In a few days Tony will be on his way to his 10 day hiking trip and I am not sure my own person resentment has ever been so high. It’s nothing new: I do not ever get vacation time away because the moral implications of leaving it all behind for just me are mindbogglingly far fetched while the thought doesn’t even occur to him that that’s selfish, fucked up, unrealistic, or something he just can’t have. This is the resentment that has woven its way through our entire marriage, all of the years. The burden of care is on me and with it becomes a sacrifice so out of balance and unfair it’s not even comprehensible to him. Just go, he would say. Except I can’t just make my own vacation plans and go because I am the one who handles the finances so I know how little money we have. And I am the one who handles the kids and home crises and at least one kid can’t just be left to go it alone for 10 days nor is Tony equipped to step in in my absence. But it’s more than all that. It’s the years of this same situation leading to this same resentment and the knowledge that history hasn’t been enough of a teacher for him to care. And it’s the fact that I am the LEAST able to handle myself now. I am sick all the time. I can not handle his out of control dogs. My body doesn’t cooperate with the needs of this house and the pets in it on my own – the bending over to clean up poop and pee, the bending over to feed pets, the bending over and physical struggle to control them all. There isn’t money to kennel them. There just aren’t solutions but he’s not the solutions person so he doesn’t notice or care about the burden on me. He simply does him, as he has always done. And I am FURIOUS about it. I don’t even know how I’ll feed myself. He lost his right to be off the grid for ten days when he left me to the wolves and let me die in this room by myself for the last two decades. He made that choice but he does not care. Like all the other choices he makes, he will continue to be oblivious to the consequences of that choice because he doesn’t care about being bankrupt, he doesn’t care about the safety of the pets, he doesn’t care about my mental or physical health. He cares about doing what makes him feel good. Nothing else.