Feeling Hopeless...

[ann25]

Last night (at about 10:30), i told my H that from now on until we can adjust her sleep schedule (which involves him not just sleep all day in her swing), i'm sleeping when the baby sleeps in the evening after my D's go to bed. I'm too exhausted and it's not safe or healthy. He was mad and tried to make me feel bad about the boxes that need to be unpacked and stuff. how hard it is to chase watch the girls without the house being done. i told him that i'm sorry, but i need some sleep and i don't get any at night, so i need it earlier. I told him exactly how much i've had over the last week (came to about 12 hours.) I also told him that it was his decision to want to watch the girls and if he can't handle it, we could make other arrangements. then i went to sleep until 12 am, when baby woke up and fed her. i helped unpack some then. he didn't talk to me after that, but that's ok.

ok - so this got long and will probably just sound like more excuses as to why my M isn't getting better, but here it goes anyways...

Hi Ann, OK I'm going to change. I'll be tough and to the point, here goes ...

I'm working on reading through her sitch, there is a lot there and i do have to work a little during the day...

I'm really trying not to do more of the same. I feel like i have changed my attitude and behavior and I'm working on more.

Precise examples of YOUR excuses and more of the same. I've seen this pattern all along. You are in effect enabling his behavior.

Here is a problem that i seem to have with a lot of people, my H included... it seems as though putting in effort and doing the best i can is never really good enough. My H wanted a D... Why? Cause i couldn't guarantee an immediate change and my best effort and vow to work on it wasn't enough. So now here i am, saying that i'm doing my best to read through someone else's thread (heaven forbid i have to work at my job) and i'm making excuses. It was meant to be a light hearted comment, not an excuse, but at some point, there are just reasons for things and not everything is an excuse.

Sometimes i just don't have time for everything. Call it an excuse or whatever. I work full time (1 hr commute each way and 8.5 hours at work). I am a full time student in college (about 1-2 hours per day, more on the weekends). I average about 12 hours a day doing that. Then i have 3 daughters that need me. I cook dinner when i get home each night. I do laundry and clean. Every once in a while i try to squeeze in a couple hours of sleep. Could i easily just sit back and, in essence, go on strike... YES Could i tell him he needs to do it and then wait until there are no clean clothes and no food to eat. YES Would you have me live in a dirty home, not worry about what my kids eat and sit back and expect him to grow up... if you were me, what would you do? If you were my H, what would make you wake up and say "oh wow, i have a wife and 3 beautiful little girls, i better grow up"

Stop accepting excuses from YOURSELF.

You can only guarantee changing YOU. Your only hope for success is to change YOU, first! Actually do it now, no "trying". Then MAYBE he'll change over time (months to years).

I have changed alot since i first came here. I'm sorry if you can't see that. I stand up for myself on a regular basis, yeah, sometimes i don't, but we all backslide. I've yet to meet anyone perfect at this. Everything that went wrong in my M can be traced directly back to me letting him get away with stuff, so yeah, i have to make a lot of changes and i am making them, i am a work in progress and i'm getting stronger. I am by nature a push over. I've always let people walk all over me. I've always been the nice one. I'm a people pleaser and i hate that people could not like me for any reason. Since i came here all that hasn't changed completely, but i have gotten stronger. I can't control what my husband does or says (i don't try anymore), but i can control how i respond to it. When he yells and screams and tries to start fights with me, i won't yell back or even talk to him until he calms down. When he says something disrespectful, i tell him. When he gets critical about things being done well enough, i tell him that he can help or deal with it like it is. Outside of that, i've hired someone to help me with my house every other week. I've been seeing a MC, alone and against my H's request. I've been trying to take more time for myself, when i can. I'm sure there is other stuff, but i can't really think right now.

Advice i've gotten has gone from don't expect anything to expect more of him. Don't treat him like a child, but tell him he can't take naps, shouldn't play video games. Reassure him, but tell him that we can't keep talking about OM. don't ask him about seeing a MC or IC, but he needs to see one. probably, i'm just not understanding, but it gets a little confusing.

what kills me in all this is that H is the one who came to me and said he didn't want the D and that he really wanted to work on our M. he wanted to make me fall in love with him. that was almost a year ago. he's not doing such a good job...

fb2 - i didn't mean to vent that all towards you, but it just kinda got dumped on your response. I don't want you or anyone else to think that i don't appreciate the help and the 2x4s that i need. I do. I TRY (yes try) to follow the advice to the best of my ability. Sometimes it goes well and other times it does not.

yesterday I read what everyone wrote and i started to reply, but i wanted to think about it first. I was really overwhelmed and what came out seemed more like me whining than anything else. Then i get online today, after feeling like i had done pretty well last night and here i am with "more of the same" and "enabling him" and "me making excuses"... and i decided that i did need to say something, if for no other reason than to vent.

A few questions for anyone whose actually gotten this far:

1. what's the difference between an excuse and a reason that something happens or is done.
2. How do i expect him to grow up from him without nagging and acting like his mother?
3. How do i expect anything of him and then not be dissappointed when it doesn't happen?

it's funny that I feel like i have to stand up for myself here too.

take care ann