I Don’t See…

“I don’t see why you can’t do both the kids laundry and mine in the next two days and have it totally folded and put away.”

This was the declaration that Master made to me this morning. He’s made a lot of similar comments in the last couple of weeks. As far as I can tell, he wants me to do everything I did when I was home, except now I’m not home. I’m working an hour away at a temp job. If I am extremely lucky I will get a permanent job very soon in roughly the same location.

I get home at 6 pm every night. I make dinner in a rush.  Along with Master I try to coax the kids to do some homework. Then it’s time to put the baby to bed, which usually I do, but sometimes Master does as well. After that, I struggle to get the house picked up a little bit and dinner cleaned up and spend a little bit of quality time with Master before I am too exhausted to do anything else.

That is the extent of Master’s involvement in the household running. I clean the house. I cook the meals. I clean up the meals. I do the laundry. I do the grocery shopping. I clean up the extra messes that pop up when you have kids. In short, I do it all and occasionally am able to get Master’s help with the kids, if he’s not too busy with other things. I don’t think I should try to comment on the validity of the other things, I have opinions that some are more legit than others, but it doesn’t matter.

In theory, this is what I signed up for. I am a slave, and slaves do service. I certainly do a lot of it.  But I can’t keep up. I’m feeling like a total failure. Master is unhappy. Last weekend he went off on me about the house and laundry.  He is upset because the bathroom isn’t kept up (five people are sharing it) and he can’t keep track of his own towel. I hate that I can’t keep up with the small details.

On the other  hand, I’m angry. It’s not very slave like, but I’m having a hard time watching Master do nothing to very little around here and then have the nerve to be mad at me when things aren’t done. Also, he’s back to wallowing. He’s full of self pity about how he is a failure and he’s back to being totally focused on the loss of CC. I’m not sure grieving leaves room for any other relationships. I’m afraid this is the end for us because there isn’t any room for me anymore. I’m not taking any action on this, but I don’t know what to think. I’m tired of being all alone while he sits in his private shell of grief.

I’ve tried to talk to him about this and he says, “Is it unreasonable for me to expect you to do what I ask?” Well, no, but… and it’s the but where we get stuck. He won’t let me share it. He shuts down. We never finish a conversation.  I actually am not sure we ever have our entire relationship. Both CC and Master totally shut down.  They are happy to listen to a point but they aren’t interested in any active communication.

I’ve had every intention of having my next post be positive. Honestly, good things happen to me.  But, I’m hurting. It seems to go in cycles. Every time I think things are improving we go backwards. I’m tired of the isolation. I didn’t sign up to do it all alone. Even when I knew I would be living a life of service I thought it would be with help. That whole sister slave thing.  I’m overwhelmed and sad and I don’t know what to do anymore.

The kids are suffering. The baby has cried every day the last two weeks when I’ve dropped him off at day care. He doesn’t like the new early routine.  The older ones complain too. Yesterday they had no school and had to go to daycare. They whined all morning on the way. They don’t like the split schedule.They miss mommy and are sick of us because mommy leaves on her days off but we stay here all the time.

I’m miserable.  And now whose wallowing? Pot, meet kettle.