text: The 2 year Spew Snazzy title right? Probably an odd choice for marketing reasons, who would want to buy a book about a spew? And a 2 year one at that? If that even makes sense. You’re probably thinking ‘What the hell is this going to be about?’ Well it does involve a spew... not mine though... It is kind of a long story, after all I have 2 years to fill you in on. Let me explain. 2 years ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. I know everyone says their child is beautiful, but mine seriously is. He has blonde hair, bright blue eyes, cute little button nose... he’s beautiful, just take my word for it. I’m not sure why, and I don’t know how wide spread this tradition is, but the Dads of newborns having a ‘Head wetting’ to celebrate the arrival of their new baby into the world. Which is essentially just a piss up with all his mates... I’m sure there is some religious relevance somewhere but I’m not religious so I have no idea. I’m sure in the religious version, copious amounts of alcohol aren’t involved.. but I digress... So myself and my little bundle of joy ship off to my brothers house for the night, while my partner (lets call him Alex) has his mates over in the shed for a massive night of beers and music to ‘wet the head’ of his new baby boy. Now I must say I was quite lucky that the newborn stage was quite easy for me, little bundle was a great sleeper, when he was awake he was content and my gosh did this kid love his booby milk. I am grateful that I never had any drama with breast feeding as I know so many do, so I was quite comfortable getting up through the night to feed my bub, even at just a week old. However, my bub for the first year of his life, was an early riser. 5am every morning, without fail. It was still bloody dark outside! I was never sleep deprived, but man a 5am start, makes for a long morning and an even longer day. By 9am (which felt like lunch time) I was bored and just wanted to go home. So I did. And what welcomed me when precious bundle and I got home is the premise to this story, an en suite covered in spew. I walked into my bedroom to see Alex in bed with a bucket next to him, towels strewn across my en suite floor, a wet mop and a smell of straight alcohol so strong I thought my baby might get drunk just from breathing the air. I took my baby into the lounge room where 2 of his friends had slept on the couch, I made them a cup of coffee and they filled me in on Alex’s antics from the night prior. And let me preface this by saying Alex has a bad relationship with alcohol. Anyone who knows Alex has a story of a time when he had spewed somewhere or on someone, and I loathed the fact that is his ‘thing’. They informed me nothing spectacular had happened. Alex drank too much too fast, he could barely speak or walk, so his friends took him to bed. Alex sat on the edge of the bed and proceeded to projectile vomit up to 2 metres in front of himself all over the en suite bathroom. Being the good friends they are (to me as well) they knew me coming home to this mess with a newborn was a bit much, so they did the best clean up job a couple of drunk men could. And to this day I appreciate this gesture very much. I let Alex sleep until past midday, his friends at some stage went home, and I rounded up the spewy towels and left it to Alex to tidy up the rest. I’ll do a lot for people, but cleaning up a grown mans self inflicted spew, is a job for only himself. Now I don’t know when you’re reading this, so let me remind you of a ‘thing’ that was popular back in 2018/2019. The phrase ‘this is my hill to die on’. Well, this became my hill to die on. If you lived under a rock and haven’t heard of this saying, let me enlighten you. It means ‘An issue to pursue with wholehearted conviction and/or single minded focus, with little or no regard to the cost.’ The next day I reminded Alex about his mess in the en suite, how it had splashed up the walls, it was on the wardrobe doors, it was even on the wall next to the bed. I cleaned little bits off the carpet, but again... this is a grown adults self-inflicted spew! I refused to clean this up for him. I’m dying on this hill remember! A week had passed, and it was now well and truly dry. The spew smell had subsided at least. It was bearable to once again be in that room without gagging. Now luckily most of the time the splashed spew wasn’t all that noticeable, but it bugged me. Sometimes the sun would come in on such an angle that it almost lit up every spot of spew in a fluorescent light and it made me so mad I had to leave the room! Alex seemingly forgot? At least that’s what I told myself. Otherwise who would be so damn disrespectful to the other people of this house, that they wouldn’t even clean up their own spew? I’m not a clean freak by any means, I’ve lived in this house for 3 years now and I’ve only cleaned my oven twice. But if I spewed on my oven, it would be a different story... BECAUSE BODY FLUIDS!! Months passed. Alexs relationship with alcohol never changed, but he started to become nasty to me when he got drunk. Not all the time, but often enough that it made me question what the hell was I doing in the relationship. He was a brilliant Dad to our little bundle, and I adore that about Alex, but our relationship started to unravel. They say when you have kids, people change and its hard on relationships. I agree with that, but our problems weren’t new. When I became a mother, I think my tolerance for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour changed. Is coming home and going straight to sleep acceptable behaviour? Yes. Is coming home drunk and yelling at me about a cheese burger and waking the sleeping baby acceptable behaviour? Hell no. These early months were a time of great reflection for me. Because somehow, I had become my mother. Mum died long before I ever even thought of having children. She died young and quick from an aggressive cancer. Very sad. But an unfortunate part of life. Like most kids, I had a love/hate relationship with her. She was in an abusive marriage, and she didn’t do a thing about it. I had to call the police more times than any child should, because of the physical abuse she endured. The next day My stepdad would apologise, and in a few weeks time, we did this dance again. My younger sisters are 10 years younger than me. When the adults had one of these nights, my sisters would cry out from their bedrooms. I’d get them and place them in our brothers bedroom at the other end of the house, until either they calmed down, or I called the police and they deescalated the situation. I hated that my mother put us through this. If you want to put yourself in this position, more fool you. But to put us kids through this was damn near child abuse. And yes, I should have been angry at my step dad for being an abuser, and I was. But I never understood why she never wanted to protect us from this by leaving him. Now I know why. My mother always saw the best in people. So when he said he’d change and it wouldn’t happen again, she believed him. And now I was doing the exact same thing with Alex. He was never abusive sober, in fact he has never been able to recall a single horrible thing he’s ever said to me. Because he’s gotten so drunk, he’s lost most of his memories of the night in general, let alone when he got home. The tip of the iceberg was when we went on a group trip with some family and friends to Bali. Our little bundle was nearly a 1 year old and was perfection on the plane. We had a great time! Sipping cocktails by the pool, taking it in turns to sit in our room when baby slept so the other could explore the resort and the town. One magnificent afternoon, Alex came back to our room and I could tell he’d had more than just a few drinks. He was trying to pick a fight with me. I’d ask him to keep his voice down while the baby slept, apparently that meant I was ‘controlling’. I asked him about his afternoon and how much he’d had to drink, I was deemed ‘no fun anymore’ and it wasn’t any of my business how much he drank. We went to meet the rest of our group for dinner and they all knew Alex was drunk. He snapped at me if I asked him to help with the baby. He made fun of how slow I drank my wine in front of everyone is if it was the joke of the day. A friend pulled me aside and asked me if I was ok, because she hadn’t seen Alex act like this before. I assured her it was fine, he’d just had to much to drink. Unfortunately when I knocked over my drink and it hit the floor, I couldn’t keep up that façade, because in front of everyone, Alex screamed at me calling me a fucking dickhead and somehow I did that on purpose to prove a point (to this day I have no idea what he meant). One of the older guys in our group told him to walk away and cool off. I didn’t see Alex again until the early hours of the next morning when he came back to our room. I could hear him stumble in. He kicked the bin and mumbled ‘for fucks sake’ as he then crashed into the desk that the tv was on, in a failed attempt to be quiet. I didn’t speak a word. Our baby bundle was in a porta cot about a metre from Alex’s side of the bed, in hindsight a mistake on my part. Almost as soon as Alex lied down in bed I could tell he was going to be sick, I’ve been in this situation to many times before with him that I unfortunately knew the deep breathing associated with Alex’s pre spew ritual. I shook him and told him to get up because he’s about to be sick, he could only groan before I heard it rise from his stomach. I was already half way up when it hit the bed sheets, then the baby started to cry. Another spew and a cough later, Alex rolled over in his own spew and went to sleep as if it was the cure to insomnia. Luckily there was a couch in the room. Bundle and I snuggled up on the couch. I didn’t sleep knowing that my bundle and I deserve better than this. When we returned from Bali, I told Alex I was done. All his empty promises to change over the years, were simply just words without meaning now. He called a counsellor, and admitted he had a problem. Over the next few months we attended couples counselling, as well as some solo sessions to try and work on ourselves. I stuck around, perhaps out of guilt. I didn’t want to be the reason a father couldn’t see his son when he got home from work, but I also hated myself for giving him yet another chance to change. I had convinced myself because he was getting counselling now, things would be different. We communicated as issues arose. We talked about our childhoods and learnt why we behave the way we do. I understood my self-hate for replicating my own mothers behaviours, and why Alex has such a strong sense of self entitlement. Now I understood it. But I couldn’t change Alex. He had to do that himself. I’ve had a bad habit in our relationship of doing things for Alex that he says he can’t do himself. He came home from work with terrible asthma. Asthma that had been getting worse for weeks. This time it was so bad he could hardly converse with me. I had asked him weeks prior to make an appointment to get more medication. Did he? No. Did I have to do it for him? Of course. Alex had been paying far to much for a phone plan that did not suit what he needed, I asked him for months to simply call and change it, its easy! I even told him what to say. Did he? No. Did I cave when he asked me to do it for him? Unfortunately, yes. Alex cut down on his drinking, so the abuse stopped. He was making progress, but things at home didn’t get any better. I don’t think he ever did it consciously, but Alex had it ingrained in him this self entitled attitude. He would only help me with chores around the house if it was something that bothered him. If I asked him to vacuum the toddlers crumbs off the carpet, but Alex wasn’t bothered by the mess, he wouldn’t do it. If I asked him to help me change the bedsheets, but he didn’t think they were dirty enough, he wouldn’t do it. One night we had an argument about this very matter, he stormed off and went to bed. He left in the morning with a slam of the door and without a goodbye. When I seriously started thinking about leaving Alex I was a ball of anxiety and guilt. Because if I left, who would look after Alex? I genuinely didn’t know if he knew how to be an adult. I knew he’d be fine with our now toddler when he had him, but when it came to paying bills, packing the toddlers day care bag, cooking decent food, I was genuinely concerned. I was fed up. I sat on the edge of the bed wondering how to fix this with Alex. I had a toddler now, but I felt like a had a lazy teenager as well. As the morning sun came through the windows of our bedroom, the spew that had splattered my bathroom now 2 years ago, lit up like a Christmas tree. If someone can leave their own spew for someone else to clean up for over 2 years, with regular reminders mind you, because its not something that bothers him. Then he was never going to change for me, his son or himself. I packed mine and the toddlers bags. And we left.