u/biggerthanjohncarew

My wife, while never formally diagnosed, has PMDD and acknowledges that. For at least 2 weeks a month she's angry, irritable, blows up over small things, and generally just hard to be around. While some of that is directed at me, a non insignificant amount is directed at my children (4 and 2). This has been going on since the birth of our eldest, but really ramped up in intensity the last 18 months or so.

Last weekend she went away from Friday to Monday to stay at her parents. Now don't get my wrong, the kids are toddlers and can be a pain, but all the things they do that can typically make me angry or irritate me weren't bothering me at all (if anything, they were actually quite entertaining) - for example, playing too loudly, making a mess, delaying going to bed. The whole weekend was smooth sailing and probably one of the best few days I've had as a dad.

What I've noticed this week is that those same things that weren't bothering are suddenly frustrating me again, and I'm snapping at the kids more often. It finally occurred to me why last night when I heard my wife yell at the kids (from another room while doomscrolling on her phone) for being too loud in the bath (I was watching them). They weren't doing anything wrong, they were just excited - this blew up into a full rage when she saw there was water on the floor in the bathroom. I realised I'm not angry at the kids for their behaviour, I'm angry at them for setting my wife's irrational anger.

This is completely unfair on the kids and I feel like a scumbag for not only not protecting them from this, but adding to the fire.

As an aside, my wife noticed that we had a good weekend, and she commented that she hadn't seen my son that happy in a while in the photos I sent her. She was angry that I had a relatively easy weekend with our normally "difficult" kids, inevitably that blew up into anger that she's not a good mother and that I made her feel inadequate.

Anyway, this is probably more of a vent than anything. I'm going to ensure that I stay conscious of this going forward. My wife isn't currently seeking treatment for her PMDD but we're trialling a few supplements like inostol, magnesium, l-theanine and vitex to see if that can minimise the symptoms.

Living in Australia and wearing T shirts and shorts in summer my whole life, I've developed a pretty dramatic T shirt tan, with my forearms, neck and calves noticeably darker than my upper arms, torse and thighs. Over the last summer I attempted to tan (without MT2) but I didn't get any results (just sunburn).

If I'm using MT2 specifically to address the lighter areas, would I be best to cover my forearms, face and calves? I'm basically worried that I'd get even darker in the already tanned areas, so I'll have the exact same issue, just darker.

Or, am I otherthinking this and the tan will sort of even out across my body if I'm fully exposed?

We've got some nice weather coming up this weekend so intend to spend some time in my undies in the garden lol

I ask because I just said Father Christmas to someone and they looked at me like I had two heads. I thought Father Christmas was the standard Australian name for the man with the white beard but maybe I'm wrong - I'm from Perth if that's relevant.