Murmur

Mr. B broke down.

After some beer, he became a crying baby. Wow, this must be how I look like half of the days, I thought. For him though, this had been the first time in many months.

It all started yesterday when I got upset when he kept on texting his friends and wouldn't pay his full attention to listen to me when I just walked into home. After a few hours of deliberately ignoring each other, a yelling fight broke out.

This was an old fight. I was frustrated that him was always on his phone. He was frustrated that I constantly interrupted him to seek attention. We bickered about it so many times that I thought we were both too tired to bicker anymore and had reached a balance. Then the outbreak.

Was the phone incident really the cause?

Perhaps it all started the day before yesterday, when I told Mr. B that my new psychiatrist, during the initial intake, asked me about what he had done during the treatment. Did he go to appointments with you? Did he help with the injections? I even cited some reddit posts I saw where the husbands claimed yes to all these questions.

Mr. B was taken aback, "I was being supportive. But nothing is enough for you." Yes, I remember that we watched the instruction videos together in a restaurant on my first night of my injection. That he used his professional lab skill to tap the bubbles out of the syringes. That he hugged me so happily when we learned that all the eggs were mature. It does feel like this is a thing I want to do, and he's just supporting me to do my thing. Maybe I'd always wish it would become his thing as well. But I remember, early in our relationship, he said to me, let's start trying, because I want you to be happy. In the midst of my own emotions I often forget that moment. Forget that that's enough for me.

It was already too late when I realized that what I said sounded to him like an accusation.

Or perhaps it all started when we learned that all but two of our embryos survived to day 6. I cried so much. I couldn't sleep and couldn't relax for days, paralyzed by the decision between doing another retrieval to increase the chance of having two kids, versus going straight with the transfer. Mr. B watched me going back and forth, making a decision, then doubting it again. And again. He didn't complain much, but his patience reservoir was silently filling up.

Perhaps it all started during the stimulation. I had injected myself only once in my life during a previous IUI cycle. "Would they ever go away?", I asked him worriedly, seeing the small red scabs and bruises growing in my belly. "They would go away", responded Mr. B every time. He had to inject himself all the time for his skin problem. He's a pro.

The stimulation went smoothly. I wasn't in much discomfort, only gained a couple of pounds, and was overall pretty calm and hopeful. I didn't realize that this was only my side of the story. Only later did Mr. B told me that he felt I was stressed during the stimulation, and consequently it was all very stressful for him. "But I would never say these things to you when you were doing it", he said.

Or perhaps it all started early in the year. When our first and only IUI didn't work, almost expected because of some new condition that we found out in the middle of the cycle, I melted down. "You killed the baby!", I screamed, thinking about the fight we had a few days before when I yelled and collapsed. I don't remember how that morning ended. There probably wasn't any baby to begin with. But I couldn't stop my mind and my mouth from going crazy.

Or perhaps it all started late last year when I couldn't decide whether I wanted to go to a friend hang out with him. "I want to go", I said. "If you've decided, then come", said Mr. B. When the car started, I got anxious again, "but I had a lot of work to finish today. Drop me back." The conversation quickly escalated to me saying, why don't you just leave me. Mr. B pulled over the car on the street side, opened the door, and left.

Or perhaps it all started last year when we were newly married. Mr. B led me to open houses. A home. A life together. One evening after a house visit, a disagreement about finance started a small argument. "You wanted to get married", I said, and walked away. Mr. B didn't try to pull me back like he had done before. On my walk many angry texts appeared on my phone, and back to the apartment I found a drunk Mr. B lying around, broken down.

That was the first time we had a big fight. The first time I saw Mr. B broken down. That was almost exactly a year ago. I had just seen a fertility doctor for the first time, after eight months of fruitless trying. Later, we bought that home I walked away from. We thought things would get better. Hope became disappointment. Disappointment became resentment. We fought again. Mr. B broke down again. I said to myself again, never again. In some weeks and months things did seem to get better. But Mr. B was drained too deeply. I was too. It collapsed again.

When I'm writing these, Mr. B fell asleep from his meltdown. I don't know what would be there for us. Perhaps he'd feel better. Perhaps worse. Perhaps we'd reconcile. Perhaps not. I can't see clearly how it all started. Was it my bad temper. My anxiety. My not controlling what I say. My trying to control too much how things should be. Was it my disappointment. My sadness. Or maybe something else. I want to survive this. I want Mr. B to survive this. I don't know how long "this" would be. I don't know if we really will. But let's keep living.