In everything but earning, I’m the head of my household. Managing the finances, determining groceries for the week, meal planning, deciding when we do home repairs… all of these things come down to me, with very little input from any other adult residing in the household. I even have to hound them to make doctor’s appointments. And I get it, one of the “adults” in my household is my child and new patterns are hard to forge. But the other is my spouse, and at a year + older than me he should be able to do these things.

For more than 20 years I’ve been patient. Holding space in the hope that he would see even with pointing it out, and while the relationship has evolved over time and he has picked up some tasks around the house, that would have been stereotypically delegated to me, with some regularity (and that helps), there is so much that is mentally taxing that I get left holding instead of being able to share the burden.

All he wants to discuss work. Nothing about the future, nothing about what he wants life to look like, no interest in my interests even though I engage and assist where possible when he has a hobby project, and has no time to listen if I'm talking about my job.

I’m exhausted to the point of emotional estrangement, unable to go through the motions and barely able to perform the accustomed verbal transactions. Everything feels hollow and meaningless.

Spontaneity and adventure are foreign concepts to him now VS even 7 years ago when we picked up and went on an almost 2 week vacation that was spread across the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, Stratford Canada, and New Orleans… all by car. Or 2020 when we were supposed to go on a cruise for our anniversary.

He used to randomly go out fishing or kayaking unplanned in the middle of the week. It didn’t bother me if he went without me because I knew that all I had to say was that I wanted to come too and he would have loaded up my kayak along side his and we would have set out as soon as we were both in the truck.

Now I’m the one making all the plans, running the house, and playing the mediator between my spouse and adult child, all while trying to emotionally regulate myself.

I’ve long joked that it is like having 2 kids, but that one of them is just a grown ass man. I’ve also long confided in myself that if something were to happen to him or this relationship, I’d never love another man. At one time that may have been a silent dedication to him, now its just a realization that men are just too immature in general, dating in this time in history is a shit show, though I'm not sure any other time was any better, and men just aren’t attractive to me anymore.

I don't have to date a bunch of men to know that a straight cis man makes a terrible partner. Horror stories of dating and marriage are everywhere. And even the “happy” stories I hear, I'm left wondering if the person is just deceiving themselves. Every man my sister gets involved with isn't looking for a partner, he's looking for a mother. And when there is already a child involved in the relationship, that is an undertaking that few people are prepared to take on. But it's also the role that society seems to have saddled women with.

I’m tired.

Tired of being responsible. Tired of being the person everyone turns to. Tired of keeping up appearances. Tired of not being true to myself. Tired of hiding from myself, and everyone else.