Always there

Last week, DH had driving lessons on Monday and Tuesday evenings after work. Because we normally get home from work around 7, by the time he's had a two hour lesson, it's almost 9, and we pretty much just have time to eat and then get to bed.

Then on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings we were out together, we were away at the weekend, and on Monday and Tuesday of this week he had driving lessons. He has another lesson tomorrow evening.

So tonight was going to be our night for curling up and spending a bit of time together, and just catching up on what's been going on. I was working from home, so at lunchtime I was able to prepare a nice beef casserole to go in the slow cooker. Just before he was due home, I lit a fire, so that it would be roaring away nicely by the time he came in.

And then it all started to go wrong. The slow cooker was slooooow, and the casserole wasn't ready. The logs were damp, and the fire glowed gently for a while and then fizzled out. We sat there gazing at the dying embers and waiting for our casserole to be ready, and although he said nothing, I felt impatience coming off him that here he was, home on time for once, and he was still having to wait for his supper.

Then he phoned his parents, and his father asked in a hopeful sort of way what we were doing this weekend - angling for a visit. We were meant to be visiting my parents this weekend for my mother's birthday, but the trip fell through - and I had told DH that I was pleased in a way, because although I was sad not to be there with my mother, we had a huge long list of jobs that needed to be done at home.

So I was a little annoyed when he looked sideways at me and then told his father that he didn't think we had any plans and he might drop in to see them. He tries to visit them once every two or three weeks - we visit my parents about twice a year. I encourage him to visit his parents whenever he has the chance, as they're elderly and his father is very frail, but if he went this weekend it would mean that, yet again, I was left to do all the jobs on my own.

I sat there and stewed for about an hour, then it just came out. "I know I'm probably premenstrual and unreasonable, but I feel a bit resentful that you told your father we weren't busy this weekend."

He looked hurt and said, "Honestly, I can't do anything right. I didn't think we were."

So then I reminded him that we had talked about all the jobs we needed to get done this weekend. And I reminded him of the most important one - that since our papers arrived from the old clinic last week, we haven't had a chance to fill in the forms for XXXX clinic. In fact, DH hasn't even seen our papers from the old clinic. There are a lot of questions for both of us on these forms, and it's a job that we need to do together. Plus, I want him to care about this and invest in it at least a little bit.

And I pointed out that every month that passes is another month closer to me having no eggs left at all, and that nothing is going to happen until we've sent the forms off.

And he put his arms round me and apologised, and suddenly I found that I couldn't hold back the tears and his shoulder was getting awfully wet.

It was like I'd scratched at the corner of a scab which I thought was ready to fall off on its own - and suddenly I found that I'd ripped the whole thing off and found that I was still bleeding underneath.

And I'm wondering once again if this is what it's going to be like for ever - pootling along through my everyday life thinking I'm OK with all this, talking about it in perfectly sane and reasonable terms, until suddenly and unexpectedly the scab gets ripped off and I'm in pieces again.