Last week I was working longer hours than usual and only finished work at lunchtime on Saturday.
I came back feeling this was a chance to spend some time at home -
properly catching up - with my husband and daughter who is back from university. There were a couple of parties held by different friends of mine (neighbours). They started late afternoon and we'd agreed to drop in on both.
The period after work and before the parties wasn't that peaceful - apart from a pleasant late lunch - because of a crisis involving my daughter's boyfriend. He has major problems at home so we had to decide whether to invite him to stay and wait for him to decide what to do. (We invited him but he's trying to stick things our.)
I've realised over the years that the way in which I enjoy parties involves not staying that long. I don't drink - even quite small amounts of alcohol make me dizzy and ill. I find it quite hard work standing up and having to talk in a louder than usual voice because the room's noisy and/or the music is at a high volume. My husband enjoys a few glasses of wine. Like most people this just makes him feel that he's having a good time.
So if we're going to a party a long way off in the car, there's usually a compromise about how long we'll stay. If the party is near home and we're walking, I tend to leave and he'll come back an hour or so later.
I left Party A after an hour, after saying goodbye to my husband and agreeing we'd meet later at Party B. I came back home and encouraged my daughter to come to Party B where some of her friends were likely to be present. She agreed - and clearly enjoying talking to her old friends there . I spent getting on for an hour and a half at Party B,- my husband hadn't showed up - but the room was getting incredibly hot so I felt that I'd done enough. On my way home I met my husband walking in the other direction to Party B. It was only about 8, but he told me he would probably be back late so why didn't I put all his stuff in the spare room.
I was a bit puzzled that he'd decided in advance that he was likely to stay for several hours at Party B, but just said 'Okay'.
I felt a bit sad at home. Part of me wanted some peace and quiet, but part of me regretted that it seemed unlikely the evening would end with me catching up with my husband. I wrapped some presents for my mother and brother, and looked for a bit of food - but didn't find much. All the shopping my husband had done was for planned Xmas evening meals. There wasn't , for example, a carton of soup I could heat up. I read the newspaper.
My husband and daughter both arrived back at around 11 while I was still awake. My husband came in and it emerged that he'd agreed to go back to Party A after an hour or so at Party B. He'd done lots of dancing - he quite enjoys flamboyant Travolta style moves and I always find him a bit tricky to dance with because he's so caught up in what he was doing.
He babbled away about Party A and how much better it was than Party B. Then my daughter wanted some help getting red wine stains out of a cream coloured jumper. (She'd spilled the wine at Party B). So I gave her a hand.
When I'd finished doing that my husband had disappeared to bed in the spare room.
Our relationship has been a bit up and down over the last week and he'd also gone straight to the spare room on the two previous nights. This was after a minor domestic quarrel..
However, I had thought we had got through that. We do mostly end up sleeping apart because he tosses and turns a lot before getting settled. (Slight knee problems.) I sleep badly because I wake up frequently with overheating. (Menopause). But we would normally end up starting the night together unless I've been sleeping very badly and also have to get up early for work the next day.
Sorry this is so long. But I just feel it's been a rather unhappy beginning to the start of Xmas, and don't know what to do.