I am supposed to hate myself again.  
It’s just another night.  
One of many, lately.
I got the kids ready for bed. Bathed, Pyjamas, teeth brushed and in bed at the right time. It wasn’t easy, as anyone who has kids can confirm. But we did it.  
Then she came upstairs.  
She had no interactions with us since she first got home. 
Yet, we have still managed to disappoint her.  
Making a point of audibly dumping her dishes in the sink with the sullen attitude of a third world roomba. Bitter and full of some undirected disscontempt. Angry and mean, yet making it out like the three of us are the ones that have the problem. The unbridled and misdirected angst of a street drunk after last call.  
Yet she doesn’t drink.
My wife is going through perimenopause. 
It’s great.  
It’s a phase.
It’s torture.
It’s all my fault.  
According to the internet.
Type in: “Perimenopause support for the husband” into the internet.
It’s page after page of what the husband can do better. How the husband can accommodate this imbalance. Ways the husband can change. I had to go way deep into the subreddits to actually find any kind of actual support group for the husband. The type of place you would feel shading looking for drugs, let alone advice.
It’s victim shaming on a molecular level. But we aren’t allowed to say that.  
We need to support them.  
Our feelings are inconsequential and selfish.
It doesn’t matter if she is so mean lately that i hurt all the time.
It doesn’t matter that I sit in my truck after work, staring blankly ahead, before I eventually make my way inside.
It doesn’t matter that I am drowning.
It doesn’t matter that I also looked up suicide help groups.  
It doesn’t matter.
I don’t matter.
I need to be a supportive husband and father.  
I NEED to think of HER NEEDS.
I need to not be needy.
I don’t matter
Society has made it abundantly clear; straight, white men are the problem now.  
I apologize for my ignorance. I’m sorry 
I’m so sorry. 
Please tell my wife I’m sorry.
She doesn’t want to hear it from me right now.