't it be wives, with multiple husbands instead? What kind of guy could handle three or four women like this?

Then again, maybe they might be different - I bet if there was another woman in our home when all of this lit off yesterday she could have had a sit-me-down with her and got her to think clearly. Anyway. Whatever. It was a strange saturday.

But there were two totally different timelines involved. I guess the kids are lucky they happened to be on mine that day, instead of hers. We found our christmas tree on the top of a hill, after a hike around a riverbend. And then we found a tree fort.

Merry Christmas, Colorless Reader. :)