Do I stay or do I go?

Let's call this week the 'meltdown' week. I can't remember a harder week. Work was stressful - enjoyable - but stressful. It involved long hours and late nights to achieve what I need to. My insurance coughed up and then gave me 48 hours to give back the hire car. In doing so they set the Mission impossible style clock ticking - I had to get a new car pronto. I know nothing about cars. They have wheels, they can be shiny, they go from A to B. All that mileage, 1.6, 1.6 or 1.8, year, make, model, spec, alloys business - what does it all mean?? The panic and stress set in. Could Husband help - no of course not - he was working a 6 day week and deep in his own self pity pit.

A fuck up on his rota meant that he had had 3 days off in the previous week and so had to make up for it. This translates to - I will have to make up for it. Whilst he lives the groundhog day of work, home at silly am, sleep, up, an hour or two and then work, home at silly am etc. I am left holding the baby and all responsibilities.

Rather than bore you with the details it means I get up alone every day - get Sproglet sorted, to nursery, then I work a full day, pick him up, get him ready for bed etc and then begin the whole process again the next day. In between I have to somehow find the time to do washing, folding clothes away, food shopping and remembering Sproglet needs jabs, oh and sorting out insurance a new car. throw in my most hectic working week ever and you get a general picture. To say it was hard is an understatement. Basically I am a single parent - without the status. I lead a lonely isolating existence in my suburban dream. I think if see Revolutionary Rd I'll be on the blower to Samaritans - as it apparently will mirror my angst.

Sproglet has taken to waking occasionally in the night - or bouncing out of bed at 6am. This leaves me even more on edge. Thurs I awoke to find Husband had scoffed all the Coco Pops. No big deal you would think - but these are all Sproglet will consume these days. i was enraged. I woke Husband to ask him why he has been so thoughtless - and he calls me a nutter. On route to nursery Sproglet won't hold my hand to cross the road - I make him and he responds by trying to bite a chunk out of my hand. This is the second day in a row that I have been dealt this blow - so I take his raisins off him and tell him in no uncertain terms that this aint on. He howls. Neighbours watch. I simmer.

At nursery he is still having a fit and then clings to me - refusing to let me go. He goes from angry monkey to clingy koala. By the time I leave and he is throwing himself on the floor I feel I have done 10 rounds with tyson. It is only 9am. I get to work knowing what graft awaits me and promptly burst into tears. Workmates are soothing, warm and so darn lovely that I just don't know what I would do if i didn't have such a great bunch to cheer up my day.

Fri I work from home all day - beavering away in front of log fire. Then I find that the money hasn't cleared from the insurance and the car I wanted has been sold - I weep. I am exhausted mentally and physically and lonely. I still have to get Sproglet from nursery and begin a food shop. I get home at 7:30pm and bed him. I drink almost an entire bottle of red to send me to slumber. Sproglet wakes at 3am and won't go back to sleep. Again I am alone dealing with this. I snap. I call Husband and tell him it is over - I'm leaving him. That I can't go on being Mother and Father to this child. Trying to juggle work and Sproglet and his nursery dealings and car stuff and house stuff and tenants and food shops and birthdays and washing and light bulb replacing and EVERYTHING. I am not superwoman. I am one woman - who is tired and frustrated and sick of doing it alone. Why not just be alone and be done? At least I wouldn't fester daily with all encompassing resentment. Rage busting out every pore. Husband thinks I am mad. I am a quivering mess. He hangs up and says he won't come home - that I am a freak. I cry myself to sleep.

Next day I have a car to buy and a son to feed. I manage to get out of the house - I am so tired I can't think. But I must drive about 45 miles and view cars and somehow do this with a small bored and hungry child. My loyal best friend comes with and without her... I don't know what I would have done. I call husband and he is calm about my threats to go - simply asking what time I shall depart. I am teary and without hope. I get a car - I don't know if it was the right one or what I should have got - but time was pressing and I knew it had to be done.

Best mate's kind man arrived to drive it home. The whole process from leaving the house to getting home with new car took a cool 9 hours. Still - I had Sproglet to feed and bed. Another good friend arrived laden with comfort food of mash, chocolate and sticky toffee pudding. She cooked as I cried.

I love my Husband - I really do. I hate his job and it's relentless hours. I can't be bothered to go through the peaks and troughs of why he is still in - but it all boils down to money and him being unable a work out a feasible way to leave it and still get a good salary for us to afford our life. My point - he hasn't even tried. Not bought a book, done a jot of research - nothing. We thought the bar was shutting in Jan - and with it I would get a husband back - a Mr 9-6 who was there for me - a proper living breathing Husband. not a lodger kind of man who is useless to me.

But the refurb was put off and the hours continue and I feel I have been on this merry-goround forever and a day and yet he is still there - he won't hear how unhappy I am - he won't CHANGE ANYTHING. So what do I do? friends think I need to make a stand - shock him into a wake up call. I am so tired I cannot see the wood for the trees. So today I pack. I may not leave until tomorrow - but I'm going. I need to leave him holding the baby so he realises what I do and how hard it is.

Don't get me wrong - my heart is broken - I weep as I type - but I just cannot go on like this any more. It is no life. I will return at some stage to pick up Sproglet as we both fly to Ireland on Sat for a week - I can't wait for family comfort and love.

We all marry filled with hope and love and eternal devotion and then life comes and gets in the way. Everyone aspires for the happy ending. When you get there you discover there is no happy ending - its all smoke and mirrors.

It is damn hard and it can be very lonely. I must go and pack. I have never felt so lost and yet so certain. Wish me luck.