A Martyr No More

We were packing up from camping. The Ex and I were putting our tent away together. It was hard to roll it up and get it into the bag even for 2 people. We were working on zipping up the bag, and had gotten it zipped maybe 8 inches. There was a void in that space and we needed to stuff more tent into it because we had too much tent at the other end and we couldn’t zip up anymore. So I said, “we can get more tent in here. There is a void right here.” I unzipped the bag for our tent to stuff more in there. He exclaimed “DON’T” at the same moment I unzipped it. There wasn’t time to respond. I started stuffing the tent in the void. He let out a huff and walked away and left me to wrangle the muddy tent alone. He started putting up chairs.

The message I got was, “If you do something in a different way than what I want, I will leave you to do it alone. If you want my participation, my way is the only way.” But what’s odd, is I also had this sense that he was irritated before that because I was following his direction, like I couldn’t think for myself. I felt psychologically, subtly punished. I continued to put the tent away by myself. When I couldn’t anymore, I asked our teenage son for help and he helped me finish zipping it.