This was originally going to be a post titled What It Was Like To Attend a Child’s College Graduation (long, boring, and uncomfortable, with about 10 seconds of huge excitement), but on our way home from that, spending 7-8 hours in the car together after spending another 7-8 hours in the car together two days before, Paul said he was feeling a little carsick (he never gets carsick) and wanted some of my little motion sickness patches. (I would never have bought these except that Chrissy Teigen said they worked, and other people replied that they’d tried them and also found them effective, and I don’t really believe that they COULD work, except that they seem to, and what am I to make of that?) By the time we arrived home, he felt Very Off, and took a Covid-19 rapid test, which immediately turned positive. I had not even had a chance to PEE AT HOME yet, and Paul was texting me a picture of the positive results.
I went to find him, and he was sitting, unmasked, in the indoor air of our house, looking glum. I did not scream “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?? ISOLATE YOURSELF IMMEDIATELY!!!” but I did say, calmly and pleasantly, that he should perhaps do that, perhaps right this second. I preceded him up to our room/bathroom (he was so glum it took him a minute to heave himself up), got my not-yet-unpacked weekend bag, took the dirty laundry out of it, repacked it with a bunch of fresh shirts/socks/undies, got my towel and pillow, and skedaddled.
It has taken me a few days to tell you about this development at our house, because I have been so angry at him. It turned out he had stopped wearing a mask at work, without informing me of that decision, let alone consulting with me about it. He still would not have told me about that decision, even after testing positive, but he accidentally dropped a context clue while telling a work anecdote, and I asked him about it, and he took a long pause while presumably considering lying about it. [Edited to add: I feel the need to clarify that I do not KNOW he was considering lying about it. Perhaps his brain just got stuck on the puzzle of figuring out how I would have known to ask the question.] He knew the kids and I were all masking at work/school and in all public indoor places. I had told him I didn’t want him coming to stores with me unless he wore a mask. He knew how I felt, he knows he has an immunocompromised child, and he made two choices: (1) to not wear a mask, and (2) to withhold that information from the rest of his household, so that we didn’t have the information we needed to keep ourselves safe. Now I am wearing a mask in my own house, because he wouldn’t wear one at his desk job. Prom is this weekend, and if Elizabeth tests positive and can’t go, you should expect unseasonable storms to sweep the region/nation. We have made other risk decisions (whether the kids should go back to school, whether I should go back to work, whether we should attend Rob’s college graduation) together, often with the involvement of the kids, but this one he made on his own and it belongs entirely to him. If Covid had spread through our house as a result of one of our shared decisions, I would have accepted that statistical consequence of our statistical accepted risk, but what happened here is different.
I wish to communicate to you how serious this is to me. If I or one of my children experiences Dire Consequences because of this secret deliberate choice of Paul’s, my feeling is that it would lead to divorce. I am reminded of the book The Poisonwood Bible, in which (and it’s been a very long time since I’ve read it, so I am aiming only for the gist here) a woman puts up with her husband’s decisions (which, granted, are more dramatic than Not Wearing a Mask at Work), even though she feels they are bad decisions and tells him so, until one of his choices means something bad happens to one of their children, at which point she packs it all up and leaves instantly. Just: crosses that decision line, exactly at that moment, simple and clear and Done.
In the meantime, I am doing almost zero sickroom care: this risk of illness was his own private decision, made with ONLY himself in mind, and so presumably he was prepared to also deal privately/personally with the consequences, as I attempt to run the rest of the household and prepare for the rest of us also dealing with those consequences. (I will OF COURSE modify this policy if he truly needs care. But right now he is the type of sick where he would like me to check him solicitously for fever, and listen to him talk in detail about his symptoms and how they have changed since he last told me, and run up and down the stairs fetching him the foods his mother used to bring him when he was sick, and all of those options are OFF THE TABLE.) (I did BUY saltines and soup and applesauce and little yogurts and so forth when I was at the store, but I did not imbue that service with love, and in fact withheld it.)
Besides: it is better for his overall health and well-being if I am not in his vicinity right now. My rage diminishes a little bit with each day that goes by with no additional positive tests or symptoms, but it is in no way gone. And we are not in the clear yet, and I don’t actually know when we ARE in the clear. I tried to look it up, and found that a test will be positive 2 or 3 or 5 or 7 or 14 days after a successful exposure/transmission—so at what point could I conclude that I have NOT gotten it? Weighing risks/benefits as best I can, which is not very well, I think I might stop wearing a mask in the house after prom (assuming I still have no symptoms and am still testing negative), though I’ll consult with the kids about that. Not only is prom the current highest-priority event to anyone in our household, but by then it will have been 5 days since Paul tested positive, and presumably I was well-exposed before then.
And we can hope that the fact that we were away for the weekend at Rob’s graduation, leaving the other kids home, is what will spare the other kids. Paul would have been at home Friday and all weekend, breathing out air, but instead we left Friday morning and weren’t back until Sunday afternoon. And Rob had Covid at college a few weeks ago, so it is likely he is not yet vulnerable to it again. It may be that only I was exposed. And I am wearing a mask, staying out of rooms where other people are, testing regularly, and sleeping on the sunporch. I have had three negative rapid tests so far (Sunday, Monday, Wednesday), and have a PCR test scheduled for tomorrow. I keep thinking my throat is getting sore and that I have a cough, but it’s allergy season and the sunporch is full of drafts bringing salutations from the trees/shrubs/grass outside.
If you are interested, here is what the kids have decided to do. (The youngest turns 15 this month, and all of them can do some basic cooking, so it’s pretty different from the way we might have made decisions when they were little and needed more active parental care.) Rob and William are not masking in the house, and they would mostly be staying in their room / away from other people anyway, so not much change there; they are not very worried about catching it, I think in part because they have both recently come home from college experiences where “vaccinated young people getting Covid but recovering quickly and without much fuss” was common. Elizabeth, Edward, and Henry are all wearing masks except when in their rooms, and staying in their rooms as much as possible, except Edward will sometimes hang out by himself on his favorite couch spot in the living room. Elizabeth in particular, I have seen only out of the corner of my eye since Sunday; Edward and Henry are more casual, and I think are mostly wearing masks because Elizabeth and I are wearing them.
I’m so sorry this has happened. And you’re far more forgiving than I would be. I’d be delivering divorce papers with a side of saltines if my husband did such a selfish thing.
I AM SO ANGRY AT PAUL THAT I CANNOT TYPE WITH LOWER CASE LETTERS
THIS IS MY FEELING AS WELL
OMG! WTF? HOLY HELL.
I hope you stay covid free. HOLY HELL.
I am furious for and with you. I hope everyone else stays negative.
I am so sorry to hear this, and stand in solidarity with your rage.
I hope that you are all fine and that Elizabeth’s prom plans are not derailed.
It entered our household by way of my nursery schooler (who goes to a completely masked school, and is the only one in our house who does anything remotely fun—his dad works in healthcare and there are protocols in place; my work has shifted to all-remote and I have absolutely no life outside of that), and within 5 days we were all sick: 4yo, then my husband, then our 14mo twins, then me. It was no one’s fault (except generally ours, making the decision last year that our child should not miss another year of school), but I was still so angry every single day. I like your idea that Paul should get to be responsible for his own care for as long as that’s feasible. If nothing else, maybe that will drive home the message about masking at work. How infuriating!
I am so horrified he did this that my mind is blank. Like, I just can’t … he … what? No, no, no. I want to sputter at him directly (though not, of course, sharing air with him) so he can see that you are not the only one horrified by his selfishness and lying and and criminal careless (with his own immunocompromised child!). I just what the no.
Oh my God. I am infuriated on your behalf. Fully infuriated. The actual thoughtless, selfish nerve!
SWISTLE I AM INCANDESCENT WITH RAGE OH MY GOD
I’m so sorry you are going through this. My husband’s positive COVID case was also how I found out that he was no longer masking at work even though I still mask everywhere indoors. Admittedly, he works in a field where it is preferable to see a person’s whole entire face in person in order to meet success—but I still wasn’t thrilled!
If I can give you any consolation it’s that through confining him to one bedroom and masking whenever he ventured out, and for ~15 minutes after he left a room, I managed NOT to contract it from him (though my booster was from November). We’re in an apartment so we still had to share a bathroom. But it IS doable. Still, don’t be mad at yourself if you get it; you have my permission, not that you need it, to continue to be mad at him.
I just have to point out that even if you and the rest of your family escape unscathed, that’s only due to luck. He still knowingly made these choices and actively chose to hide them. That is not functioning as the team that you want your family to be.
In many states, in a divorce, he would continue to need to pay for you and your children to live in that home until the kids are 18 or 21, at which point you may enjoy having a little apartment to yourself. Just sayin’.
Back when the stock market was rocketing along, a financial columnist tried to stop people from withdrawing money from their retirement plans, emergency funds, home equity, etc and investing it in the market, a Dumb Thing that many people were doing. The columnist’s point was not that you were bound to take a financial hit if you did this, but that it was a stupidly wrong thing to do even if it worked out for you. You might get lucky, but you would definitely be reckless. AND STUPID.
Oh Swistle – I’m so sorry.
I would like to share “An Encouraging Anecdote” on the off chance it may bolster hope that you could well remain negative. A few months ago, my spouse and 2 kids drove for over 4 hours in a car (closed windows, no masks) with another child. They also spent the day with that child (mostly outdoors). That child tested positive the next day. My kids were double vaccinated (at the time they weren’t allowed boosters yet) – my spouse was triple vaccinated. None of my family members tested positive. I hope the same will be true for you. I also hope this isn’t putting a silver lining on your hard situation – I just want to reiterate that COVID is a weird and very transmissible virus that, nevertheless, sometimes DOESN’T transmit as we expect it would/should (thanks vaccines and good luck).
P.S. The Poisonwood Bible is such a terrible and wonderful story. I think the writing is superb.
Yes, very strange how it sometimes does not transmit. Last summer, 3 of my kids (teens and tweens )had it at once. I didn’t even try to isolate from them as i was their only caregiver. I never tested positive or had a single symptom. Mind boggling to me as they breathed all over me for 14 + days .
Congratulations to your graduate!!
It is so weird. There was an article in The Washington Post this week about those people that have avoided COVID this whole time. It talked about how maybe there is something other than just luck about those that managed to avoid it when everyone else in their family had it.
I had it back in late January and it was absolutely nothing. It was the most mild of cold symptoms for about 2 days, but I still tested positive for a week. The only reason I tested at all was because I was going to be in a group of people. The friend I was with when I most certainly caught it and her daughter didn’t catch it.
Similar here – my 10 year old had it and and I couldn’t isolate from him, he needed me. Coughed in my face many times – I did not get it. Two weeks later, my older son got it and was often near to me, and I did not get it. And their vaccines were more recent than mine. And my immune system has historically not been great.
There is hope for you and the kids Swistle!
Similar story- my husband had symptoms for THREE Days before testing (we thought sinus infection) during which time we spent lots of time sleeping together, in cars together, etc) while he was coughing everywhere. In the AM when i get up, HE USES MY PILLOW. And lo and behold, never got it. It is possible. i hope you don’t get it!
Oh. My. God. The EXACT same thing happened to me. My husband stopped wearing masks at work (“well, I wore them whenever we had a meeting together!” as if working in a small room right next to each other didn’t matter), while my sons and I were still wearing them, thinking we were being safe. My elementary school aged sons, who wore them without complaining even though they were some of the few kids in their class still masking, were more mature and responsible.
We all ended up getting sick. And no prom here, but it was the weekend of my son’s birthday, so we had to cancel seeing family. Whom we’ve barely seen for the last couple years. But not before we already had a couple friends over for his birthday (again, the first real celebration in years), so we had to notify them and I had to stress about them getting sick (none of them did). Luckily, all our symptoms were mild (relatively speaking,I felt horrible but it’s not like we were hospitalized or anything).
So what I’m saying is, I completely understand your thoughts about divorce, and have had those thoughts running through my head as well. Just the complete disregard for other people. I’m so pissed. And getting pissed again typing this out.
Anyway. I will now go back and read the comments. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, and I hope all of you stay healthy.
The part where the top of my head almost blew straight off is the long pause when he was telling you the anecdote. HE WAS WEIGHING WHETHER TO LIE RIGHT TO YOUR FACE.
I’m keeping everything crossed that E’s prom is unaffected by this nonsense and, obviously, that everyone else stays well. It is SO stressful to have an exciting event coming up and have THE PLAGUE enter the home and then await the news of whether it will torpedo said event or not.
RIGHT?! I was already incandescent with rage from the previous sentences, but when he contemplated lying about it, I nearly lost it.
Swistle, I am so sorry. I’ve heard so many stories of people deliberately endangering their families and they always make me so angry. I really can’t believe Paul wouldn’t stop to think about Edward’s health, even if he didn’t think about endangering anyone else.
And I think you nailed why I hated the Poisonwood Bible. Things just got worse and worse and worse and then that awful thing happened. It was more than I could take.
So, i was going to recommend buying a couple of air purifiers with HEPA filters for the room he is in, and/or the rooms you and Elizabeth sleep in. (I’ve been happy with the Blueair Blue Pure 411 Auto units I bought for wildfire smoke– maybe they would help with your pollen situation too?) But then I thought…
Could you book him a room in a cheap motel and make him go live there until he tests negative for a couple days? Preferably the kind of horrible cheap motel where you can hear the other people through the walls? Because that seems like it would check several boxes here.
HAHAHAHA, oh my gosh, I love this! It’s both practical and reasonable but also devious and spiteful all at the same time. It’s perfect.
We actually did this when my husband got Covid in the fall. We don’t have a guest room, and my daughter had it at the same time, and we also have a baby and another child (who as far as I know never got it). It just got too complicated with trying to separate everyone who needed to be separated, and he had nowhere to sleep.
I am trying very hard to channel my *considerable* Rage at Paul into Healthy for Prom Energy, and directing it at Elizabeth.
Oh man. It’s such a man thing to decide. It’s so patronizing to lie about it. UGH.
We went through similar around New Years’. Was he fsm-damned lucky he was the only one to get Covid? Yes. Did I nurse him through it? No. I tossed various necessities in his general direction and we all avoided him. If I had had an immunocompromised child in the house? He would have been Covid isolating in the shed.
I hope the prom goes off beautifully. I hope your babes are all healthy.
I don’t want to throw gasoline on the fire but I just want you to know that I would be SO (expletive deleted) MAD if H did this. I mean I’m feeling second hand rage for you that’s hard for me to quantify. I don’t think your feelings on this are unreasonable at all.
A close friend of mine decided to retire at the end of this month rather than two years from now as she had planned because her boss came to work with covid so he could quarantine from his family (???!!!). He exposed his staff and others in other departments rather than staying home and wearing a mask and being not a complete piece of shit. She’d worked for his guy for years and he’d been a good boss, but this was a complete deal breaker.
Crossing my fingers that no one else in your family gets it and prom is a go!
OH MY GAWD!!!!!!!!!! Speechless.
😱😱😱😱😱
HE DID WHAT?!?!
🤯🤯🤯
I am utterly enraged on your behalf, and I hope no one else in your house is adversely affected. I also greatly admire the restraint with which you chose your words in this post, HOOOOO BOY.
I was already wondering how your Mother’s Day went, and prepared to be angry on your behalf, but I was not prepared to be this angry!
OMG I had not even factored Mother’s Day into the equation. I am newly aghast.
Oh my gosh. May I offer you the consolation that when I had covid (mask in public, rarely go out, work from home, no idea where I got it) I isolated immediately and no one else got it? I can’t decide if this is a helpful comment or if I’m making it about me, but I mean it to be encouraging.
I’m so angry at Paul for your entire family, especially Edward. Please let us know if there is anything we can do. I would gladly send a favorite restaurant gift card. Or a cheery mug if you had a post office box you were comfortable sharing! Or other assorted bolstering surprises!
I’m glad your kids are all old enough to manage most of their own needs and I have everything crossed for prom.
It is so easy for other people to decide for someone else what their marriage “dealbreakers’ should be. Infidelity? Divorce! Addiction? Divorce! Abuse? Divorce!
Everyone’s marriage is a secret story unto itself. Each party gets to decide for themselves what their dealbreakers are … sometimes they overlap others’ dealbreakers, sometimes they do not.
That said, if you decide this is your dealbreaker, you will have our full support. If you decide this is not your dealbreaker, you will still have our full support.
I’m so sorry you have to stare down the barrel like this. My heart is especially broken for Edward, whose Dad doesn’t think of his health when making selfish decisions, and for Elizabeth, whose Dad is willing to jeopardize one of the most memorable events of her childhood.
Wow, that is very D*** move on your husbands part . 8 out of 11 of us got covid from an Easter Sunday dinner, luckily it was very, very, mild and did not last long.
It’s a betrayal and you have every right to be mad and take your time to process it. My husband is a musician and practices with his band mates unmasked (he’s the singer) and we have discussions beforehand about the risks and benefits and we don’t even have kids let alone ones with immune issues. If he just went off on his own and did what he wanted I would be livid. To me this way of doing it is Relationship 101 but not all men see it that way.
I am sorry this happened. Both my kids got Covid at different times, I’m pretty sure each got it at school, and both were wearing masks at school. Each time, only they got Covid and no one else in the house did. We didn’t isolate at all from them or wear masks in the house. I didn’t even use any disinfectant. We are all vaccinated and boosted the appropriate number of times for our age group. I hope your household has the same luck and that prom is smooth sailing.
Well, I’m sorry to report, that I actually have gotten Covid from my kid. Just tested positive today. I hope your luck is better.
Crap. I am so sorry.
Whether or not my spouse got infected, I would see this sort of deception and unilateral decision-making as a betrayal of my family and our safety, and neither of my kids are even immunocompromised. I’m really sorry that you’re dealing with this.
Immunocompromised child. Divorce is justified. Not kidding.
I am furious for you. And the general attitude also evokes rage in me about burdens in general that women carry (birth control decisions, health consequences of pregnancy and childbirth, possible incarceration for trying to get an abortion) that men can just . . . not have to deal with. My husband wouldn’t even talk about a vasectomy. Recent events in that sphere have me shaken and SO ANGRY. Just a lot of parallels for me with the nonchalance of mask use.
ANYWAY, sending all the healthiest thoughts your way, to you and the kids. xoxo
I would also be livid and it might be a dealbreaker for me.
From what I have read, the ongoing positive test results is true for a PCR test, but with a rapid test, a positive means high virus load and still transmissible. A rapid test won’t be positive for a low level of virus. A friend’s teenage son just had Covid and he was negative on a rapid test by day 5 or 6 (his symptoms passed quickly, so he was also symptom free by then).
OMG! 😱😱 Cue the monologue by Madeline Kahn in Clue.
Linking to Joey Fox’s thread on how to handle a covid case at home to try to prevent transmission: https://twitter.com/joeyfox85/status/1508527893567131652?s=21&t=FRQpycTAyqwd10WJZpeZ4A
Key points are ventilation, filtration, and humidity. Having an older home that’s likely quite leaky is in your favor. Keep windows open as much as you can, use HEPA filters or DIY Corsi-Rosenthal boxes (after accumulating them over several wildfire apocalyptic orange sky seasons, I leave them running year-round and they’ve done wonders for us on the allergy side of things in addition to the breathing-without-choking-on-smoke original use case), and use a humidifier if you need to to keep relative humidity somewhere between 40-60%.
Block off all the vents/air returns that go to/from Paul’s quarantine room to make sure your HVAC system isn’t blowing his germs about the house (assuming a forced air system).
I am SO sorry you’re having to deal with this and the added stress and worry for you and the kids.
As far as the incubation time, I’ve seen generally 3 days for Omicron and to assume that if you have symptoms you’re positive even if the first/early antigen test is negative. Being vaccinated primes our immune system so we’ll show symptoms before the viral load is high enough to throw a positive on an antigen. I don’t know if there’s been an update to how late it could be post exposure and all the forms I’ve been signing are still the original 14 days.
I FOR SURE would not let Paul leave isolation until he is negative on antigen. The 5 days post positive with symptoms improving is garbage. And you don’t mention if he was able to take Paxlovid or not, but if he did, watch out for him to rebound a few days after he finishes that course of treatment.
I cannot believe that he did this to you and am utterly furious for you. Sending positive, healthy thoughts for you and the kids.
As for the graduation piece, I really wish they could figure out how not to make it such a lengthy time suck during one of the almost universally uncomfortable times of the year.
That was such a useful Twitter thread! I had read something about humidity and viruses in The Before Times, so when Covid hit I doubled down on using both them and the air purifiers all the time. But I almost never saw anyone else mention it so I thought maybe I had made it up somehow! So glad to see I was right! (Though trying to keep a humid home AND have the windows open has proven to be a losing battle here. But it’s at least a factor to keep in mind!)
Yes, Joey Fox is fantastic! I’ve learned so much from his various threads. I think you’re right that there was some study on humidity and influenza (maybe? or influenza and colds?) that had come out a year or so before the pandemic hit. I remember our co-op preschool discussing it and deciding to use a humidifier at school that winter.
I have a love/hate relationship with humidifiers. Where I’m at in CA, we generally have decent humidity, so it’s not a house-wide issue, but any time my kids have had colds, turning on the humidifier just seems to make their room gross.
The one benefit to the pandemic is that I’ve started following a LOT of the aerosol scientists/engineers and Indoor Air Quality people and I suspect the issue that we’ve had with the kids’ room stems from a combination of the contractors were not insulation experts so there’s some gaps causing the heat issues in the summer and air doesn’t move out of there and mix with the rest of the air in the house so it always seems gross and stuffy (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve removed all their things trying to find whatever horror show they’ve hidden behind something that is making their room disgusting).
I really wish that I had known more about IAQ before we did our remodel. We thought we were being so smart avoiding a forced air HVAC system for my husband’s allergies, but that also means it’s impossible to get fresh air in the house without opening a window which then brings in all the dust/pollen unfiltered (and smoke during our apocalyptic fire/smoke season). /facepalm
My dad didn’t like The Poisonwood Bible because, he said, all the men in it were terrible. It’s called realism, Dad. (I mean, my dad was a pretty good guy for his generation, but I am not at hard-pressed, decades later, to name half a dozen self-involved, self-absorbed men I know IRL and shoot, let’s just use them as characters in a novel. I can come up with another dozen if the first novel is a hit.
I echo the outrage of my co-Swistlians. THIS IS BULLSHIT, Paul. Not that he has no redeeming qualities, but there is something wrong with ones priorities and one’s morals to decide you get to expose the entire family to COVID just because, and not tell them because you know how they will react. The underlying assumption being that YOU KNOW BETTER NO YOU EFFING DON’T
I am so sorry, everything about this sucks so much. Are there any “Yoga for Rage” videos you can do? Or maybe a compilation of old time movie slap across the face scenes would be better. Or go the other way and put on Bob Ross. Sometimes I have him going in the background and I don’t even watch, his voice and the brush sounds are so soothing.
IM FURIOUS! What the hell! I don’t have words! Is it too late to tell him to take his pillow to the car (or barn) with a roll of toilet paper and he can use the woods for food and personal care? does he deserve the bedroom? Just sayin.
I have been stunned repeatedly by the selfishness of men during the pandemic. My former husband included. I have seen woman after woman do all she can to protect loved ones, family, co-workers, and men come up with truly insular reasoning, if that. I would be very interested in seeing a longitudinal study on gender differences in approach over the last two years.
I am very, very sorry for all that is happening for you.
I agree with you and I think that a large part of cis hetero white men’s attitude on this and current hot topics is that so often their choices are seen by society to only impact themselves. I know my former husband is extremely insular and approaches most issues with a “if it doesn’t impact me personally, I don’t care” attitude.
It’s not just men. My SIL, for example, decided it was fine and dandy to visit her unvaccinated, elderly mother during a covid surge around Christmas, without masking or taking any precautions, and when my MIL got ill with what sure looked like covid (she insisted her tests were all negative, but she is a Covid Denier), it was only after they were told she actually also had pneumonia that SIL and her husband came down to help her out. My MIL, also, could not understand why my husband, who is immunocompromised, couldn’t sit down and take his mask off and eat lunch with her. UGH.
Oh, wow. I’m sorry and I 100% understand why you’re so very angry with him. I hope you and the kids stay well, esp. Elizabeth and Edward.
If you recover your equilibrium before it feels like old news, I’d be interested in that graduation post, since I’ll be in your shoes in a year.
What the actual hell, Paul?!
Swistle, you have every right to be angry. I hope he gets better soon and that none of the rest of you get it and that Elizabeth gets to go to prom. You might also want to reiterate to him the importance of continuing to mask because it’s entirely possible to be re-infected.
I. Just … . What?! I’m so sorry Swistle. I thought of divorce before you even mentioned the word in your post. I hope you and the children will stay healthy and that Elizabeth will enjoy a fabulous prom.
I have looped around past rage into disbelief and back into rage again because oh my GOD HOW DARE HE? What the HELL.
On a side note: “but I did not imbue that service with love, and in fact withheld it.” made me love you even more than I already did.
I’m so sorry. Something similar happened to one of my family members, and I tell you this not to compare but to say I know how disappointing, frightening and INFURIATING it was for them, to know that their partner made that kind of unilateral decision for themselves and put their family’s health at risk. I’m sending best wishes to you.
I’m so sorry, Swistle. I hope it stays with him and everyone else stays healthy. Fingers crossed Edward in particular is spared and that Elizabeth is also, I will be heartbroken for her if her prom plans are derailed. Your rage is justified.
Yesterday someone dear to me told me a similar story, but SHE is the medically fragile one, and now we wait to see what the fallout will be.
I am so, so sorry. I do not know the right words for this, but I am sending all of the healthy and supportive vibes your way.
<3
Sorry if this has already been covered, but I’d like to read the comments leisurely but give my input on the contagiousness factor immediately.
As I understand it, rapid tests measure current viral load, so if you’re testing positive you have enough of it to pass it on. The latest wisdom here is that this means when you stop testing positive with rapid tests, you can start the incubation period for people who were potentially exposed. An incubation period is about 10 days if you want to be on the safe side. So you’ll know that Paul didn’t pass it on roughly 10 days after he stops testing positive on a rapid test (not a PCR, which says you were infected, but not whether you’re contagious).
That’s my understanding too. And at least in my instance, I tested negative on a rapid test the same day I tested positive on a PCR test (the next day I was positive on the rapid test).
This is mostly true, although with a caveat that some people continue to test positive on the rapid tests for up to 21 days after their first symptoms. You should probably stop testing if you test positive on a rapid at 5 days out and continue to isolate until at least 10 days (if not 14).
In my house when my kid brought COVID home from school despite constant, required masking and vaccination, two of us got it (me, kid 2) and two didn’t (husband, kid 1). Me and kid 2 staying in one room and always wore a mask to pick up the food left outside our door, but didn’t mask inside the COVID room. Husband and kid 1 wore masks when they came near, but didn’t in the downstairs of the house.
As I was reading, I just assumed the entire family went to the graduation. And thought “oh, f**k, Edward, in the car for 7 hours”. I was quite relieved when I read paragraph 7 and realized it was just (“just”) you and Paul in the car.
Keeping you all (except Paul) in my thoughts. Adding my “stay healthy, Swistle family” wishes to everyone else’s.
I thought this, too. As a hopefully encouraging note, I had it last August the weekend we moved my daughter to college–thought it was just a mild cold until the third day when it was Definitely Something and then the fourth day I couldn’t smell anything and tested. Over those four days I was in a car with my husband for HOURS, hugged our daughter and my parents and my best friend’s family and my brother, and all of them were vaccinated and not one of them got sick. So fingers crossed for the Swistle family except Paul for whom I hope the applesauce has no flavor.
Oh my goodness, I am so sorry an so angry on your behalf. It’s hard enough to avoid doing everything right, so the very least OUR FAMILY can do is be open and honest about how they are going about their business in the world.
*hard enough to avoid COVID doing everything right
I’m single, never married, live by myself and I am still ALL WTAF. LITERALLY what the ACTUAL???????? Especially with immunocompromised people in the household. You are nice and forgiving because you have a long history with Paul but I am the kind of person where this unmitigated risk taking would be unacceptable to my life and my values moving forward. That is me (and me only). I can only hope he learns a huge lesson from this and employs that lesson in all future medical risk taking decisions that impacts OTHERS. Like his family. SEEING RED. And OF COURSE, I wish the family good health (thought the ranting was a little non-empathetic, and I never wish ill on anyone, just good health and happiness).
I honestly don’t know what I could say that hasn’t been said by everyone else on here already, but I want you to know that OMFG you have my support. This is… unconscionable. Enraging. Horrifying. And I’m so sorry you and the kids have to deal with the fallout of his own terrible decision. I really hope the rest of you stay healthy and Elizabeth can go to her prom.
Oh, Swistle! I am so so sorry. Sending healthy healing vibes for you and all your kids. <3
Like the commenter with the musician spouse upthread here, I also had a hard conversation with my spouse who had decided he wanted to stop wearing masks at work. Actually, it was a series of conversations over a whole weekend. He is a college professor, and his school had a mask mandate in place until around after spring break, I think. After that, he kept on masking while he taught for a while until (he said) he was one of the few faculty left who was still doing it. In his view, it had gotten to the point where he thought that was preventing him from connecting with some students and making them feel adversarial towards him. (we live in a red state, and while around 80% of the students got vaxxed, apparently they were all Done With Covid a while ago)
We do not have children. I am not immunocompromised, but I am overweight and so at greater risk of having covid go badly for me if I did get it. The bigger fear is long covid and all of its attendant worries. In the end, I said he could unmask at work but if cases started to go up we'd have to revisit that, and additionally, he had to promise that if I got long covid and developed cognitive issues, he would have to help me with crosswords for the rest of our lives.
TL;DR: Swistle, I'm so sorry. I hope so much for you that no one else gets it, that Elizabeth has a fabulous prom, and that Edward's health is not compromised.
I’m glad you did the edit, where you said you weren’t sure he considered lying…because that is the part that really got me. To be wrong, and then consider lying? Hell no! But…he did lie-he didn’t tell you he wasn’t wearing a mask. How he could justify that is beyond me. You have every reason to be raging against him. To put himself before the health of his family is honestly such a red flag-I would have a really hard time getting past it. Sending all healthy thoughts your way, and I am so sorry this happened. One thing to get sick while taking precautions-but this? Very hard to respect someone who does something like this.
I just wanted to say how timely your post was for me and how much I appreciated it. My husband works from home and I thought he was just working really hard on Tuesday, but when I went in towards the end of the work day he was huddled on his reclining chair looking under the weather, and when I checked had a fever of almost 103. He’d started feeling chilled and achy the night before, and not only didn’t mention it, but didn’t say anything ALL DAY LONG when he clearly had something out of the ordinary happening! I skeedaddled out of the room, masked up, brought him supplies and a rapid test, and it turned positive almost immediately. Now I’m trying to figure out if the kids or I have it at any point (my oldest kiddo has a cough, does he have covid? I have a stuffy head and sore throat and a bit of a cough, but I’ve had a cough since February. might I have it and be exposing the other kids to it while we homeschool? We had a huge vacation planned for this weekend, is there any way any of us will be able to salvage that? Or are enough of us infected that we need to start canceling hotels and flights and rental cars before the cancellation period has passed us by?). In any case, I was sitting here fretting and waiting for the timer to go off to read my third rapid test of the last 24 hours (negative, phew) when I saw the title of your post in my feed reader, and instantly felt less alone. I’m still scared, but I feel less isolated and that makes it slightly more bearable to be this scared. So thank you. I hope the rest of you all escape the germs (or end up with those Covid cases where people say they have the sniffles for a few days and then are totally fine!) and keep us all posted. It helps to hear from you :)
Ugh. I’m sorry this is a tricky situation for your family. There’s obviously no justification for Paul doing what he did. The prevailing attitude is that masks are not necessary any more apparently?! I was surprised to be a a doctor’s office this week with a maskless medical staff, even though our community has high COVID transmission.
I also tried to visit a doctor recently and everyone on the staff including him was similarly unmasked. I told them I was shocked to see that and that it made me really uncomfortable and anxious. They made an appointment for me in a different system that still has a mask mandate for all health care settings, but I wouldn’t have wasted time going to see him in the first place had I known that the staff would be unmasked.
My 92 year old granny was going through treatment for her THIRD round of breast cancer, and her oncologist was unmasked (and this was like a year ago, before the great unmasking seems to have begun). My family and I were APALLED.
I wonder if Paul would qualify for the oral COVID medicine? A friend of mine took it while isolating at home (her indication was her age, 59). I’m not sure if it reduces viral load per se, but I’d guess it wouldn’t hurt. I think it’s supposed to be taken early on.
I have no words…except this just came to me….
I hope you have placed a reasonably LARGE See’s candy order.
My daughter just tested positive after her prom. Two other kids in her group got it, and so we tested (my daughter didn’t even have symptoms yet) and boom. We are isolating her in her room, letting her have exclusive use of the hall bathroom, bringing her meals, etc. My husband is immunocompromised. The rest of us are all negative so far. We did our best (she masked at prom) but hey it happens.
Swistle, I’m so angry and sad on your behalf. This is the action of someone who thinks he knows better than you, and also wants to avoid an inconvenient conversation. Condescending, thoughtless, lazy, dangerous. I hope so much that the rest of you stay healthy.
Oh Swistle, I don’t comment often, but I am SO ANGRY on your behalf!
We’ve now had COVID in our house twice (hooray for young kids in daycare because our lab jobs can’t be remote and we have to pay the bills! That’s a fun choice to make!). The first time was December 2020, and my 8mo brought it home and gave it to me. The second time was last month, when my now 2yo (same kid!) brought it home again. I will say, the power of masks cannot be understated because the first time my husband and preschooler did not catch it, and this last time, no one else caught it, and we wore masks the whole time.
However, it was super fun to learn that on my husband’s first day at a new job he didn’t wear a mask because “no one else was” and that was the day my youngest tested positive. I had little sympathy for his anxiety about the possibility of exposing his BRAND NEW COWORKERS to COVID. I wear mine everywhere because my youngest can’t be vaccinated, and I thought my husband and I were on the same page about that, but I guess not.
Assuming no one else in the house gets it this round, I think I would be trying to look at this as him experiencing the repercussions of his own succumbing to peer pressure. To me, that’s the biggest issue with the mask mandates being dropped, particularly in schools. If people/businesses can’t point to a rule or law requiring something, it gets really easy for the most lax people to run the culture. My kid is still wearing a mask to her elementary school, but I haven’t seen a teacher or administrative person wearing one since about a week after my state’s mandate was dropped. And in my kid’s class, she’s one of 3/22 still wearing a mask, a fact I know because the teachers lead the kids out for in-person pickup every day. I see the lines of kids, and I see the teachers. I think there’s an extreme element of peer pressure going on among adults, not just kids.
Despite understanding how he might have succumbed, I would also pretty firmly tell him that I wanted his commitment to resume masking once he returns to in-person work again. And that he needed to understand that if he chose against wearing it at any point, that it was a Very Big Deal. I would want him to understand at a core level that whether he agreed with it or not, that it was critically important to me, and that this was one of those things that he needs to do for the sake of the relationship. Because there’s casual disregard and mental excuses and “oh, it’s not such a big deal” and there’s “she told me that if I do this again, she’s going to see it as a deep violation of her trust and a sign that I don’t care about her or the kids as much as I care about blending in at the office.”
These are times that really put people’s character, consideration of others, and resolve on display. Hopefully he realizes that he has better in him than what he was doing, and decides to act from his better self going forward.
Forget divorce, homicide would be on the table.
That said, I have my own (not) fun story to share, but also to hopefully be a soothing anecdote: we’ve all had seasonal allergy nonsense at my house, but since I had older family coming for dinner, I decided to test my stuffed-up 11-year-old so I could reassure everyone that it really was just allergies. IMAGINE MY SURPRISE to see a positive on that test. He immediately retreated to his room and masked for the following days. Nobody else has tested positive (and we have used many, many tests). So even when the odds seem against you, weird things happen, I guess.
I hope that Paul has mild symptoms, covid doesn’t spread in your house, Edward stays healthy, and Elizabeth gets to go to prom. Having an immunocompromised teen would be really high up there on my covid list of nightmare scenarios.
I’m pausing on your statement that Edward and Henry are wearing masks in the house mainly because you are. This would be a time when I would be testing my assumptions. One household member withheld info… maybe more than one. (This is a slippery slope of distrust and I have to monitor myself with that tendency, but…) Could it be possible that your immunocompromised kiddo has stopped wearing a mask at school? Is it possible that Paul made his decision using a different decision matrix than you because he had different information? It just seems plausible to me that a teenage boy could have pulled his dad aside and said, “Dad, I’m not wearing a mask at school anymore. I’m comfortable with this risk. I just don’t want mom to worry, so let’s pretend I still do.” And Paul says, “Yup, let’s give mom a fig leaf because she connects you getting covid with Dire Consequences.”
This also is a betrayal. This would also be something to get furious about. Certainly, this is not how your household has decided to function and it breaks the rules of communication that you’ve established.
In my head, I’m equating this possible scenario to the situation that often happened in households when I was growing up: Girl wants birth control because she’s sexually active. Mom asks daughter to pretend she needs birth control because of bad cramps to give Dad the fig leaf that she’s still a virgin. We all think that we’ve evolved so much as a society since then. But then Roe vs Wade is apparently still undecided, so how far have we really come?
Paul seems to have been raised in a household where fig leaves were tolerated/encouraged, so this just seems
I’m the realm of plausible to me.
I have been thinking about this post all night. I am so so sorry, Swistle. Paul’s willful carelessness must feel like a slap in the face. It angers me because it seems that he doesn’t respect your parenting expertise and your YEARS of emotional/physical labor as a mother. Who takes care of sick kids? Who takes the kids to doctor’s appointments? Who follows up with all school work? Who lined up immunizations? Who takes off work for all this? I know that you do the majority of this so-called unseen labor. But he should have seen it, recognized it, appreciated it, and not undermined it! The fact that he is so careless with his own health, knowing how it can rock the entire family, is enraging.
I am so so sorry!!! That sucks to the power of 100. I’m glad you are healthy so far. I do not understand Paul’s choices and I’m sure it’s been painful having to contemplate them.
My friend’s husband’s officemate recently tested positive for covid. I know my friend to be very covid-conscious, and her husband only recently returned to in-person work. She has 3 young children, 2 too small to be vaccinated yet. I asked her if her husband was masking at the office, while we were discussing what steps they were going to take in response to the exposure news, and her response was “I don’t think so.”
I am baffled by this! Not necessarily by him not masking, if that is indeed what happened – I don’t get that choice but it’s certainly one most people are making. But I do NOT get why she doesn’t know, didn’t ask, even after his exposure, and assumes not, given everything else I know about her. Is it weird that this fact alone makes me think the health of their marriage may be in trouble??
I have not commented because I couldn’t think of what to say, but that seems cowardly. It is a special kind of hell when you know you’ve been exposed and you’re waiting to find out all the repercussions – add in an immunocompromised child and, well, I can’t even get there because I don’t have one. Your past posts have shown that you view your relationship with your husband in a very clear-eyed manner, and I agree with the commenter who said that we should support you in whatever the fallout from this incident is. I fervently hope that no one else gets sick and the fallout is solely dependent on how you feel about what Paul did.
This is infuriating and all too real here. I am now grappling if whether or not I’ve been too forgiving to my partner! We have been trying to navigate this “post pandemic” world and recognize things are opening up. But in general we keep things pretty safe and wear a mask in public. My husband returned from a 400 person work conference (I hadn’t realized the size) and informed me that nobody there was wearing a mask, so he didn’t either. I was floored, but moved past it because I did understand he is a new position at work , people were trying to find him to introduce themselves, and it’s weird times. That is until he tested positive. We tried to isolate him for 2 days, leaving me with our two kids under 3, but I was still so tired from solo parenting while he was away I needed some reprieve. I eventually tested positive and we assume the kids were too. I was mad, but continued to think “I will be really mad if either of our kids gets super sick”. He knew he messed up, and we talked about it and I made it clear that what was so upsetting was that he just made the decision on his own and didn’t really think about the consequences. He sincerely apologized. It felt like we were moving forward but yesterday he shared that he has been sharing this little story as a funny anecdote to colleagues in a self-depreciating way. I DO NOT FIND THIS A FUNNY ANECDOTE.
It is NOT a funny anecdote. I would be so very very very angry.
please put my mind at ease — Is Edward ok? and is Elizabeth able to attend prom?
Edward is okay so far! Elizabeth went to prom!
I just wanted to come back to say that I’m here at home, I’ve never met you in person, and four days after reading this I am still LIVID.
HOW
DARE
HE.