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Quick note: the hamster is NOT preggers. Whew.

As for Friday I'm a bit confused.

Friday night I get home and the wife is babysitting her neice. I'm a bit tired, know we aren't going anywhere and enjoy hanging out with the in-laws a bit when they come over to get her and take off.

After they leave and the kid goes to bed, I settle in for a little quiet. At first it looks like me and wife are going to watch tv, but I can tell it's jack-shit night on, and would rather get some video game time in before I PLAN to hit the sack early.

I give her a kiss and tell her to watch what she wants as I'm going to go play and she surprises me with some lightning fast hamster 180.

She slips it under my radar by faking for the low hanging fruit (that I'm leaving the moment to do my own thing), but uses that as a feint to launch full scale into the money change, her dread feelings , blah blah.

Like wolves, they smell the weakness and pounce. Instead of blood, it's tiredness she senses which is why I know she had this waiting up her sleeve.

My amused mastery fails me (it takes energy to be on that for me at the moment) so I default into "parent watching a kid throw a tantrum" face. So now she just acuses me of being so "alien and cold". In response to her pouring out every fucking insecurity she can imagine to heap on me. Her "alpha zombie that dumped from college" would just cut-her-off when she wouldn't do what he wanted, her biological father just cut-her-off when no longer knew how to relate... blah blah fucking blah. She doesn't know me anymore, is this some game I'm playing, who am I, whay whay whhaywhay.

I do make a mental note that the dread is cutting to the bone on her. This is what she's fighting. She wants no dread.

I remind her (mistake) of how great things have been going on between us (stupid, like the hamster really cares that I'm finally happy), how in the past we'd be fighting, and I'd get defensive if I got emotionally as worked up as she was...here I go validating her shit, dumbass... I ask her if she wants to have the new budget discussion now (as I'm ready to get that shit over with)? She hamsters no, goes on about this and on about that, I basically shut her down and just tell her we're talking about the new budget now (as I feel like this may be the big comfort test thing).

So , mind you I was REALLY tired and my original plan was to play a game for 1/2 hour and hit the sack. Now I just had to listen to the hamster mouth frothing for 45 minutes and had another 1/2-to hour presentation to do before I'd get to sleep.

We go upstairs, we go over the new budgets. She points out a few math errors I made (amazing as how she catches those but is going to have "such a learning curve" getting back into managing some money). And about an hour later I'm laying in bed stewing and she's happy as a clam getting ready to fall asleep.

Now that the money convo is over , since I'm so confused as to having lost control of the situation I start to mull it over. I get mad.

She's happy as could be, not because she blathered about her dad, or whatever frothed out... or REALLY that I'm asserting myself. She's happy because we talked about the money. And before I wanted to. And that's what I think it really was about. The-fucking-money. I get more pissed. She also , I think , thinks she took the teeth out of some of my dread. So here we are, ending up like the beta days...she's going to go to sleep comfortable and happy, and I will sit here stewing impotently at the ceiling angrily until I pass out of exhaustion at 3am.

No.

And this is where I think I tried to right my first wrong(failed frame and amused mastery) with another wrong, but I feel the need for some outside interpretation and constructive criticism from you guys.

I said "just so you know, definitively, I'm not your az-college-boyfriend, I'm not your dad, but I still reserve the right (why the fuck did I say that) to take off anytime you behave like a brat".

Well, this starts more hysterics from her. "I'm so mean.. you're fucking my head up, blah de blah" This time with added crying. Also this time it's her saying "I can't believe after we just ended all this up well that you're saying this stuff to me"...kinda echoed what I was saying earlier to her hamstering in the first place when all was well in my mind.

We bicker a little. I over-explain a little. But I try to end it with: I'm pissed but forgiving her attitude (probably fell flat). We kiss and make up and go to sleep. I'm still confused as how the train got derailed that night.

Rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful. We went to some peoples house to watch a game the next day and I tried to flirt a bit with the hot chick there , but I found it tough to run that kind of game when it's couples and kids milling about. Still made her laugh a decent amount and she'd be repeating my jokes to her major b.b. b.f. when he'd come back in the room.

I REALLY need to get my amused mastery when tired game up. That's an achilles heel she's able to exploit pretty easily. Also not to get mad at the emotional teenager when I fail frame so that I can deal with her more appropriately.

Thoughts?