Fucking Told You, Cunt: The Prequel

Or: How I tried to prevent a middle-aged man having a gym-related physical meltdown, whilst being woken up at 4am by cats, coping with a workplace injury, running on less than 3 hours of sleep, and managing everyone else’s goddamn chaos, including the teenage medical circus, and was met with:

“This isn’t a good time, I’m tired.”

I get it, Gunna. You’ve been alive for 58 years. You’ve owned 121 cars (probably more, but honestly, I don’t care), you’re a master of computers and SQL databases, and now, after impersonating a sedimentary rock for the better part of a decade, you’ve found the motivation to go to the gym. Yay for you.

I applaud. I encourage.
Frankly, anything that keeps you away from me is a bonus, because you piss me off by breathing.

The shitty thing is: I care. And unlike you, I listen.

So while you fucking piss me off, I still go into prevention mode, not out of affection, but because it’s one more thing I don’t want to have to manage later. Because I think about things like paydays, injury recovery, hospital bills, schedules, pain, and strain.

You shouldn’t go from zero movement to 10.5km rides on a Peloton every morning without speaking to a professional. Full stop. At your age, with your health history, your disability, and a full decade of muscle neglect, you will hurt yourself. Because you’re not 25. You are 58. For fuck’s sake.

I tried to flag this once. Gently. Well… gently ranted.

I explained the boom/bust fallacy. I even reminded you that M is off school for the next two weeks because they have to have surgery (because they were being a 14-year-old idiot, shock, I know). Which means you have the capacity to go to the gym after work (rather than 4am, waking both me and the cats), and talk to a trainer or an exercise physiologist.

But you won’t. Because you know best. Just like you think your 30-year-old memories of a chiropractor somehow qualify you to “adjust” me. Spoiler: they fucking don’t, and they won’t.

And now here we are. Friday morning. You left before dawn to punish your body again, and, surprise! you’re home, exhausted, with your phantom limb pain flaring up. (Which I told you might be a response to overtraining.)

I try to talk to you about it and your response?

“This is a bad time. I’m tired. Can I go to bed now?”

ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY YOU CAN.

Because that was the only time I will say anything. That was the one moment I tried to offer support before stepping back and watching this slow-motion injury unfold. You don’t want advice? Then you don’t get care.

I’ve carried the emotional weight of this entire marriage because you won’t talk about it, process anything, or share the load. I am done managing you.

Here’s what I am already managing:

• Myself, with a workplace injury: torn tendon, busted hip and shoulder. Can’t sit still longer than five minutes without pain.
• M: who followed a TikTok toe-trimming tutorial, now has infected ingrown toenails, needs surgery that will permanently alter their nail beds, and has been missing school.
• H: who has malformed veins dangerously close to her ulnar nerve. She needs interstate travel for treatment. I manage her NDIS plan, ASD supports, all the provider wrangling, all the admin.
• L: who may have umbilical endometriosis. (Yes, her belly button bleeds just before her cycle starts. Didn’t know that was a thing? Me either.)
• The entire family’s emotional management, regulation, routines, and fallout.
• My own non-existent sleep. I haven’t slept through the night in over a decade. I’m exhausted beyond language.
• A job I find intolerably boring but still try to hold onto. Oh wait—I can’t even do it properly right now because I’m too injured to sit at a desk.
• Years of trauma.
  – Still trying to get supports from NDIS.
  – Worsening of my own ASD shutdowns and burnout, while reading your statement where you complained about having to take time off work to support me. When was that, exactly?
  Was it the two times I asked you to take time off because I’m currently not allowed to drive due to injury and needed you to take H and I to the hospital for her general anaesthetic MRI? Or is it the time I just requested for you to take M and I to the hospital for their surgery next week?

So that was my one time.

Continue doing what you’re doing. Ride the bike. Ignore the pain. Skip the trainer. Gaslight yourself into thinking you’re fine.

And when you hurt yourself, and you will, I will not step in. I will not manage, or micromanage, organise supports or schedule appointments, or make suggestions.
I will say exactly what this post is titled:

I fucking told you so, cunt.