I am exhausted…

Wives phone rings around 8am on Saturday while we are still waking up in bed. One of her mom friends Sarah is calling. This is odd - must be important. She answers, and I get up and head to the kitchen for coffee. On my way out, I hear my wife say:

"Oh my God!"

Doing my thing in the kitchen, and I can start to hear the increasing sounds of crying coming from the bedroom, so I go back to investigate.

I see my wife in a sitting fetal position with the phone smashed into her face, crying. And I am not talking a couple tears crying, like buckets coming from her eyes. I ask her - What is wrong?

She puts the phone on mute and tells me "Emily just had her first period" (Emily is one of Sarah's' Daughters.) With zero hesitation, I give her my best "Confused Travolta" look (hand motion and all) and she responds with "She is only 10." This new information doesn't faze me, so continuing my Travolta look she then screams "Get the fuck out of here and close the door!"

Shocked, I leave the room while in the process flipping her the bird. This is all literally before 8:15ish and with zero coffee in my belly.

Kids come down, and we do breakfast and some outdoor stuff. Couple hours pass easily - wife is nowhere to be found yet. The crying stopped a while ago, but she was probably on the phone with her for at least an hour, to hour and half.

Dirty, I head to the bathroom to shower, clean up and officially start the day. I walk into the bedroom to find my wife still in a fetal position (laying now) and red eyes. I make it half way to the bathroom and she says, "We need to talk."

Before I can even process what was said, or turn around to face her she fires off something to the effect of (emphasis added - wall of text is on purpose as the delivery was the same):

"I am tired of you always being so physical with me, especially in front of the kids. Our kids are getting old enough that they do not need to see us kissing, or you slapping my butt in front of them. You daughter is going to think it is ok for boys to slap her butt, and your son is going to go around hitting girls on their butts. And when are YOU going to talk to them about sex anyway? YOUR daughter is going to have her first period soon and YOU have not told her anything about it. What is your SON going to DO when he starts realizing he has a PENIS and what a hardon is? He is going to get in trouble at school for touching some girls butt or come home and tell us he got some girl pregnant. From now on, NO MORE touching me sexually at all in front of the kids, no more slapping my ass, no more coming up behind me and kissing my neck, NOTHING. They have to be somewhere else for any physical contact."

Somewhere in here was my first fuck up. She literally had not taken a breath while talking so I interrupt with "You might want to take a breath before you pass out." Which of course started a completely second rant about who knows what (I stopped listening at this point) and realizing my mistake walk away in the middle of this rant, hop in the shower and get cleaned up.

Dressed, I had back out and she is still in bed, so I go over and give her a kiss on the forehead and say something like "You are a good friend to Sarah, keep It up" and disappear.

Woman gas lighted me like a MFer. Most of the day I spent thinking to myself - "Am I to sexual in front of the kids? Is she right? Nah, she can't be - Kissing isn't all that bad. We are talking a cheek peck here or there, or a light ass slap when she walks by." Then I start to think - Her friend dumped a whole lot of stress and negativity about her situation onto my wife (likely because Sarah's husband was zero help) and it found its way all the way to me. So here I am, essentially an oak (or punching bag) for two fucking women. Meh….

The rest of the day is business as usual. We had tickets to the Fantasia in downtown Fort Worth Saturday night, so we all get dressed and head out with the kids. She was pretty reserved all night, so I spent most of my energy with the kids. Things came to a head however, when we were walking from dinner to the show. Walking down the sidewalk we had to go single file for a minute to navigate traffic - so I instinctively place my hand on the small of her back to move her in front of me. Kids are in the front.

The second my hand touches her back she flips her arm back and smacks my hand away and gives me her best "look." No words, nothing. We get pass the traffic and I come up next to her and say "You smack my hand like that again, you will find yourself alone in downtown Fort Worth." and walk ahead faster to get up by the kids.

Butthurt? Pissed? Who knows? Maybe a little bit of both? Regardless I felt her behavior was out and maybe I over reacted, but the point was made, and her attitude changed. She was much nicer than the previous hour. Was this a shit test? Was she testing frame? Who knows…

Looking back, I am not sure I could have handled the situation any differently. Had I just taken the arm slap and felt like that would have been weakness, while what I said might have been a little too harsh, but meh…

The whole situation is like a foreshadow of things to come as my kids get older. I am charting into untested waters, which is fine but holy smokes if my main drama agent is going to be my WIFE thru the puberty years, FML.

So many questions to ponder with regards to the kids, their maturity, when to start talking to them more about these things, and how much is appropriate to expose them to?

Before you guys tell me, I am raping my wife in front of the kids, let me stop you right there. We are talking butt slaps, and a kiss on the lips or cheek every now and again. Deep Kino, yeah, they are not around for that kind of stuff. I am aware she is dumping "all Kino" into the same bucket, which is why I did not attempt to DEER during her rant.

All I know is, like she said - it is all on me.