*growl*

It's one of those miserable, no good, fucked up sort of days.

Yesterday wasn't so hot, either.

He picked a series of fights with me, starting last night, after 10:30. Then he blustered and raged and calmed the fuck down enough to fall asleep on the couch nearby.

Then he got up, noticed what time it was (1:30) and that I wasn't planning on going to bed anytime soon, and started it all over again.

I *was* planning on going to bed around 12:30, but after the fucking temper tantrum, I was like "yeah, no, fuck you I'll do what I want. I need time to cool down."

I get up and go to bed, around 2:15, on the heels of, yes folks, a THIRD fucking rage. This time, I was so tired, so strung out, so sick of the fucking mental abuse, I did what I don't do very often. I yelled back. It continued like this until about 3:30, and I laid awake for maybe another hour after that. Laying in bed, stiff, tense as a board. Wishing we had a spare room in this house, so I didn't have to sleep there. I may as well have slept standing up, I was so tense and miserable. Of course, after HE got what HE wanted to say, out of his system, in the most hurtful, raging, psychologically damaging way possible, HE fucking slept like a baby.

He woke up this morning, trotted off to work. I, however, slept through the alarm clock, and got up an hour ago. Yes, with Alden in the house, still. No, Alden didn't wake me up.

What did we fight about? Does it matter? No. Not when I can time his raging like clockwork. I can almost pinpoint what sets it off, and looking back, it's THE most petty thing, in the whole universe. It always it. I never know what I'm going to say or do, that sets this off, but when it's over, I can evaluate the events leading up to it, and say to myself "oh...never woulda guessed".

Nevermind that I can figure out what does it, he's going to do it again, and again, and again, relentlessly, every other day, every week, for a completely random and different reason each and every time. I walk on eggshells around him. I pick my words and actions so carefully. I spend most of the day running around keeping the business in line, making sure this house, and Alden are in peak condition, so that when he comes home, I'm infallible. He's got nothing to rage about. But he always manages to find something. Do I live in fear? No. I do try to do everything I can, to end this rage, these fights that he just blindsides me with. I've never, in our 8 years together, started one fight. I don't have to, I don't even get the chance, really. He brings it right to my lap.

He becomes a paranoid, ranting maniac. When he starts, it could be something in the now, that makes him go off, but for some reason, he yells about EVERYTHING that's EVER pissed him off since we've KNOWN each other. Last night...he managed to bring ex boyfriends that he never even MET, into it, somehow. Just attacking, like a pit-bull, everything he can. The worst thing, it's like he searches his brain for stuff to get mad ABOUT. Just to fire the rage along. Like the initial thing wasn't enough, he has to dig up things that happened 6 years ago, and throw it in my face, and get mad. Every single time. He's lately going so far, as to ASSUME things, and get them so worked around in his mind, that he's making things up about me, the things I do, how I spend my time when he's not around, and about stuff, and then yelling at me about it. That's what last night was about, mostly. He got an idea into his head, and I couldn't get it out, no matter what. I calmly denied his delusions, I tried to show him that he was wrong, that if he sat back and really thought about it, it *couldn't* be true. No matter that it was a total fabrication of his own paranoid imagination. Nevermind that there's no evidence supporting what he sorta picked out of the air, as the truth. He thought of it. It pissed him off. Guess who he takes it out on. That's what scares me, really. It used to be tangible things. Like the laundry, or whatever. I'd mumble my sorries and get my shit done, and everything would be fine. NOW he's got NOTHING. I function at 100%, and NOW he has to make up paranoid bullshit accusations.

Alden sees it. He used to do it almost every day. This is an example from a while back: One of the more notorious ones, where I swear he was actually going to snap and hit me, that one was caused because I left a basket of clothes on top of the washing machine unfolded. I didn't fold the laundry. At 8 pm, he decided he couldn't take it anymore, and threw the laundry at my feet, screaming, berating, hands flying, finger pointing in my face. He comes so close sometimes, I'm afraid one day, he's going to misjudge, and accidentally hit me. I almost want that to happen, because then I'll have a real reason. I never yell back. I used to burst into tears, right at the start, and he'd get it all out of his system, and we'd kiss and make up. That really bad time, that was the first time I sat there, unblinking, and let it wash over me. I just sat there, like a rock, with my arms folded. I told Alden to go in the other room. He was so infuriated, he started picking things off my desk, and hurling them. He grabbed my tower, and ripped it from the cords, and flung it across the living room, smashing this nice dent in the wall. Yeah, Alden sees it.

That's how I cope, though. I just sit, and let him blow himself out. To date, I almost never yell back. The few times I have, it was because he was targeting someone else. It happened when I was on the phone with a friend. Since I was ignoring him storming around me, and carrying on a calm conversation, the person on the phone became the target, and he grabbed the phone out of my hand and screamed at them, nasty, insulting things. Threats. That got me yelling.

Last night, I just had it. All this bullshit superficial stuff he does, to try and make things better. The flowers, the sweet things he's been buying me, all last weekend. The problem isn't solved. The treats, and nice times, it almost makes the really bad stuff stand out in sharp relief. It reminds me of those domestic abuse cases. "I'm sorry I beat the shit out of you baby, I don't know what came over me, I love you, let me back in the house, here I bought you flowers." He's never, to date, laid a hand on me, though. The violence is there. I think he knows that's the line. It's almost like, the nicer he is, inbetween rages, the more intense he goes off. Like, some kind of license to do it, or something.

I'm so tired. I'm so fucking tired of all that. It's like this dark vein of misery, in my otherwise very comfortable life. If it happened less, I could maybe deal with it. I can't keep having my nights, and days ruined like this though. Today, today, I overslept, because he wouldn't let me go to bed till almost 4, and I couldn't calm down enough, even then. I blame him, squarely. Alden has now missed a day of school because of it.

I called the school, and lied about his absence. I feel like shit. I feel like shit for having to do that, having to live this way, and having Alden live this way.