5 Years Since my Last Post

Somehow I stumbled onto a blog (this one) that I completely forgot that I started. It's been almost 5 years since that last post. So much has happened since that week of frustration and arguing that it's worth updating here in bullet point form because its TLDR.

• My wife (who was my girlfriend at the time) was pregnant with our first kid. We didn't find out until 6 months later
• We now have 2 beautiful daughters, our own house, and moved 1500 miles away from California to Texas.
• I graduated from college, started a business, and work a 9 to 5.
• My wife also finished nursing school and is a full time nurse.
• We got married, but didn't have a wedding. In fact, only our closest circle of friends and family know that we're legally married.

Life these days is so much different than before. I remember how stressful my life was back then, because of the recession and an over jealous girlfriend who seemed annoyed that my life was consumed with school and work.

Now a days, it's all work and no play as we struggle to maintain full time jobs to pay the mortgage and hefty preschool and daycare bill for our 2 kids. Still despite living a little tight, and working too many hours for the sake of my family, we are much happier than we were 5 years ago.

Currently, my life is about trying to navigate one of the most expensive times of our kids lives; their toddler and preschool years while simultaneously trying to pay off my student loan and car note.

My wife and I, though we do our finances separate, are always on the same page when it comes to our financial goals. Financial independence. Then retirement. Which basically means pay off all our debt, then INVEST (note that I didn't say "SAVE").

I'm not sure the next time i'll remember to update my blog here. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's when my daughters are graduating high school or bring home their first boyfriends 10 to 15 years from now.

But who knows. Maybe i'll be back sooner.

Until next time.

Still upset - Round 2

My girlfriend had gone straight to sleep last night. I presume she had eaten dinner at school or went to bed hungry. Either way, I don't care.

This morning she got up before I did (which she usually does because she works full-time, where I am a full time college student) and as she got ready I woke up for a minute. When she saw me, rather than let it go, she continued to try and "talk" about it.

"You're mean. You'd rather watch Kevjumba (the Amazing race episodes I was watching at the time) than talk to me"

"You weren't even listening to me"

"I was trying to talk to you to relieve stress from my day!"

I had mentioned that I did indeed listen and that she was talking about what her mom said and I asked if it couldn't have waited until she got home.

There were other things she blurbed about; in summary saying that it's like we went back right to where we started. That she didn't need her smartphone anymore and that I should cancel it and get her a regular one because there's no point in having it if she isn't going to use it. She then proceeded to toss the phone on the bed and left for work.

A bit annoyed, I let her leave and went back to sleep.

She's as irrational as ever. Even more when she is angry. She tossed her cell phone on the bed as if it would affect my reasoning. Rather I was a bit amused and annoyed. Amused by her irrational behavior and annoyed that she left her cellphone. I think the better alternative would have been to take it with her and turn it off for the day. Then at least if something happens i.e. the car breaks down, she gets into an accident, needs to call work because she left late, etc. she would still have her phone while trying to get her message across.

Instead it backfired on her because not only did I turn off her phone, but I turned off mine as well. I don't know why she insists on being so childish. I've let her know that my phone policy is NOT going to to change. I've stated numerous times in numerous fights that if it bugs her THAT much, she can go and find someone else who is willing to let her have her way. Sigh.

She likes to believe that compared to other girls, she's not as demanding. I don't think I agree much with her. Material maintenance may not be as high as some girls can be, but her emotional maintenance far exceeds any others that I have dated.

However, I'm sure I'm thinking she seems worse because I live with her.

10:15Pm. Back to studying for finals. Hope the drama ends.

My Escape from Reality - Phone Issues

This will be the place I come bitch about all the annoyances in life. It's not meant to offend anybody, I just need a way to get it all out. The majority of my stress comes from a combination of family, girlfriend, money, and school. I think this blog may be the perfect alternative to me killing myself.

I have decided to use this blog sort of like a timeline because it seems on many occasions I get upset but I quickly forgive and then forget the little details. Unfortunately, the woman in my life is NOT so forgiving and tends to bring up past instances against me time and time again. So heeding the advice of my brother (whose advice I hardly ever take) I have decided to start keeping a log of turbulence that I can use to counter back with.

It's not that I want to argue with her, but I feel like i'm constantly victimized by her emotions and my past decisions that she likes to bring up when we argue. So needing verbal ammunition of my own I decided to start this log.

Here's what happened:

Tonight after her night school class she called me telling me she was on her way home. She then asked me what I was doing. Obviously distracted, I told her I was watching a video on youtube (the amazing race).

She continued to talk about things that could definitely wait until she got home (she was driving) and I just let her talk. She talked about things like what her mom said, moving to our next place, whether or not we should get another dog, etc. When she was done she asked what I did today. And I gave her a quick summary of what I did while trying to keep up with what was going on the video.

She got upset.

"You don't want to talk to me now do you?"

"Babe, you did kind of call while I was watching a video... I'll just talk to you when you get home okay?"

Without responding she then proceeds to hang up.

She gets home, gives me the silent treatment, and marches straight to the bedroom. She comes out for a brief moment to ask how may day was and I reply, "okay, how was yours?"

She replies, "terrible."

"Why is that?"

"Because my boyfriend doesn't want to talk to me"

She then marches back to the bedroom and shuts the door.

Now I know exactly what society would advise me to do. I'm supposed to pay more attention to her, and show her that I care. I should go into the bedroom and apologize. I should stop what I'm doing (in this case, watching the video) so we mindlessly chit chat about nothing until she gets home.

But by doing that, I'd be reinforcing her bad behavior because those expectations are wrong. She calls me quite frequently, and If I stop what I do now she'll expect it again and again from here on out. In fact, she called me yesterday when I wasn't doing anything after she got off work, and I would have stayed on the phone with her but she didn't have a headset so she hung up.

However, today she called me while I was doing something and because I didn't stop what I was doing and put it on hold for 45 minutes (the time it takes for her to drive home) she feels that I don't care about her.

Where is the logic in that?

My girlfriend calls me every night when she gets off and I appreciate that she lets me know where she is. The problem is she has developed a bad habit of talking on the phone while driving. She is not one of those drivers who glue the phone to their heads as she always has a headset when she is in the car, but the thing is, I don't. The only time I have a headset is when I'm in the car as well and I hate having the phone against my head. As you can imagine, I don't like to waste time talking about nothing on the phone.

She also has a habit of calling me when she's working. She's an administrative assistant (glorified receptionist) and usually really busy but she still likes to call me and talk about things that are unimportant. I don't mind if she calls for a brief minute to ask or tell me something, or if she's having a bad day and needs some sort of emotional support, but seriously, in my opinion I just don't approve of her taking leisure calls on her company's time. I know I'm a bit old fashioned, but am I the only one that really feels this way?

I think she's beginning to feel that I don't love her because I don't support her bad phone habits. And having her upset like this all the time is getting really old and frustrating. It's been three years and 4 months that we've been together and I think I might partly be to blame for where we are now.

After all, early on in the relationship I let her do things her way.

Where do I go from here?