Irreconcilable Differences

Jamie Lynn Spears ended our marriage... or should I say her mother did?  Mr. Hyde claims it was the straw that broke the camel's back, but I think he’s just clutching at whatever straws he can find for a reason to be angry.

Five days before Christmas, a morning news program reported about Jamie Lynn being pregnant at 16 and how her mom’s plan to write a ‘parenting book’ was now on hold.  Mr. Hyde sneered saying she had a lot of nerve to write about something she was so clearly inept at handling.

I should have let the comments pass and written it off as just his typical angry spouting off, but I opened my big mouth.  “It’s not her mother’s fault she’s pregnant at 16.  You can’t always blame the parent for everything a kid does wrong.”

Mr. Hyde looked at me like I’d grown a third eye, “Uh yes, I can.”

Ok, we’d been down this dangerous path before, but I foolishly kept going.  “Well, blaming the parents for everything doesn’t teach the kids to take responsibility for their own actions.”  A sarcastic “Hmmph” from Mr. Hyde came before I said the ultimate insult.  “I can’t wait to see how you react when one of your kids gets in trouble.”  

I didn’t mean this as a threat or nasty comment, just an observation that maybe he should relax his harsh opinion a bit.  But by putting the words "your kids" in there, he immediately got pissed off.  At the time, I didn’t even realize my comment had struck such a nerve because I just made the comment in passing, but to hear him tell it, I had stayed up for days coming up with dozens of subtle ways to irritate and annoy him.