Posted by JenStar on August 25, 2004, at 1:32:29
hi all,
my husband is driving me nuts!!!***&&%%%He's sooo stressed out at work, and he brings home his laptop and works till midnite almost every nite. I try to be supportive and make dinners and bring them to him on a tray and bring him coffee and take care of the animals and the house and the cleaning and the everything else.
But I can't do anything to dispel his bleak moods; he gets stressed and if I ask him for something simple (can you replace the water jug? Can you help me get the lid off this jar?) he sometimes makes this exasperated 'aaarrrggguuuhhhhh" noise and rolls his eyes and makes a big show of getting up to help.
Then I get mad and snap at him and get really mean and say "forget it, I don't want your help anyway" (sometimes with a curse word in there for good measure.) he says "FINE!"
Then we sulk respectively for a while until the earth has turned, and then we make up and we're all friends and happy again, until he comes home the next night all stressed out from meetings and presentations and everything...and it all starts all over again.
I know I'm to blame too. I am not patient enough with him. Instead of snapping when he gets stressed, I should be understanding and sweet. He IS having a tough job right now; work DOES suck, and I know he needs room. But I have a quick temper and it's a 'fight pattern' that we fall into very easily. And I wish he had the ability, or more of it, to separate work and home.
I am not working full time right now, though, and I feel incredibly guilty about this. I'm doing part time "artsy" work instead of the engineering I used to do (long story...sort of a mental flip-out thing for me, I guess). He has never actively said anything blaming to me, or indicated that I'm lazy or weak or stupid or that I should just get my butt in gear and get back to a "real" job.
But I feel all those things, and I assume he MUST feel them too, on some level. I feel very anxious and guilty that I'm not working at a high power job like he is and like I used to. It sort of makes me feel worthless.
And therefore when he makes the 'aarrgggaaahhh" noise at me I feel that maybe I deserve this noise because I'm such a lame slacker who lets him pull all the weight. And then I get mad because I think I'm still kind of fragile, mentally, and shouldn't he be supportive of ME? And then I get mad because I don't want to be fragile and I was excited about my progress but now it seems lame since he makes that noise at me. And maybe I SHOULD just get back into the corporate world, anyway...I thought I'd be happier out of it but things aren't that great now. Maybe it was better before. At least we had more money. I feel like some of his stress is most likely due to me, and my lack of working. If I was working he might not feel such a burden and the stresses of work might not lean on him so heavily.
I must point out that my husband is a dear, sweet man. When I had my breakdown thing, he was ultra-supportive and really was nice and kind and made me feel wonderful and special. But now that I'm "better" (thanks, Lexapro!) it's almost like HE'S the one breaking down, and I don't feel like I'm in the right place to help him fully. Especially because I'm not working a prestigious job! This makes me feel terrible.
I don't know. I'm not even sure what I'm asking of you fellow babblers.
I guess I'd like advice -- your ideas on how to better deal with a spouse who is incredibly stressed out. Apart from going back to work full time (which I intend to do in the near future) -- what are other suggestions?
thanks!
JenSTar
poster:JenStar
thread:381995
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040820/msgs/381995.html