I’m not going to walk you through my entire life story or how I ended up here. That’ll come later, in pieces, when things bubble up. For now, this is just where I am.
Marriage has good times and bad times. Everyone knows that. But sometimes the bad isn’t just bad—it’s heavy. Lingering. The kind of bad that sits on the couch with you and doesn’t say much.
My husband and I have been riding some pretty intense ups and downs for the last two years. A lot of it got harder when he was laid off. He still hasn’t found a job, and that fact lives in our house like a third person. It’s a touchy subject. I avoid it because I don’t want to start a fight or make him feel like a failure. I know the job market is brutal. I know what getting laid off does to your confidence and your ego.
But it’s also a lot of pressure being the only one bringing in an income.
And I don’t say that out loud.
Because I don’t want to hurt him.
So instead, I hold it.
A few days ago, things blew up. Quietly at first. Loudly later.
It started with a cheer moms meeting on a Wednesday night. I honestly thought I’d be home by 8:30. No big deal. But the meeting ran long—and it was fun. I laughed. I learned more about the coaches. It felt good to just… exist as a person for a minute.
I didn’t get home until 11.
Looking back, I wasn’t great about updating him that the meeting was running late. When I got home, he was on the couch. Seemed fine. No big reaction.
The next day, though, he barely talked to me. When I asked what was wrong, he said he didn’t feel good. Which is interesting, because that seems to happen every time I go out with friends—or am about to. Maybe that’s something to unpack later.
I gave him space.
The next day, still nothing.
We ate dinner in silence. I tried cleaning up around him, pretending everything was normal, until I finally asked, “Are you mad at me?”
His response: I really need you to get off your phone. You’re on it all day.
That hit a nerve. Mostly because he’s on his phone just as much as I am. But before I could even process that, it turned into him saying I don’t help around the house.
And let me tell you—it took everything in me not to explode and say:
I work all week. You’re not working. Yes, the house should be your responsibility right now.
But I didn’t say that.
Instead, I did what I do best when I don’t know how to communicate.
I walked away angry.
And I rage cleaned.
Like, Olympic-level rage cleaning.
Every item that had been sitting around for months? Picked up. Put away. Scrubbed. Folded. I cleaned until I was vibrating with anger, then sat in my bedroom in silence because I didn’t trust myself to talk without making it worse.
He slept on the couch.
The next morning, I took our daughter to run errands. When I got back, he had cooked himself and our son breakfast. I went upstairs and rage cleaned some more. Bathroom. Bedroom. Kids’ rooms. Vacuumed everything.
Four hours.
Four hours to clean a huge chunk of the house—and suddenly I was even angrier. Because I realized I had done more in one morning than had been done in a year. And that thought sent me straight into “this isn’t fair” territory.
That night, we were supposed to go out with friends. And in true my family fashion, we played happy couple and acted like nothing happened.
But something did happen.
I got very drunk. Like, don’t-remember-leaving, don’t-remember-conversations drunk. Not proud. Haven’t been that drunk in years.
The next morning, I woke up to texts from my husband—who was also drunk—saying things like “thanks for the support” and “thanks for the embarrassment.” I went downstairs and found him on the couch with our son.
I sent our son upstairs and said, “You don’t get to send messages like that and then not talk to me.”
His response?
“Well, I’m just a fucking piece of shit. I don’t have a job. I don’t do anything around the house. That’s all you think of me.”
And suddenly, I was defending thoughts I hadn’t even said out loud.
Yes, there are moments where I think “come on, man, get a job.”
But I’ve been laid off too. I know how hard this is. I know how brutal the rejection is. I have never called him a piece of shit. I have never said he doesn’t do anything.
I told him the truth: every day I come home and ask what he needs help with, and every day he says he’s got it under control. So yeah, I sit on the couch and scroll because I’m exhausted. But if he asked me to help, I would.
We talked. It felt like maybe things were okay.
But they weren’t.
Days later, he’s still barely talking to me. Still “not feeling good.” I’ve offered medicine. Offered to help. Tried to be more present. Stayed off my phone. Done all the things he said he needed.
Still silence.
Last night, I took the kids to basketball. I offered to grab medicine on the way home. He said no. When I got home, there was a bottle of medicine sitting on the counter—because he went and got it himself.
And I know that shouldn’t matter, but in my head it did. Because I was trying. I’m trying.
This morning, I got up early to help get our son ready for school because he wasn’t feeling well. I told him to go back to bed. He said he had it. I kept moving, getting everyone ready, and the silence followed me through the house like a fog.
I don’t know what the right thing is here.
I don’t know how to support without disappearing.
I don’t know how to hold space for his pain without swallowing my own.
I just know this doesn’t feel fine.
And saying it is fine isn’t working anymore.
It’s fine.
I’m fine.
Everything’s fine.
This is how it felt to me. It’s not the full story—just the part I lived.