I spent the whole day yesterday decorating the house for Christmas and organising the food I'd bought for Christmas week as well all the presents. I was really looking forward to the weekend but I knew it was going to be shit as soon as my hubby walked in the door on Friday night. He has a head cold and feels a bit nauseous which means he might as well have influenza and ebola for all the fuss he's making. I asked him every day last week to use First Defence and gargle with Listerine as he was complaining of an achy throat. What did he do? he just took paracetamol. So in other words he masked the symptoms but did nothing to stop the cold form getting worse. He's really awful when he gets a cold. Everything has to stop and he's terribly grumpy and bad-tempered.
We all know the symptoms of "man-cold" are more severe than those of the rest of the population. I was ill for two consecutive weeks with the flu and bronchitis and I was still taking care of the house, the kids, and everything else.
So needless to say I had to decorate for Christmas all by myself this weekend. The kids who are really young, were looking forward to it so much, so I din't want to postpone it until next weekend. Long story short, we had a massive row when I asked him to give me 30 mins of his time to help me put the tree in the stand and put the lights on it. I might as well have asked him to go into the woods, chop a tree, carry it on his shoulders....well you get the idea.
And then when I asked him if he could wake up in the morning with the kids as I went to bed at 2am wrapping up the presents and clearing up, he thanked me (sarcastically) for being so sensitive to his need for a lie in.
Stupidly, I started crying. I hate it when I do that! But I was exhausted and when the kids woke up I had only had 3 hours of sleep. So I got up today and have had another full day of laundry, housework, etc, etc.
I am really regretting treating him to breakfast in bed yesterday and today and wrapping up all his presents. I keep fantasising about looking frantically under the tree for his presents, putting them in a bin and setting fire to them!...lol
I really feel so disappointed in him. I feel like a little bit of the love I had for him died after the arguments. It's a deeper issue really. Me feeling unappreciated and knowing that as parents we have to put our needs last always and him not getting that and thinking that if he has a cold he should rest regardless of what's going on and how important this weekend was to us.
Last year was the first Christmas we spent without his dad and so he was understandbly distant. Isa was only 1 and JJ was only 3 , so it was quite easy to distract them and keep them happy when he was feeling sad and wanted to be alone. But this year I thought he would be more 'present' as the kids are older and know more about Christmas and are super excited.
Anyway, I feel angry and sad. Not a very good start to Christmas and totally unexpected.
Hope you've all had better weekends 