I finally slept about 5 hours. I haven’t slept more than an hour at a time each night due to the hot flashes. Yes, I’m irritable but I am not ranting around at other people. I just stay quiet and go through arguments in my mind on how annoyed I am at people and these hot flashes. I had some energy. The sun was beautiful and the temp was perfect for being outside, which is my favorite place to be. My husband was studying for a test. I ask him if he minds me mowing the grass. He said no. You may be thinking, why would I want to go mow the grass. I have a riding mower and just driving it around the yard is enjoyable. Once I finished, I continued outside watering my flowers. My husband comes outside and asks “what are you doing?”. I reply “I am watering my flowers and you complained that I needed to be more active so I am being active”. He stated that I should get my step son (his son) outside to help, that he’s just being lazy sitting on his butt on the computer. Now, I am thinking to myself, why didn’t you ask him to come outside and help then. But instead, I stated that I enjoy mowing the grass. I also stated to my husband that his son has had a bad attitude lately (because he did at breakfast before I came out to mow) and no one wants to be around him when he’s like that. My husband raised his voice and told me that I can’t run outside away from my step son to get my “zen”. I said I just mowed the grass…it needed mowing and watered my flowers because they needed watering. My thought process really didn’t go much further than that. My husband was just butt hurt that I commented on his son’s disrespectful attitude. He continued to complain while I was watering my flowers and even told me how I wasn’t watering them well. He finally went back inside. I remained silent soaking in every harmful word he spewed.
Rewind to breakfast before I started mowing the grass. My grandson, granddaughter, step son, husband, and myself were eating a breakfast that I prepared. During breakfast, my step son started commenting in a bully manner on how my grandson used his fingers to eat his tater tots and had grease on his fingers. My husband then commented on it as well. My grandson, who is 12 just stopped eating and didn’t say anything. My step son continued to insult him by talking and laughing about how he eats with his fingers randomly. I spoke up and said “that’s enough”. When I did, my step son said “well you can call me out on my grades but I can’t call anyone out on what they do?” I said, “yes I can because I am your parent and you had a bad attitude when I called you out on your grades as well”. He got up, slammed his plate in the sink and went to his room and slammed the door.
To rewind to the night before regarding the comment on his grades. My step son’s english teacher told me that she recommends summer school for him due to his failing grades in her class. He has several missing assignments. I mentioned it to him on the way home from school in the car and that set his mood for the rest of the day. An hour later, we were on our way to Disney for a Friday night dinner and fireworks. We do this often with my daughter and grandchildren. My daughter pays for my dinner and all of our annual passes including my step son’s pass and dinner. On the drive, he squeezed my 7 year old granddaughters hand and made her cry. She was sitting beside him in the car and he said she was too close to him. He is 16 and a strong male on the weight lifting team. I snapped at him and said “you can stop being in a bad mood, taking it on everyone else over your bad grade” then turned back around in my seat. From that point, he pulled a hoodie on his head and acted like a spoiled child with ear buds in ignoring everyone. He pinched my grandson during the fireworks to make him move over instead of simply asking him to scoot over and he wouldn’t talk the entire night except to mutter something about how he hated being at Disney. He complained about being forced to go with the family instead of staying home to play on his computer.
Now, back to the watering of flowers, I never used the term “zen”. I am unsure how he came up with that except from his own opinion on what I was doing. I also wasn’t running away. I do however feel that my mental health is a good priority to have and if I did need a mental break from my step son then I should be free to create that within reason. Watering flowers is most definitely within reason in my opinion. My husband told me later that menopause is causing me to be distant, irritable, and do things like run away from his son.
The fact is… I am finding my voice when I need to and should have a long time ago. I am reacting and voicing my feelings about how his words and actions make me feel. I told him that I walk around feeling as though my feelings are invalid and void. He ignored that and blamed me saying that on menopause too. I just kept silent.