This started out as an aibu and I've cut and pasted so sorry if it's a bit jumbled.
DW has turned our shed into a kind of den. Decorated only with stuff she's interested in. I feel irrationably angry about this. I know it's the tip of the iceberg and I need to know whether I'm being unreasonable to be pissed off about it.
She has 2 now adult children who have always lived with us, other parent not in picture. I've lived with them since they were small and done at least an equal share of parenting them. I am now a SAHM to a toddler. DW has had a serious drinking problem in the past couple of years (all of our toddler's life, basically) which has nearly made me walk out on several occasions. She works full time in a stressful job, doing 3-4 long days a week. She now drinks about 4 nights a week (10-20 units). That is a lot but a massive reduction from 6 months ago.
I do all of the childcare of the toddler and most of the housework. I get up with the toddler every day. She's got up with toddler 3 times this year. DW usually gets up between 9am and 12pm on her days off.
DW has created this little den in the shed, full of her bits and bobs, says she needs the space for relaxation, and as a distraction from drinking. She potters in there several nights a week, usually on the nights she drinks, so it's not really distracting from it after all. It's decorated with her old photos and things like news clippings of things she's interested in and seems like such a self-indulgent little hovel.
I am so pissed off about it. More than the drinking, more than the lack of getting up with the toddler. I feel like it's massively selfish. There's no space in the house for me to have an equivalent, the toddler barely has a room big enough to fit a cot, never mind finding space for a den for me. But even if I did find space, I'd have about an hour a night after the little one's in bed to go in it anyway.
I know you're all probably going to tell me that it's the drinking and stuff that's the problem, but I can't help but focus on this fucking shed, I want to go in and spray paint swear words all over her stupid fucking pictures and shit.
I feel like I can't say much about the drinking because it's reduced from being an every night thing. But it's still having a massive impact. Last month, she ran out of spending money only 2 weeks into the month. She has no savings left because she used them to top up her wages when drinking really heavily. I have retaliated to this by building a savings account in my own name from a small income I have.
When we argue, it's always because I get pissed off about something like the drinking or money, and she makes me feel like it's me being argumentative because she never starts arguments about my behaviour, so she says it's my fault for starting it.
Why am I so upset over a shed with a few pictures in? Seeing her putting them back up tonight really pissed me off.