Wife’s birthday

The day I left on my most recent business trip was also Wife’s birthday. Since I wasn’t going to be able to spend the whole day at home, I took the day before off of work to spend with her and asked her to come up with a list of things she’d like to do. After a few days of thinking, she decided she would like to spend the morning at a local art museum, then go out for lunch and catch a matinee in the afternoon. In the event, it didn’t quite work out that way.

I had contacted Boyfriend 4 and asked him if he would be willing to stay with the family while I was gone, to give Wife a hand and help out with the boys. He arrived about 7:00 in the morning and took the boys to school.

Meanwhile, Wife got up late, ate no breakfast, and spent 90 minutes on-line (which gave me a chance to pay some bills). When we finally got to the Museum, we had been there less than an hour when she started to feel weak. She went to a bathroom and gagged for a while, then asked to go home. (To be more precise, she started by mentioning as a neutral piece of data that her anti-nausea medicines were at home. I suggested that maybe starting the day with no breakfast was the real culprit, and that she should consider just getting a piece of bread or something similarly low-impact to eat. She replied with an anguished, "I'm BEGGING you to allow me to go home!!" ... and of course there was no arguing at that point.)

So we went home. Wife took a bunch of medications and went to bed. I was left wondering if she had somehow sabotaged herself, or if I was over-reading things. The boys were still at school. I chatted with Boyfriend 4 and puttered.

Some time later, Wife got up and said she would still like to go to a movie. We found a local theater showing "Slumdog Millionaire" and decamped. Boyfriend 4 picked up the boys from school.

After the movie, we went out for sushi for dinner; Boyfriend 4 fixed meatloaf and mashed potatoes for the boys. Then Wife and I came back home. It was maybe about 8:00. Wife got ready for bed and turned in.

Anyway, the second half of the day -- movie and dinner -- was OK, at least from the perspective of Wife and me. It's a good movie, and dinner was nice ... although to be fair we didn't talk much. Nor was I very hungry, come to that -- I wanted the hot tea more than anything else. But it was still OK.

I can’t help wonder, though, whether at some level Wife couldn’t take the stress of doing something new and different (like going to the Museum) and therefore sabotaged it so that the day devolved into something familiar (dinner and a movie). Is this over-reading things?