I got the fishheads picked up (because he got hungry, and he had to clean them up in order to cook shrimp). Then the shrimp got picked up...kinda. Then I spent a day looking for a new truck, and realized that my criteria for buying a new truck were A) something he wasn't likely to tear up because he drives things VERY hard (ie his last truck? 3 motors and 2 transmissions...a car that he waited til the oil light came on to add oil instead of checking it and blew the head gaskets...I think I have basis for my conculsion here that he's hard on stuff), B) what's cheapest to fix if he does tear it up, and C) something I can afford. His criteria are A) 4dr, B) horsepower, C) 4wd, D) nice.
***
And I realized, we have problems. BIG ones. And I thought back to when...
* I had a small tranny leak in my truck and I was babying it along, and he took it garage saling and it was low on fluid and the tranny was just slipping and slipping and slipping, and instead of stopping and putting fluid in it, I hear him from 100 yards down the highway, revving it, trying to make it go, grinding down the trans that I was working my butt off to avoid having to replace...
* a recent trip with a friend, and the friend asked him what kind of gas mileage the car got, and he said he didn't know and he didn't care, he doesn't bother with such things, its a waste of his time...he puts gas in it and doesn't worry about it til its empty again (not my perception of what he does, this is what he told the friend) (and, again, easy child 1 and I can drive my truck 700 miles on a tank of fuel...husband is lucky to get 300 out of the same tank).
* the time that he took the team and buggy out on a major 4 lane highway with heavy semi traffic, and I expressed concern because we didn't have insurance on them at the time and the horses had never been exposed to all that, and he looked at me and said they were his and he was gonna do whatever the he__ he wanted to with them
* easy child 1 and I moving the cattle on Father's day weekend, and husband being mad because we "took over" HIS farm chore
* how the Broom's constantly refer to the place where we live as HIS and only HIS
* all the times he tells people he "just committed the time" to his horse to break it, usually implying that mine isn't up to his standards
* the fact that I bought a car to keep him from driving my truck after he blew up the trans in his truck, and then the motor in MY car
* only when his work started direct depositing his paycheck did he start contributing for said car and that was only because I just started taking the money out, which I know he's not happy about it
* and oh yeah, did I mention the rear end in my truck SHATTERED after he spent 3 days pulling hay for the Brooms in it...?
* And then Wee, who's latest thing to be stuck on is touching you and saying "tag, you're it", reached over from one chair to the other and touched husband and said "tag, you're it" and husband responded with a raised fist, and yelled "I'll tag you", and then defended himself to me by saying "but Wee's annoying".
And then I wonder exactly where I fit into this picture with him.
***
Oh yeah...there's some bricks being put up.
***
And when the fish hit the fan Saturday night, I was fully prepared for him to walk, and I wouldn't have stopped him.
***
He has spent the time since picking up, kinda. He still got in 6 hours of tv yesterday, but he did help in between. He made koolaid and spilled about 1/2 cup on the counter. While he's perched in front of the tube, an hour after he'd spilled it, I noticed it and cleaned it up, and he yelled at me for doing it cause "he'd get to it". Last weekend, I cleaned out 3 coolers that he'd put beer in to go somewhere then never took it out. Two+ cases of beer I threw away because it had been in a hot cooler for, some of it, up to 3 months. He bought another case last weekend and put it in the cooler to take to a party, and its still sitting in the driveway. I asked him 3 times yesterday to not let that beer go to waste because its too expensive. At 11 last night, while I am painting a sign to earn extra money to pay for the new thousand dollar rear-end in my truck so we can go on our 2 annual camping trips starting on Wednesday, he gets out of his recliner and yells at me that he'll go get that F____ing beer now, and when he does, he throws the cooler lid out in the yard. I had a bottle of apple wine in the cooler among his 24 cans of beer, and he comes in and yells that he had to pick up my wine, too, and stomped off to bed.
***
I'm not perfect, and I've asked him what I need to do to help the situation, but he says I'm not doing anything wrong. I know he wants me to be "more fun" like I used to be. And I'd like to be, but it can't just be play play play...5 years ago, we had a slightly abnormal toddler, and I thought I had a hope of not being outright hated by his family...today we have a full blown drastically delayed child that consumes a huge amount of our life, his parents' assumption that our place is part of their personal farming endevor has caused a huge rift between them and the ex-in-law's, there is no way in hades that the in-laws will ever accept me, let alone like me, which is ok, I really don't care, but it does make things more difficult with husband. Add to that he's just waiting for them to keel so he can have "his" farm (don't even get me started on that....) and has no desire to work towards something of our own, and a sudden realization that our goals aren't even in the same solar system right now, and, well, yeah....here we are.
***
He used to help me. Now he couldn't care less. I love him. But I can't live like this. I can't afford to just run about with wreckless abandon. I can't do it all myself (I've tried - still trying - that car that I bought? Had it since November - never changed the oil yet), and I can't live in a home that is utterly filthy and watch a man sit in front of a screen for hours on end and not care. He gripes about his parents' home and farm and all of their useless junk, yet he is turning our place into one that looks just like it.
***
So I'd come to the counseling conclusion on my own. Been before. Going back again. Maybe I can figure out why I seem to turn men into useless piles of goo that must photosynthesize in front of a tv...