A Little Bit Angry

I haven't written for a while. Life is pretty shit around here at the moment. As of Saturday I'll officially be a single Mum on a bloody pension due to the shop not drawing a wage anymore and my husband telling me almost two weeks ago that he "just can't do it anymore".

It's not fair. This wasn't in my life plan and I certainly didn't ask for it. Humiliation has been the overriding emotion this week. Having to line up at Centrelink and receive phone calls from the Department of Human Services who ask all sorts of lovely personal questions about sleeping arrangements, bathroom times and sexual activity so they can determine that I am now "un-partnered" but still living under the same roof. This is all so I can claim some measly amount that will pay the rent each fortnight but not the bills or groceries.

Yep! I've reached the angry stage. I no longer care that he has anxiety, that he's depressed. I'm sick of the "woe is me" and the constant complaining about how terrible his life is. I want to strangle him. I want to tell him "mate you don't know how great you have it!" I want to scream at him that he's giving up a life that lots of people could only dream of having.

Today a customer came in to buy his almost two year old girl a pair of shoes. He was a bus driver doing a charter from Melbourne to Sydney and stops over for a hour in Albury for a break every two days. While checking out the various styles he realised he couldn't remember the size and had to ring his Mum to ask her what to get his daughter. So I asked him if he was a single Dad and he told me his ex-wife ran off with an 18 year old boy and he was left to raise his daughter on his own. He drives a bus 10 hours a day which he hates but it makes good money and it's all the work he could get since he lives in a country town.

This is where I sit back and say "you could of had a life like that". You could have been married to an alcoholic who goes out partying every night and runs off with someone half her age. Instead my hubby has dinner on the table every night, a daughter who loves him, a clean house, an awesome job doing something he loves and getting paid well for it, good health and a wife who loves him and would stand by him always. But apparently that's all too hard for him.

Anyone who knows someone suffering from anxiety and depression knows that they can be volatile and difficult to read human beings. It's like playing pass the parcel all day everyday and you never know if when you finally remove that last layer if your going to get something good or are you going to get an explosion.

The last couple of years have been hard. I never know what mood he'll wake up in or what I'll come home to after work. He escapes reality by sitting on his computer all night. I think he's always found life difficult but now it's become way too hard and he can't take it anymore. Still, I'm angry. I want to shout "suck it up princess!" but I can't.

There are lot's of "if only's" at the moment. It's hard not to think that way.