“Dude,” I said, “I don’t even know.” What I should have taken from the experience was a comforting affirmation that perhaps I wasn’t the only one who was feeling a little stressed out by playing the role of a TOPGUN wife. Instead, I concluded that there were forces at work way beyond my understanding and that the wisest strategy was to withdraw again. I needed to get my own mental house in order—the last thing any of us needed was more drama.
February passed and I sank lower. Weekends were now for catching up on all the things that had built up during a week of near total absence from Ross and my own inadequate household management efforts while sick, pregnant, and chasing an infant. Everything tied us to the house—Sam, my crushing fatigue, our diabetic dog who needed twice daily insulin shots and careful monitoring of her blood sugar, our strained bank account preparing for another baby with one still in diapers, a million small chores that never seemed to get done fast enough or “the right way.”
Ross was under pressure at work for a complex situation about which he could tell me next to nothing, except that government figures many, many pay grades above him were involved. For nearly a month, the only way we discussed his work was for me to ask him, “How was your day?” and for him to reply, “Bad. Again.” He seethed and glowered at me over the snowdrifts of unfolded laundry collecting on the couch, the absence of meals, the state of the countertops and kitchen sink, the grocery bill, the level of the thermostat. He had never nitpicked me before about how or whether I cleaned and maintained things at home—it was one of the things I loved about him from when we were dating, that he wasn’t a slob and that he was just as ready and willing to pick up a scrub brush as I was—but now that I was home all the time pregnant and caring for Sam, suddenly I was getting detailed instructions and critiques of the order in which I did things and the products and techniques I used. I finally snapped at him that he was Murderboarding me. He shot back that he felt like he was failing at everything, both at work and at home.
Initially I confided some of this to Diane and Mikayla, but pretty soon I grew tired of the sound of my own voice, of the same complaints repeating themselves week after week. I started taking long drives with Sam on the highways outside of town because I found it was often the only way I could make sure he was properly supervised and also hide my face from him so I could weep. Our family went to a Methodist church briefly during this period, part of a crisis-containment decision on both of our parts to seek some kind of counseling. The pastor was kind and helpful and recommended a marriage counselor who was neither, but instead of admitting that the match with the counselor was a bad fit and finding another, we just stopped going. I became preoccupied with the fear that whatever toxic mess was building up inside me, and between Ross and me, not only was it evident to everyone we met, but also I might be spreading it every time I shook hands with people in the “pass the peace” part of the church service. We stopped going to that too.