My Big Mistake and How Zooey Deschanel Saved Me

I really blew it last weekend.

Here's the thing.  I'm never going to tell you a story about how I fought with someone and how it was all their fault and how I was completely blameless.  The truth is I have a big mouth.  Even if I hadn't started the fight, I want to finish it.  And even when I don't want to finish it, I've certainly said something to continue it.

I guess last Saturday I wanted to fight.

First I got up early and decided to go Christmas shopping.  I kissed Hubby good-bye at 9 AM while he was still in bed.  He asked when I would be home and I told him that I would be home for lunch.  I went on my merry way and knocked out some serious Christmas shopping.  Just after 1 PM, I headed back to my car and started to head home.  At 1:23 PM, I noticed that I missed a call from Hubby at 1:14 PM.  I thought, "Oh, he must be getting hungry. I'll call him real quick and let him know that I'm on my way home."  When he answered, I could hear a lot of noise in the background.  When I asked where he was, he told me that he went out for lunch because he was tired of waiting for me.  Tired of waiting for me?  It took me nine minutes to call him back.  Well, I was pretty pissed and I ended up hanging up on him (I'm also not the most mature fighter).

My issue with that was that he didn't call me at 1:14 to see where I was.  He called me to tell me he was going out to lunch even though I told him I'd be home for it.  He doesn't think about how I'm not telepathic and didn't know that he'd been hungry for an hour beforehand.  I thought it was rather selfish that he called and then ran out the door.

I sat around waiting for him for a couple of hours while he ran errands.  I confronted him when he came home.  And, no, this is not the part of the story that is referring to when I really screwed up.  I stand by my reaction to him doing that.  He tried to blame it on a "miscommunication". No, I communicated accurately that I would be home for lunch. He chose to ignore that and went to lunch when he got hungry.

This was a little thing.  We talked about it and it went away (sort of).

We picked out a Christmas tree that evening but Hubby wasn't in the mood to decorate it.  So we put it up and plopped ourselves down on the couch.  After a couple of hours, we decided to go out to dinner.

We went to a restaurant that had a special strawberry rum drink on their menu.  I ordered one.  Please note: I do not drink that often, so my tolerance is low.

I started drinking and it was delicious. I offered Hubby a sip and he was stunned by how strong it was.  Immediate issue: I hadn't noticed.  I sucked down my drink and was definitely feeling it when we left.

In the car ride home, I started harping on him about how he buys my Christmas gifts a year late.  I guess you'll need a little back story for this.  Here it goes:

When I first moved to Houston in the fall of 2008, we were not going to have a TV in the bedroom.  This would be the first time since I was about five that I didn't have a TV in my bedroom.  I had made comments about it when I originally moved, but I got over it pretty fast.  We lived in a little apartment and now that I had someone to go to bed with, it really didn't seem necessary.  For Christmas 2009, I really wanted a DSLR camera.  Like, really badly.  Hubby had asked what I wanted for Christmas and this is a direct quote of how I responded, "I really want a camera.  Please don't get me anything other than a camera.  All I want is a camera. It's going to be expensive so please don't get me anything other than a camera."  That Christmas there was a box, about the size of a camera under the tree.  I was excited for days leading up to it so that I could open my camera.  When I opened it, it was a TV remote.  He had bought me a TV for Christmas.  Well, I was certainly surprised....

Last year, I had asked Hubby to get me a really nice standing jewelry box.  I wanted the kind that was like a piece of furniture.  But, after talking about how much money we had spent already for the season, we decided that that was going to be too expensive.  So he didn't get one for me.  Although, I have to say, once he started spending, he definitely spent that kind of money on me.  Anyway, I received a gift from my mother a few days ago.  She does everything early.  It was a jewelry box.  When I called her to thank her, she said 'A little birdie told me that you wanted that.'  I laughed because that was last year.

I know. I know.  I sound super materialistic with this sidebar, but please realize that I'm not a stereotypical woman.  I do not drop hints at what I want and then act disappointed when I don't get what I want.  He always says that it's so hard to buy me presents--FYI that's ridiculous.  Spend five minutes in a mall and anyone that has ever met me can spend about $100 that quickly. I'm super easy to buy for.  So to help him out, I tell him what I want.  He doesn't get it and then he complains about how hard I am to shop for.  I couldn't imagine how he would have handled being with one of those women that just hint at things and expect their husband to be a mind reader.

End of sidebar.

So back to last Saturday.  We were in the car on our way home.  I was drunk from one drink.  I started harping on Hubby about how my presents are always a year late.  He says something like "See why I get stressed out about what to get you."  Then I start yelling that it's not hard to get me presents because I tell him what to get me, but he makes it impossible.

Then I want yogurt so I make him stop.  But he doesn't want yogurt so he pouts about it.  I don't want to sit with him pouting so I yell in the parking lot to get back in the car.  And then this is where I really blew it (trust me, I was not at my finest in the moments leading up to this but it gets worse).

I start yelling at him in the car that I'm sick of not telling him things because it will damage his sensitive ego.  I screamed about all the things that bother me that I never talk about.  I yelled about his Christmas decorations, I yelled about issues in the bedroom, I yelled about assorted little things that I had been keeping to myself for a reason.  Individually, hearing each one probably wouldn't have been so bad.  But hearing all of them at once.  I don't know if there's a word strong enough to describe how mean I was, and Bitch certainly isn't going to cut it.

We got home and Hubby remained calm.  He parked himself in front of the TV and I lost it again. I was screaming for him to get out of my face (in my defense--the little that I can make for this case--I wanted him to leave the room not the house). I continued yelling until he left.

Pretty much as soon as I heard the door close behind him, I thought, "What just happened?"

I waited a little while and then I got in my car and went to the pool hall he usually goes to.  He wasn't there. I called him. I said "I'm sorry."  He said that he went for a drive.  I waited, not patiently, for him to get home. I apologized again when he got home.  I really felt terrible.  I don't often apologize, sometimes even when I know I'm wrong.  But this was worse than just wrong.

Things weren't right with us for a few days.  We were speaking but it wasn't right.  I felt awful every day until it was.  He's not easy to make a nice gesture for to fix everything.  He's not a big eater so I couldn't make him a dinner to come home to.  I thought about maybe making spicing it up in the bedroom but even that I knew couldn't fix anything.  As upset as he was, it was very likely I would have been rejected and I just couldn't handle that.

On a lighter note, he did come around Tuesday night after we watched New Girl.  Zooey Deschanel is his major celebrity crush.  I finally heard him start to laugh while we watched the episode, and then when it was over, he asked, "Do we still have that Conan she was on last week?"  So we watched that.  After that much Zooey, he was over it.  He was back to his normal self, chewing my ear off as we got ready for bed and as we laid in bed trying to go to sleep.  So now I know.  When having a major fight with Hubby, always have a Zooey show/movie on hand.  I think I'm going to run out and buy (500) Days of Summer.

How We Spent Our 10th Dating Anniversary

WARNING: HUSBAND AND HUSBAND'S FAMILY SHOULD NOT READ THIS

Here's another way my in-laws screwed up my husband.  Well, let's be honest.  This is another way my MIL screwed up my husband.

Can I digress for a minute? What is with the mother-son relationship? I know I don't have a child yet so maybe I can't speak, but I don't know a single man that has a healthy relationship with his mother.  Ugghhh...

So, I've mentioned it before. My husband is ridiculously sensitive.  And not in the hunky dark and damaged way. No, in the whiny I-have-to-watch-every-single-word-out-of-my-mouth way.  I assume this has to do with not getting enough love as a child or not being hugged enough or not getting enough attention (or being loved too much as a child or being hugged too much or getting too much attention--although my hunch would be the first list in his scenario).

We've been together for 10 years now.  However, spending the first 7 years apart meant that I didn't see this side of him for a long time.  It was sexy that when we were leaving each other at the airport and his eyes filled with tears.  I was under the impression he was acting this way because he was just so much in love with me.

Nope.  When I moved to Texas and we moved in together, I found out that his really mature way to resolve fights was to stop speaking to me for DAYS at a time.  This made for an even lonelier time during my loneliest time.

Why do I bring this up today? Especially the day after I tweeted how excited I was that we were going to have a date night and celebrate our 10th anniversary (we officially started dating 9/10/2001).

The day started like it was going to be super romantic.  He said we should go out to dinner, a fancy dinner.  My pick. Wow, this is going to be good, right?

Well, I picked the Melting Pot.  We hadn't been there in a while, it's one of my favorites, and I've been begging to go for over a year.

Since we were heading into Houston, I wanted to do something fun there--not just travel for dinner and come back.  So I promptly went online and found The Music Box Theater.  We had the whole night planned.

When it was time to go, I was still about 15 minutes away from being ready.  Side note: I have NEVER been this girl. I was always the one waiting on all my other friends.  This started about a year ago.  I told my husband he might want to give me fake times from now on.

So we were on the road late. Whoops.  We went to the theater picked up our tickets and headed to dinner.  We got there about 20 minutes late.  Our waiter was awesome. I thought we were making great time. And then, he hands us the dessert menu--the real reason we're here. I check my phone (because who wears a watch anymore?). It's 7:30. Yikes! We need to leave now.  Well, the awesome part was that our waiter gave us a rain check for the dessert. PHEW!  We paid and then sped away.

We went to the show at The Music Box Theater. And let me tell you, it was AWESOME! The troupe was funny. They were talented.  To say we were entertained for 2 hours is an understatement.  You could hear my husband after many songs say, wow and there were times that I laughed so hard I cried.  My cheeks hurt at the end of the night from smiling and laughing so much.  If you haven't figured it out yet, I highly recommend the show and definitely plan to be back for all their next shows.

When it was over, we hopped back into the car and headed back to the Melting Pot for dessert.  We chatted about the show on our way.  We sat down in the restaurant and all of a sudden, my husband wasn't talking to me. Whaaaat? I had no idea what happened.  I tried to make conversation. But when it's one sided, it can only last so long. So we sat for most of dessert in awkward silence. Awkward silence?? We're celebrating 10 years together.  We should be able to talk about paint drying and still be able to carry on a conversation.

I looked him straight in the eyes and I said, "Did I say something? Are you mad at me? I really don't understand what's going on here." FYI, I'm a bit of a straight-shooter.  He mumbled, no. After more of this awkwardness, I asked him, "Are you tired? You're like a completely different person from before." No. That second no is the one that means, Yes, I'm mad at you but I'm not talking to you so don't try to blame this silence on me being tired.

Well, I STILL have no idea what happened.  I racked my brain.  Here are my two options that could have spurred this:

1. There was a bit with "Judy Garland" and "Liza Minnelli" during the show. My husband told me that he didn't get it. So I had to explain that they were mother and daughter. I was a little surprised that he didn't know this. So if at any point in my explanation, I said, 'oh, you didn't know that' it becomes that I'm a condescending bitch. But I don't remember saying anything like that in my explanation but as you can see, I could have said anything and the meaning can be construed to just about anything.
2. There was no parking near the restaurant so we had to park pretty far.  I was wearing these killer 5" heels.  Oh, they are they sexiest shoes I have ever owned! I digress.  So, as he parked, he asked, "Is this okay?"  It didn't really bother me. The restaurant is in a strip mall and we were like 2 stores over.  The problem was there was a HUGE crack in the pavement in the spot that neither of us saw.  When I got out, I [almost] took a pretty bad tumble.  Totally twisted my ankle (not the permanent damage way though).  So I think I mumbled something like, "Oh, yeah, great spot. I almost killed myself." Now please understand, I was mad at the SPOT not him. He didn't see it. I didn't see it as I was stepping out into it.  No what I've learned over these last 3 years, I might have hurt his feeling with that statement.  You know, the one I made while my ankle was throbbing. Awesome.

So these are the only things that I can come up with.  On our drive home, he becomes Chatty McChatterPants.  Where did that come from?  Well, here's the other thing I know about this man that I've been with for 10 years.  Somewhere between the walk from our table and getting into the car, he realized that if he keeps up the silent treatment, he isn't getting laid tonight.  This ride back is his last chance to patch that up.

It was too late.  I was pissed.  He took a really romantic dinner and a really fun night and honestly, ruined it for me.  If you had to sit across from that puss he was making, trust me, you'd feel the same way. PS That silent treatment/sit around with a puss on my face comes from his mother.  This is exactly how she resolves issues too.  Really excited about signing up for that fun trait.

When we got home and started getting ready for bed, I asked him one last time.  What was with you tonight? "Sometimes you have to understand that your sarcastic comments really bother me." Whaaaat? again!  Please remember, from the time we were talking to the time he abruptly stopped, all we discussed was the show. THE SHOW.  Or the parking spot. These are not topics I think warrant getting feelings hurt.

And to boot, I was right. He looked me right in the eyes at dessert, lied to me, and continued to ruin my night.  My only comfort in dealing with this crap is that I truly believe he's preparing me for CHILDREN. Ugghhh!

So that's how my really romantic husband--who yes, I love dearly but am really not liking him right now--ruined our 10th anniversary.  Awesome.