synergy

Weekend

We had a 4 day weekend, beginning with Friday off. Unfortunately, we also started off Friday with a major fight. It's rare that we fight, and exceptionally rare that we really go after one another. Friday's was one of our worst.

K and I had errands lined up in order to prepare for a dinner party we hosted Saturday evening. She was suffering from a sore throat and was exhausted from her week at work. When it was clear that I was going to have to do everything alone, I lost my temper. I'm very tired of feeling as if I have the responsibility to get things done, because otherwise they will languish. She even went as far as to suggested that if this relationship isn't working for me, we will have to break it off. I didn't like that at all.

The fight on Friday, which we did resolve and both apologized for, ended us both at her therapists on Friday. I also had to go to the hardware store to buy some parts for the rear security door. Some of the fasteners broke, when I slammed it. Not one of my finer moments. I should learn to work on my temper.

K's therapist normally only sees K, but she's been seeing us together to help us work through the stress of K's job situation. We talked through a number of the issues, specifically my frustration and fears about K's situation. She encouraged us to do several things.

1. If we can solve a problem by paying money to fix, do it. (For example, don't worry about spending money on prepared foods or going out, if we're too tired to cook.) Note: We are fortunate enough to be able to throw money at problems and not worry about the financial aspects of our life.

2. Try to plan out each day in advance. Know what we are going to eat, when we will be home, and work in downtime. This ruins spontaneity, but at the moment neither have any energy to use for spontaneous behavior.

3. If I need to talk about my frustration with our current situation, K should let me do so and not feel guilty about being the cause of the problem.

Those were the three suggestions that I remember. We left feeling like we could survive a bit longer. K's therapist was also surprised and unhappy to hear that K even briefly entertained the idea of ending the relationship. But I think it was only out of desperation that K made the suggestion.

Our dinner party on Saturday was a success. Everyone appeared to enjoy themselves. The only thing for us is that we were tired by the end of the evening and didn't get to bed until 1 am, much later than our usual retiring time of 9:30 pm.

Sunday was another low key day. I went and got a pedicure (K sponsored pedicure.) Then I wandered through our neighborhood checking out all the little shops and trying things on. I didn't buy anything, but it was interesting to see the new arrivals. We even have a new gay book store two blocks away. And I found a really cool, large apothecary chest at a used furniture store. I need to take K so she can check it out. That evening we headed to dinner, received stares from all the tourists in town, and went to a new grocery store. Another exciting evening. Actually, the exciting part was stopping by one of my favorite book shops and getting lots of interesting titles. I'm reading Prague by Arthur Phillips right now. Makes me remember my days of living in Berlin during the mid-90's.

Unfortunately, it looks as if lightening may have struck K for the umpteenth time. On Sunday evening, a sore or abscess erupted in her mouth. It's causing her amazing pain and she's taking ibuprofen to deal with despite not being able to mix ibuprofen and lithium. (I believe it can cause kidney or liver damage.) Will it never end? She's at the office, because she's not allowed to take any sick leave and she's making an appointment with the dentist for either tomorrow at lunch or after work to have it checked out. With luck (not that she's had much lately), it will only be a cold sore, but she's starting to believe it is tooth related.

What gets to K is that her more recent struggles have had nothing to do with either the heart attack or bipolar disorder. Instead, it's been the bad cold, which is resurging, it's the tooth problem, it's been her period reemerging after she thought she was in menopause. It's the day-to-day shit that everyone deals with, but seems to hit her harder. Part of the difficulty is that she cannot or is not supposed to take ibuprofen, which helps with a number of those problems. But I wonder when will we be in a state of calm and normal? I begin to question if it will ever happen.

Okay--enough of an update. I'm hoping to be better about writing again. A lot depends on how busy I am at the office.

posted by synergy @ 11:23 AM