I know, I know, the last 5 posts... BUS... HUSBAND UNDER IT!
My husband supports my telling the truth in my posts. Lord knows neither of us is perfect and to Eric's credit he knows when he's been a jackass. He is far better at admitting it than I am, that's for sure. Getting an apology out of me is almost impossible, I freely admit that I am a stubborn girl.
I knew who my husband was when I married him. It's not like he became a working musician over night. Our whole relationship dating through marriage was based on him being gone a lot and my having plenty of ME TIME.
It is true that for the first couple years of our sons life that my husband really did not help me when he was home, no diapers, no getting up to help in the middle of the night, no getting up in the morning so I could get some sleep, not when I was sick, not when Zander was sick, not even during those difficult months when Zander was spiraling into the depths of Autism and not even the first few months after we started therapy.
He knows it, he admits it and regrets it and believe me when I say he's more than paid for it. This would not have been such a big deal if our son had been a typical child. If you've read my other posts about our story you can see that what I was dealing with was crazy. It didn't help that I no longer seemed to have a filter between what was in my brain and what came out of my mouth. I'm pretty sure it popped out when my son did. All my patience had to be reserved for Zander so there was nothing left for Eric but anger and sarcasm and resentment. As the time went by I began to put more and more distance between us and pretty soon we were basically strangers living under the same roof.
I will say that around the time we started dealing with the state and getting Zander's official diagnosis my husband did something remarkable, he quit playing music professionally and decided to just teach guitar full time. Our son was beginning not to recognize him and wanted nothing to do with him and Eric realized it was because he was always on the road and needed to spend more time with him.
You would think this would make me happy and that it would change everything but it actually made things worse. I had been doing everything on my own for so long, making the decisions creating the routines and now suddenly there's this guy hanging around all the time and he is constantly questioning me thinking he's being "helpful". He would ask me about stuff I'd already taken care of only he didn't know it because he hadn't been there.
Every fight we had would get a little worse than the last because I would tell him everything was fine and that I forgave him when it wasn't and I hadn't. So un-be-known-st to my husband, with each new argument I would add the residual anger from the previous argument.
For a few months last fall Eric and I reached an uncomfortable place where neither of us really had any respect for the other. The way that we spoke to each other was horrible and I look back at last year and wonder how much of our childish behavior did we expose our son to and how bad did we scar the poor kid? The one thing Eric and I both want more than anything is for Zander to have a happy child hood and it kills me to realize that we almost ruined that for him.
Everything finally came to a head one day last October and my husband asked me, "What do you want?" and I could no longer stop myself from saying it, "I want out!" I snapped. "No, really, what do you want?" he said again to which I replied, "That is what I want. I want out but I don't know how to get out! If I'm going to be a single mom than damn it I actually want to be single." Most men probably would have said fine and walked out the door. In fact we've met lots of Autism families where that is pretty much exactly what happened. Fortunately for me my husband is not most men.
It's funny how men and woman try to cope and help and fix things in opposite ways. My husband initially thought in terms of money and I will never deny that he busted his ass bringing in students to pay the bills. In spite of everything I AM GRATEFUL on a daily basis for how hard he works to keep a roof over our heads. Unfortunately for me the problem wasn't money it was the fact that I still needed help at home. I hadn't had more than 4 hours sleep in a single night pretty much since our son was born. I was completely running on empty. I needed a break or I was seriously going to snap.
Something must have finally clicked in his head because he started helping around the house a little. I can ask him to take out the garbage now or change Zander's diaper or take him out to play. I can tell him when I'm going to go take a shower instead of asking and I can stay in there as long as I want. I was sick a few months ago and he rearranged his students so that he could be home to help out! At first I wasn't sure who this man was but I kinda started to like him!
It's been almost a year since that big blow out and I would be lying to you if I said it's been all cotton candy and unicorns since then. We've had a few bad days but we're talking things out a lot more where we once would have argued. We're BOTH trying now where before I wouldn't budge at all, he's even helping with some of Zander's therapy. He shows more interest in us and our home life and he stays informed and involved with Zander's Autism, but let's me keep the reigns most of the time or at least let's me think I'm in control hahaha!
For the first time in a very long time I we're becoming friends again and there's this dark cloud that has lifted and no longer hanging over us. We're in a really good place and looking forward to the future.
