The only thing that sends me spiraling out of control is my husband's job. He works at a place that is completely unorganized, and can't seem to plan ahead or work on anything until 3 days before a deadline. That and he often has to travel for work for support or installations, often without much notice. He will tell me he will be gone for x amount of days, and end up staying much longer. He is often gone for major holidays which causes a huge rift because I'm on my own, often with his family staying in our house and it quickly becomes too much for me to handle since I can't just go hide from my in-laws for days. Most of his trips he's gone a week, but they have gone as long as 3 weeks to a month.

So when suddenly I get a text saying he's going to be working all weekend and working late all next week to meet a deadline, I already feel it coming. I get so angry. SO. FUCKING. ANGRY. We had plans this weekend. Our house is a fucking mess because we've both been sick. We haven't even finished decorating for Christmas. There's presents to wrap. We haven't gone grocery shopping in literal weeks. Laundry needs to be finished. I'm already seeing all of the responsibilities we have been pushing to the weekend falling on my shoulders, yet again. 

Now as a disclaimer: my husband helps me all of the time. He is not a lazy person. He contributes to the household. But when he has to work like this, obviously I am going to pick up the slack because I'm not going to expect a person who works long hours for weeks straight on end to have to lift much of a finger when they can finally come home and relax.  He also tells me how much he appreciates what I do to take care of our household while this shit happens. He has done the same for me when I worked previous jobs that were much more physically demanding than I have now.

Now normally if this is a "planned" trip, things go pretty well. I actually enjoy having some time at home to myself. I get to hog the Xbox, watch shitty TV, eat all of the food from the places he doesn't like to go to (mm Chinese, who can hate that?!). I get to sleep obnoxiously at a diagonal angle with my leg hiked up at a 90 degree angle and take up our whole bed with the cats and dog as much as I want.

It's the unplanned and interrupting trips or long hours, or working all weekend that send me into this spiral of rage and resentment. Deep down in my core I know he'd rather be home and not working. But God damn do I take it so fucking personally. I do everything I can to not show it. I often take my time in responding to his texts so I don't look like a bitter and crazy person. But inside my head I am full of rage. I am so mad and my natural reaction is to take it out on him because I can't yell at his job. 

"He could get another fucking job. He could say no. If he wanted to be with me, he would." (Reality: I'm sure he'd rather be with me than his job, but that's forgotten about each time for a moment). All of the bullshit I now have to deal with on my own without any help from him. How it must be so nice to have a wife sitting at home keeping everything clean and organized and dealing with our day to day live shit for us without any help." This is the kind of shit that goes on in my head and makes me feel like such a turbo asshole because none of it is true. Rationally, I know this. But emotionally, it's easily forgotten.

 I eventually calm myself down and bring myself back to reality, but it takes a Goddamn toll on me. There have been times where I have made shitty passive aggressive comments or picked a fight or taken it out on him, but I've always owned up to it and I feel like it has gotten better over time. I'm definitely not perfect.

I think the biggest reason it triggers me is because his job puts me in a position where I need to always be the available and reliable one. I feel like I don't get the option to say no (this is my fault, not anybody else's). If I have to work late one day, it seems to always be on a day where he suddenly won't be home until late. So it's now up to me to figure out how am I going to find time to get home at lunch to let our dog out so she's not sitting inside for 12+ hours without going potty or being cared for. If he suddenly has to leave and go out of town, I'm still on the hook for any previous obligations. If anybody needs anything from us, well, it means they need something from me. I also get paranoid that something bad is going to happen, and he won't be here or vice versa (which has happened and probably why it triggers me so bad. I had to find out I was miscarrying without even knowing I was pregnant and drive myself to and from a hospital because my mother's solution was to just go home and take a nap and wouldn't help me. He's also had a fall and had to go to an emergency room in China). I then in turn think about what I would have to put up with if we have kids in this situation (last minute wrangling of babysitters, or having to call off work and risk my job, etc.). I am always the one having to drop everything and adjust and mentally figure out all of our shit.

I just know I'm going to go home and look at all the stuff that we have set out to do this weekend and feel overwhelmed and have a pity party. I was looking forward to finish Christmas decorating with him this weekend. There's a bunch of little house projects we need to get done by next weekend before his family comes to stay for a week (thankfully he's home this year). Instead of having 2 people knock it all out, I feel like I'll be spending my entire weekend tackling it by myself. It's a shitty and lonely feeling. Not to mention I always feel like such a piece of shit when he tells me how much he appreciates all that I do for us while inside I just want to scream at him for things beyond our control. And he wonders why I occasionally tell him that he deserves better. It also makes me wonder how I would handle this situation if I didn't have this stupid fucking disorder.