I understand what you are saying on this....one question for you though. How does someone who is a conflict avoider do the following ("Your husband does not truly understand boundaries and for him to become healthy and happy, and therefore give you the love and attention you crave, he must learn to become more self protective and to take care of his own needs......He must learn to focus on his needs, how to address to needs and what he wants out of life. He needs to evaluate his priorities to come to the conclusion that he must back away from the enmeshment with his family. He must find self respect and self love, so that he has sufficient capacity to give this back to you. Helping him understand this, and supporting him on this journey is where you can help.")......if he's not challenged to do it in some fashion?
See...I struggled with this in some ways, and am just now having some success in getting my H to actually address these very things. He would NOT have ever addressed these issues though if I in some form or fashion challenge him to do it. He would not have done that if I hadn't brought to his attention that he was attending to everything else BUT me.
Granted, I did have to alter my approach a few times. Cobra...I also understand what you are saying......but I've got to say this. What you are saying truly does sound so very one-sided in the R to me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm hearing in your post leaves me with the impression that Honeypot should understand all these things that are going on within her H (which I do believe she does do)....and be ok with the fact that she's not getting what SHE needs. What I'm really hearing is that not only should she be ok with it, she should stop asking for what she needs too....because that just puts pressure on him.
Am I misreading what you are trying to say? I hope so.
There are two people in this R....doesn't he hold some accountability too? I'm really not trying to be obtuse here....it just sounds to me like you are advising her to pander to her H's needs and forget about what she needs....be ok with the fact that she has some fundamental needs that won't be met....because asking for those needs to be met is pressuring him. That to me sounds absolutely ludicrous! That's why I'm trying to make sure I'm not misunderstanding .
Now this leads me into my next thought and that is the resentment you feel over the lack of support. Recall a few weeks ago you two were on cloud 9. Everything was right with the world and you were happy. But I suspect you were doing the same amount of housework, the same cleaning and feeding. I understand you’ve got three small ones with colds, which is tough, but that is temporary. I also guess that H was working about the same number of hours then as he is now. So what is different for you to feel so depressed?
The closeness of your relationship and the show f his affection has changed. That’s all. How does that affect the amount of labor you are doing? It doesn’t. The change in your perception of the load you have to carry is due to the change in your emotional condition. Nothing else. So while you have every right to be upset about the state or your marriage, don’t get on your pity pot that you suddenly feel you are carrying an increased load. You are not. It just feels that way.
But if you express this to your husband, what is he to do? Won’t he be totally confused and frustrated in trying to figure out what changed in your work load from two weeks ago to now? And it is only your workload that he can truly do anything about, right? He knows enough not to dare tell you that you shouldn’t feel what you feel. He wants to help, but how? Now he is in the catch 22, isn’t he?
You see, you women do not make this any easier for us men. The best I can think of (and maybe others will have better suggestions) is to not get caught up in the entitlement trap. No one is entitled to anything. You get help because others want to offer it. But if they don’t, you should not feel you are entitle to receive help, or that you should somehow force them to see your point of view. Isn’t that control?
Now all this is only relevant when both spouses are truly performing an equal share of the work. You may each not think this is so, but everyone thinks they do more than the other, right? It is a matter of perception, and not fully understanding what the other does.
I’d also like to mention the impact on your H of losing his job. I have the impression (and correct me if I am wrong) the some women view an event like this as just another work issue that the husband needs to overcome and overcome fast. It is his problem, he likely caused it, and he’d better fix it. But it is not the wife’s problem, that’s for sure (go ahead GEL, I am generalizing here). For a man, lose of a job is one of the most fearful things that can happen, other than dead of a family member. The wife seems to have confidence that the husband is a good worker and can find a job, that any employer would be lucky to have him.
But this confidence evaporates within a man when he is laid off. All of a sudden he is filled with self doubt, fears of making the mortgage payment, the humiliation of having to sign up for unemployment, wondering if they will be able to keep the house, where they may have to move to, what type of future his kids will have, and on and on. This is very traumatic and humbling stuff to a man and I don’t think women have a clue as to the impact it makes on the male psyche. I think your husband is still reeling from his job loss, and HE feels unappreciated and still very scared. It will take about a year of settling into the new job for the panic to truly subside.
First let me say that you are misreading me. I am currently making these comments directly to HP, not her husband. If I were talking to him everything would be different. Of course he is accountable too.
But more to the point, I am still reading in your comments a tone of entitlement, that women have a right to express themselves as they feel, and they are entitled to get the compassion from their husband that they feel they deserve. Who decides this? Only the woman? I say this not to attack, but to truly put light on the man’s perspective. I think you and most women acknowledge the fact that men do not need the kind of emotional interchange and conversation women need. After all, men can get along great with each other for years without ever touching on how each one feels about the other. It is not needed. So why is the standard the needs of the woman. You are still focusing on you. You will have to learn to get along with less than what you want and he will have to learn to give more than he wants. You know that.
You ask How does someone who is a conflict avoider do the following ("Your husband does not truly understand boundaries and for him to become healthy and happy, and therefore give you the love and attention you crave, he must learn to become more self protective and to take care of his own needs......He must learn to focus on his needs, how to address to needs and what he wants out of life. He needs to evaluate his priorities to come to the conclusion that he must back away from the enmeshment with his family. He must find self respect and self love, so that he has sufficient capacity to give this back to you. Helping him understand this, and supporting him on this journey is where you can help.")......if he's not challenged to do it in some fashion?
How do you guide a traumatized child to assert himself, to do all these things? Of course you need to push him off center, out of his comfort zone. This is what pays the mortgage for all those counselors. But you also know that if someone is not ready to face their fears, they will not do so. Take Happy Giant’s wife for example. Isn’t this what she is doing? And I told him to push her out of her comfort zone.
But this is getting into the role of counselor, which I do not want to do. I was trying to put forth the male perspective, to show you women where we men are coming from, to help you therefore help yourself. Specific problem solving needs that one on one involvement of the counselor. I hope you don’t take this as a cope out.
"I think you and most women acknowledge the fact that men do not need the kind of emotional interchange and conversation women need. After all, men can get along great with each other for years without ever touching on how each one feels about the other. It is not needed."
I've been following along, and just thought I'd make the observation that my W and I seem to be backwards from this POV.
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
Cobra, No no, you misunderstood me. I know that my workload has not changed. I am the first to understand that my ability to withstand the particular cruddiness of my profession is directly related to how willing he is to let me escape into Him, or Us, for a while.
I rarely complain about my workload. Honestly, it's not that bad. If I have time to talk to you folks all day, how bad can it really be right! It's just grinding monotony, and the loneliness of not having anyone to talk to. Not that I'd change anything; I'm just stating my reality. There are days, though, when I feel that I can't do one more chore, read one more book, make one more meal (remember that I make and freeze ALL of H's food..he eats three hots a day prepared by moi, simply because he likes it), change one more diaper. I am in desperate need of someone to fill my tank and recharge me, so that I can face another day. A lackluster valentine's present and his recent obssession with watching a movie every night--including VD--is not doing anything to increase our EC.
His job. Oh wow you couldn't be more wrong. It deeply affected me. Of course, I won't say that it affected us the same..that'd be silly. But there are times when I just feel this sense of despair at what happened to him and I turn to him and ask, How could it have happened? Sometimes he'll say it to me. My point is that I was very tuned into him and his reaction to it. I know that it was much much more than losing a place of employment. It absolutely rocked him, his sense of self worth. I think that's what hurts my heart, still. To know that although he logically can see that the termination was due to a buyout, there is still a part of him that wonders..was it me? God, that kills me. I also know that he has not relaxed since then. He lives with a constant fear that unless he is a perfect employee, it will happen again.
Our EC has gone down the tubes since he took the new job 3 weeks ago. Since he stopped going to Mass every morning, he is taking the opportunity to stay up late every night and watch a movie. He is still willing to ML, so it's not that I'm being replaced or anything. It's that he virtually ignores me all night and it's making me nuts. I already have no one to talk to during the day and now he's wrapped up in the boob tube. I'm not kidding when I say every night, either. I think he feels liberated..and wants to make up for lost time...all those years when he couldn't stay up late b/c he had to get up so early. Intellectually I understand this but nevertheless I'm feeling lonely. Yes, I've told him this and still he pulls that "we treat the ones we're closest to the worst" stuff.
And also, there's the issue that I'm just irritated.
He has been a lot better this last month. He has been doing and trying new things. It's not as bad as I'm making it out to be, I'm aware of that. He let me down on Valentines Day. That's about the extent of it. The one day of the year when it's ok for me to get my hopes up and anticipate romance, he got me a cheap mom necklace and then blew me off to watch High Noon.
I understand your frustration, the monotony of raising small kids. My wife did that too, plus watch a few others as a home daycare business to earn a little money. I don’t know how she did it. I could not.
She stayed very active though. She was always going somewhere with the kids, doing something, like to the park, the zoo, doing arts & crafts. All of this seemed to help break up the monotony and give a feeling of purpose. And she used to live on the phone (and still does), finding that emotional connection with other women.
This went too far to the extreme though, and caused us to drift apart, contributing to many of our problems. Now she and I are trying to connect again, understanding each other’s different needs and trying to focus on meeting those needs.
I used to do the home daycare gig, too. Boy that was hard. It's bad enough giving of yourself all day long to your own kids but it's really hard to find it within yourself to keep on giving to kids that you love, sure, but not looooooove. Know what I'm sayin.
I keep active as well, but the winter months are hellish. The kids are sick all the time and the weather's not conducive to doing outdoor activities. I go to every single story hour that I can find, but I've had to cancel last week's and this week's too due to illness. Winter is hard on me..I'm sure H dreads it as much as I do.
Plus, my sister moved away and my dad is still in the hospital, not doing well. Stress everywhere and my H has his nose in the dang tv every night. But......he's been making other attempts at intimacy that I'm not chronicling here because they do fit my current argument. See, that's the thing with me. I'm brutally honest about my H's faults, but pretty honest about my own, too.
Honey... While I agree with Cobra's assessment of the emotional state of an LDH, I don't agree with the Dr. Laura advice. I know my H and I would have stayed stuck had I not taken more of a "tough love" approach. It sucks that it has to come down to that, but as someone here posted, people often do not change until it's absolutely necessary. I think change between you and H is going to take longer than in the situations where you become so frustrated that you're ready to walk...that's the place I found myself right before I found this BB. Now I know you can capture more bees with honey ( okay so I am fixated on honey) but our bees need a little more jolting. This is hard to do in your sitch.
Persoanlly, I think your H sets you up for disappointment as a way of feeling bad about himself. The pressure is on... he knows on some level you need somthing "personal" for VD...he gets all anxious about it, messes it up, and then gets to think of himself as a loser/martyr. I know this dynamic gets tiring for you after awhile. On the bright side, overall I do see progress in your M, lottsa instances where he has come through for you. I agree with Cobra in that it may be best to let this one pass...on the next " high expectation" time perhaps some discussion beforehand (about some " us" time) might help. If the TV tune out becomes a regular pattern I'd say it's time to dust off PM.
He let me down on Valentines Day. That's about the extent of it. The one day of the year when it's ok for me to get my hopes up and anticipate romance, he got me a cheap mom necklace and then blew me off to watch High Noon.
Hi HP Ok, maybe I missed something here. Are you saying he bought you the flowers the next day because you were pissed that he got you the Mom necklace? Why did you throw the flowers out? HP on a rampage, look out I think it was nice of him to buy the flowers but that's just my take on it. Plus, he now may be reluctant to buy you certain gifts in the future not knowing how you are going to receive them. Sort of shooting yourself in the foot, kwim?
When H got home I greeted him with an apology for how I acted. He started to say Well it wasn't that great of a gift...and I cut him off and said, What does that matter? It's not ok to act like I did. I really feel bad.
We talked more about the dates and romance thing and he said that he'd love to go out on dates and I said, Fine I will plan them but you will NOT question the babysitter or in any other way pooh pooh the idea once I have it all arranged. I hate that! He is ok with that, although I could see it visibly freaking him out to think of leaving the kids with other kids. I told him that if he would suggest something, I will happily make the arrangements. He was pleased to hear that.
He then admitted that something I said the other day rocketed through him. I said, What?! "Lover. You mentioned that VD is for lovers." Yeah, so? "You are gonna hate me for this but I honestly wasn't even thinking about you as a lover, I was just focused on getting you a gift from the kids." This isn't mother's day.. "Yes I know, I wasn't thinking right."
He went on to say that 'lover' was ricocheting in his mind and he felt bad about being so detached on that day. I pointed out that it didn't help that I was home with 3 feverish kids and on edge anyway.
I think that my husband has just gotten into a bad habit. The bad habit of not dating me, wooing me, thinking of me as his lover. Sure, he has sex with me. He's not EVER going to forget to do that anymore, lol. But the other side of the coin, we've let slide due to having little ones and can't seem to get back in the swing of things. How do other couples do it?
I can do it all, orchestrate the whole thing, force him to leave the kids with a babysitter, try to ignore him looking at his watch the entire time, but I don't want to do that! I want to enjoy our time together.
Why does it seem that one partner hungers for couple time and the other one really doesn't? Would the pendulum swing back the other way if I were suddenly to become as detached as he? He says it would. I told him that is NO comfort to me.
Then we got into a rollicking semi-arguing discussion re: religion. Until midnight.
I think he and I are still passionately in love with each other for the sole reason that we are complete opposites and piss each other off so well.
