Then why don't I feel lucky?

My friends and family like to tell me how blessed I am to have a husband that pays attention to me and will do just about anything that I ask. He helps out around the house and if I need something, he will do his level best to make sure that I have it. Lucky me, right? Right.
That's why I am sitting here at five a.m. on a Saturday morning, not sure if I am going to explode or implode.

I am exhausted - mentally, physically, and emotionally. The physical part should be the easiest thing to fix, I know, but it's not. I am one of those unfortunate people who just aren't able to go back to sleep, and it seems like every night my sleep is very uneasy or I wake up far too early because it is so hot or husband is snoring (again). I sleep with earplugs in, and that helps with the noise, but I don't know anything that is going to help with the temperature. We haven't run the central heat at all this winter, relying instead on a wood stove in livingroom to generate the heat for the house. That's fine with me, and I don't mind the bedroom getting as cold as it does. (So far, it has stayed at about sixty degrees.)

Yeah, I said "cold". So what's the problem, right? Husband loves the electric blanket - sets it right up there between five or seven. I go to bed and shiver for a while until I get the bed warmed up, or if I have good sense I preheat the bed before turning the blanket off. Husband comes to bed and cranks his side of the blanket up, then I wake up some time between one and five a.m. sweating, or if I am really fortunate, I just keep waking up enough to roll over and try to find a slightly cooler spot on the mattress. This morning, as it sometimes happens, there was no cooler spot. So here I am up (if not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed) and finally cooled off some.

Husband tells me that I seem to have a problem with everything that he does. Hell, it's not everything, but it sure is a whole lot, and what am I supposed to do about it?

Yesterday was his birthday, and for him, that's a really big deal. He's a really big holiday person, and he loves to make a production out of every birthday and special occasion. Every year for the past five years or so, he has accused the kid of ruining his birthday, swearing that she does it on purpose.

Yesterday I woke up much like I did this morning: hot and exhausted, serenaded into consciousness by the high-production logging operation that was taking place in the bed next to me. I had grand plans that involved getting my little bit of shopping done, picking up a cake, etc. I didn't make it - any of it. I ended up sending husband off to town to pick up his own birthday cake while I dragged the trash can to the side of the bed and tried desperately to go back to sleep. (Didn't work.) While he was still out, the kid and I went ahead and got back up and got some of the cleaning done that we let slide for the day or two after Christmas.

Instead of going out to a nice restaurant, we opted to stay home and watch a couple of movies, open presents, and cut the cake. (I felt bad about not being up to going out, but husband didn't seem to mind.) We made it all the way to maybe five o'clock yesterday evening before all hell broke loose. The kid was all excited about dad opening presents and had been staring at the cake all afternoon. Now it was getting close to movie time, and she could barely contain herself.
So dad decides that after a week or so of ordering her to clean her room, tonight is the night that he is going to enforce the executive order. Great.

He gets up and marches into her bedroom, telling her that she had better get this room cleaned up, that she has been told for a week to get this room cleaned up and hasn't done it, and if she thinks that she is going to sit around and watch movies with the rest of us while that room is a mess, then she has another thing coming. She begins to explain that she has been trying (even though we can't tell much of anything in that respect). He spots a candy wrapper in the floor and starts winding up since he has told her a thousand times to not eat in her room.

(I've told her a thousand times that she can eat whatever she wants to! I have never stopped her from eating something HUH? as long as it was in the kitchen or outside where she wouldn't make a mess so very not true and run the risk of drawing bugs. The kid protests that she hasn't been eating in her room and that the wrapper must be left over from an earlier time frame - you know, like months ago when he searched her room for wrappers the last time yeah, another very untrue statement.) So husband picks a favorite stash spot of the kid's, reveals a handful of wrappers that she's stashed, calls her a liar, and turns arund to leave. Kid gets upset and slams the door. Husband yanks the door back open and announces that she can just forget about the cell phone that she just got for Christmas. Kid goes BALLISTIC, throws a total tantrum, and ends up on the floor with dad spanking her with his hand. Kid gives off a series of some sort of primal screams, so husband puts a stool on the front porch and tell her that she must sit there until she calms down. He closes the door and she is right there at it, screaming this time that she is cold - it's December and she has on only a long sleeved shirt and jeans to protect against the cold. No shoes. Husband tells her that she had better sit down, and she gets up and takes off.

So there we are (happy birthday, honey) with no idea where the shoeless kid has gone. Still sick, I tell husband he needs to find her, and he finishes agonizing and calls the neighbors. When that doesn't turn her up, I tell him that he needs to look down the road and see if she is headed toward the highway. She was on her way back, having cooled down by then, I guess. Husband installs her onto a stool in the kitchen and knocks on the bathroom door (told you I was sick, didn't I?) to tell me that we need to talk privately.

I meet husband in the bedroom, and he informs me that we need professional help in dealing with the kid - she refuses to follow rules and is out of control. I tell him fine, we'll call Monday and get an appointment. He tells me that he doesn't want another go around like we had two years ago (third grade) where the counselor tells us that we need to work on his parenting skills, that many of the problems that the kid is having originate with the way dad deals with things. He says that if it is going to be like that, then he doesn't want to participate, that all of it can't be attributed to him. I just look at him, and when he asks me what to do next (yep, you made a significant cluster-fuck out of this, and NOW you want to know what I think you ought to do????), I tell him to hand the kid a garbage can and get to cleaning the room.

He asks me if I saw the freak-out coming over the cellphone, and I explain that yes, I could have told him about that. She has agonized about that phone since he showed it to her on Christmas Day and explained that she was going to have to earn it. He didn't tell her how long it was going to take, only that she had to keep a smile on her face when she was given chores, say "Yes, Ma'am", etc. until he felt like she had proven that she could handle the responsibility. I explained to him that the kid had already expressed concern that she was never going to actually get it, that she was afraid that he was just going to hold it over her head forever, that every time he appeared to be less than totally happy with her then she would ask me if whatever-it-was had set her cell back any. He doesn't understand how an incentive can be a source of stress to a kid, and I try to explain that it is the lack of clearly defined goals & time span that is stressful. She needs to know exactly what and how long - something that he hasn't told her and probably can't answer. He doesn't understand that, and I have a hard time explaining.

Anyway, he goes out to the kitchen, hands the kid the garbage can, and tells the kid to start cleaning up. Then goes back into the bedroom to call his mom back (he was unable to take her birthday call because it was more important to fid out where the kid disappeared to).

Kid starts cleaning her room, and I stick my head in the door to ask her if she is hungry. She says she is, but she doesn't want to come out. I fight the impulse to tell her that her dad isn't in the room, but I am concerned about coming across as condoning the way that she acting, either. It takes her over half an hour to finally come creeping out, and she starts making a sandwich. Husband comes up the stairs from the bedroom and just stops, staring at her with his hands on his hips. "I like this," he says. "You can't follow your parents rules but you don't have a problem eating their food." WTF? Kid takes off for the bedroom, crying about how she's not hungry anymore, and husband yells at her to come back and finish making her sandwich. I tell him that comment, etc., was totally uncalled for, and he agrees. He goes and apologizes. Kid still says she isn't hungry. Everything gets quiet (finally) and I start dozing off. After an hour or so, kid comes out and finishes making her sandwich, eats, and goes back to her room.

About seven-thirty, eight o'clock, I wake back up. On his way through the kitchen for something or another, husband realizes that the kid has taken his birthday present back. I tell him that it's temporary, that her feelings are seriously hurt, but that it will pass and she'll come back off of it.

(I leave out the parts about how excited she was about giving him this change jar that counts the money as you drop it in AND the part about how I paid for it so she wouldn't have to. See, he believes that she should pay for Christmas and birthday presents out of her allowance and the money that she earns doing extra chores. Me, I think that until she is old enough to actually have a job, etc., then at the very most she ought to contribute a little something, but to make a 10-year-old spend money that she's saving up for a Nintendo on Christmas/birthday presents for her parents just isn't quite right. She had already had $30 taken away from her that she had earned carrying firewood to buy Christmas presents for her teachers as a punishment for being sent to the office for smart-mouthing. I agreed to that punishment as nothing else really seemed to get to her as taking her money did. Everything else just gets met with a cranky look.)

Anyway, I push the present that I got for him across the table and ask him to open it. He demurs for a bit then starts to tear the paper off. I guess the kid heard him do it, after he gets my present open, she comes out of her room with her present in her hand. She comes up to the adge of the table, holding it out, and immediately meets up with the palm of his hand, waving her off. He tells her no, he doesn't want to deal with that right now, maybe in the morning. She starts wailing again and heads to her room. I ask him why in the hell he did that and explain to him that she just reached out in a sort of peace offering and he slapped her hand back. He gets all defensive and looks at me like he can't believe what I am saying. Why don't I understand that his feelings are hurt, too? Because YOU are SUPPOSED to be the ADULT, asshole!

I am in the distincly un-enviable position of being in the middle, knowing that both of them are acting out in ways that they shouldn't. Yes, the kid should keep her room clean, behave in school, and follow the rules. No, she shouldn't roll her eyes or throw a tantrum. However, she does not deserve to be talked to the way that she is, and knowing that her self-esteem is in the toilet most of the time really troubles me deeply. I am tired of husband declaring rules and consequences without consulting me, especially since much of the time he just blurts things out because he is upset or frustrated. Shen I confront him about that, he looks at me with this totally disbelieving expression, acting like I am some kind of unreasonable shrew for not being able to understand that he gets upset and frustrated, too.

Sure, I understand that we all get frustrated, but YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE ADULT. I've told you a thousand times to remove yourself from the situation until you can discuss things with her (or me) in a rational manner. I can't support husband when he speaks out of anger, lays down punishments or rules that not only did I have no say in but don't feel appropriate, and fails to have anything positive to say to the kid nine times out of ten.

When I don't agree with his techniques or more often when I try to explain to him that what he is doing is destructive, then he goes into a serious funk and wants to know why I think it is all *his* fault. Last time we took the kid to a counselor and the counselor tried to explain to him that there were many aspects of the kid's behavior that could be directly attributed to husband's management techniques, then husband alternated between depression (I've been screwing up and I feel horrible about it!) to anger (Why does everything always have to be *my* fault?)

Me, I feel that my supreme responsibility is to my child as she did not ask to be here nor can she really stand up for herself.

I am tired of my husband getting jealous over what the kid has, what she does, or how much better she has things than he did when he was a kid. I am sick of my husband being jealous that the kid has so much more free time than he does.

I don't know how much more I can deal with it, I really don't.