It Wasn’t About the Food

I do not accept his nonsense. I have been asking since I got off work at 5:15 what he wanted for dinner. I offered a new hibachi restaurant and asked if he was interested. He said probably not and gave no real answer. He was already irritated about something else, talking about kids leaving trash in the cul-de-sac, and his tone was short from the start. I said, ok well if you don’t want Hibachi, dinner choice is on you!

I went back inside, fed the dogs, let them out to potty, fixed myself a small bourbon and turned on teh TV to watch a program he doesnt like. I ffigured, I’d wind down and relax a bit while he finishes what he’s doing outside. He came in at looked at me like I had three heads, He says, “You couldn’t come outside and have your drink with me? you had to be sneaky and drink it in here?” I said, “First of all, im not being sneaky, that would imply I have somethgn hide. Second, I thought you were still working, so I was giving you time to finished what you were doing so we can go get dinner.” He scoffed and walked out.

I fixed another drink and went outside to the garage to hang out, but he stayed cold and distant. I sat in the gold cart and put on another show that he doesnt mind. He stood near his truck in the driveway and wasn’t really interacting with me. Every interaction felt clipped. No real conversation, no connection. Then the small comments started. Little jabs about things like the dog, how I don’t take care of them. He’s talking to the dog sayign this. She is outside on the golf cart with me. Nothing direct enough to call out without it turning into a bigger issue, but enough to feel. I let it go.

About 20 mins later, I asked again about food because the day before he was irritated that I had not brought it up. He still had no asnwer, just grumbled, I don’t know yet. My show is an hour long, so when it was just about over, I brought it up again, I said, “It’s going on 7:00pm we need to figure out food or I’m goign to make a grilled cheese and call it a night.” He said, “Stop being so aggressive with food man, come on. I said I don’t know what I want.”

Now I had mentioned dinner a few times and then was direct about it, suddenly it was me being on his ass about it. So I stopped asking. I stayed in my own lane, finished the program and I went inside and talked to my sister on the phone. While I was talking to her, I was telling her about a show on Apple TV I was watching but Inever rememebr the name. So I pull it up and saw the next episode was out. When I hung up with her, Hes still outside, now i’s nearly 8pm. He comes in with an attitude and complains that I was watching something he had not finished, even though I had told him I was already watching it. Offered to wait and watch, he never really seemed interested in it. He and I watch the first two, and now there are six episode total. So for me, If you want to watch it, i happy to rewatch it with you. But he made it a huge issue.

By 8:30 I still had not eaten and he was back outside. As Im in the kitchen, he comes in and I could feel him looking at time starting to make food and if that look could have burned a hole in my soul, it would have. He lays on teh couch, still scrolling on his phone. I changed my plan of making grilled cheese and settled for a single piece of white bread with a piece of cheese, folded it in half and called it night. I know if I had made the sandwhich and offered or didn’t offer him one, either way I’d hear about it.

As i suspected, even that became an issue. I told him I wanted it on record that I had been asking about food all night and it was met with irritation, and I didn’t want to hear later that he was losing weight and somehow it was my fault. He had asked me to have bandwidth, and I have, but he is the one creating distance.

I went to the bedroom and he stayed on the couch the rest of the night, coming to bed after I was already asleep.

This is the pattern. He gets in a mood and takes it out on me, and somehow it becomes my fault. The tone never shifted back. There was no effort to reconnect, no conversation to clear anything up. Just distance. This entire night had nothing to do with food.

By the end of the night I felt completely off. Confused, on edge, and blamed for something I couldn’t even clearly point to. Yesterday the issue was that I didn’t bring up food. Tonight the issue is that I brought it up too much.

There is no right answer.

I am not the one creating the distance or the problem. If I hadn’t written this down in the moment, I would have forgotten the small details that show what this really is.

This is not one moment. It’s the pattern.

Patterns Present

☐ Moving the Goalpost
☐ Double Bind (No-Win Situation)
☐ Irritability without explanation
☐ Emotional Withdrawal After Connection Attempt
☐ Subtle Blame
☐ Withholding / Emotional Distance
☐ Lack of Repair (No return to normal)