Stealing My Wiggle Room

It's the end of a long day. My patience has been tried, and tried again, and tried yet again. I have come thisclose to losing it with the kids, but I have kept my cool. They're good kids, I remind myself. They're just tired like I am. Then Daddy comes home and within minutes something happens to set him off and he completely loses his temper with the kids.

And you know what I think?

NO FAIR!!!!

It's like every day I work to build up each child's emotional bank account. I make deposit after deposit, and I am very careful not to lose my temper, because I know that will be a serious withdrawal, and I know that sometimes I can't help but lose my temper, so I have to make sure that the emotional bank account is full enough to handle that kind of withdrawal. I allow myself some wiggle room, just in case. Then what does my husband do? He totally steals my wiggle room!! I'm the one working all day to fill the bank account and then he depletes it in a matter of minutes by losing his temper!!

I want to yell, "NO!! You are not ALLOWED to lose your temper! You have only been with them for TEN MINUTES! I've been with them ALL DAY!! If anyone in this house should be flipping their lid it should be ME!!! But I'm NOT!!! See how COMPOSED I AM????!!!! No fair no fair NO FAIR!!!!!"

But I don't yell. Because the emotional bank accounts are already dangerously close to being overdrawn, and we can't afford it. So I suck it up, support my husband's disciplinary actions (if not his attitude) and save my huffing and puffing for after the kids are in bed. I know my husband has had his own set of stresses during the day, and even though they may not be the same as mine, they still wear him down. I just wish I could go to his office and yell at his boss to blow off some of my steam.

I just hate it when someone steals my wiggle room.