Removed by mod

I locked myself out of the house this morning. The weather app on my phone said it “felt like” -2 degrees, and I agree with it.

I had my coat and hat, but my legs were underprepared, I was wearing sweatpants without long underwear.

My wife was at work about a mile away and she didn’t see my texts for about a half hour. I could’ve walked to her work in that time, but I was so paralyzed by the situation that I couldn’t do it.

(We live in a big city, we walk or bike everywhere, or take trains when it’s far. Walking to her work is normal…but cold is cold.)

I have “a thing” about not wearing clothes like that outside, and I’ve only ever done it once or twice, I just went out to bring my kid to school a few blocks away… I have a lot of “things.” And I don’t deal with crises super well; my actions tend to be ok but my communication fails.

So anyway, I eventually got frustrated with my wife’s lack of response and I texted her in a frustrated tone. If the situation was reversed, I would’ve raced back home to save her, and if I had missed the texts, I would’ve been apologetic, and more than understanding if she was frustrated.

She said I should’ve called instead of texting, but I couldn’t talk. She called me and I tried to tell her I couldn’t talk but she insisted. I ended up hanging up on her, which is…not good. She wouldn’t listen, “I don’t want to text” she said. She’s very verbally oriented; she spends like half her time on the phone with her sister or her mother. I prefer being quiet, and I frequently just can’t.

I had immediately apologized for my frustrated tone and for hanging up; I learned to apologize a long time ago and I mean it when I do it.

It felt like she didn’t want to have to go out in the cold, take time out of work, and go through the effort of coming to help me. I get that, it was very cold, but…, idk, I guess sometimes you do it anyway? It felt like she was using my rudeness as an excuse to not help or to be mad about helping.

I had gone out to drop off my kid without my keys, but we have a garage door and a little keypad for it. I knew I didn’t have my keys but I also knew i had a fallback. The batteries in the keypad had been dying for a while, which made it not work in the cold; the problem was resolved — until today.

She called again, I think just to yell at me. She had already texted telling me she had left work and was headed home to help; she didn’t call to tell me that. She was furious on the phone. I hung up on her when she said she hated me. I think hanging up on her may be the most egregious offense; I try not to do it, I know she hates it, but idk, I guess sometimes you do it anyway?

I tried warming up the keypad with my hands; I alternated hands, one under my shirt on my bare stomach to warm up while the other hand exhausted its warmth on the keypad. Shockingly, it worked.

I told her immediately and tried to avoid communicating after that. I think we talked on the phone again? I don’t remember. I apologized several more times — not “I’m sorry but”, it was just “I’m sorry”, with a “I hope you can understand the situation I was in” afterwards.

Our “fight” has not yet been resolved and there next time I see her, or kids will be there and maybe also one of my parents, so we won’t be able to talk about it. Not that there’s anything to talk about. Either I will grovel and agree that I did everything awful and she was perfect, or we deal with a cloud over our heads for a few days until she/we eventually move on, and it just gets added to the vague cloud of indecipherable reasons why she should’ve married someone else.

Sorry to dump on the thread, I needed to vent and I don’t really have anywhere safe to do it.