I just sidestepped what could have been a catastrophic fight. I'm posting here so that I can remember why I'm doing this. And because I want to restrain myself from "going on and on" which is what I normally do, and that never works. I'm not happy with the disagreement, but above all I really want peace in my M. I wasn't perfect, but I did ok I think.
Dealing with my H and his quick temper is a recurring test for me. Since we both have it, the only way I'll be able to diffuse a situation is by walking away.
We were supposed to go out to dinner with a friend of his and his wife tonight. I haven't met them yet but they seem great, from what he told me. Unfortunately right now I've been working a lot and over the past few weeks I've been feeling increasingly burnt out due to a much higher work load than normal. It seems like every week I keep pushing myself to make one more engagement or do one more thing to keep things going smoothly at home like keeping things clean and organized, food shopping etc - it all comes primarily from me, since I work days from home and my H works outside the home. Consequently it's all catching up to me.
I just found out a few days ago that I'm doing a few onsite projects in different cities for one of my jobs this coming week, and will be taking on some things by myself that are all new for me. My work hours next week are going to be insane, and there's a lot of driving. I'm pretty stressed out about it. I've been telling my H that I'm burnt out and really worried I'm not going to do a good job this week on top of that. He's seemed really understanding about it, until today.
When I woke up this am, I realized how exhausted I still was. I told my H that in order to do a good job this week, I'm going to need to cancel on our dinner tonight, and I apologized for it. The dinner plans could've only been made for pretty late tonight, and we'd probably get home around midnight tonight. Since I work pretty early and this is a big week for me at work, this was the only thing I could think of to do to ease some of the stress I'm still feeling.
His reaction was that he was disappointed, and why didn't I tell him I wanted to cancel sooner? I explained that I've been telling him how burnt out I've been for weeks and had asked about making the dinner earlier...(wasn't possible). I didn't know until a few days ago that I was taking on all of these projects for work. I figured I'd see how I felt today....I woke up and realized how exhausted I still was, and if I kept these plans tonight, I'd probably regret it all week. It's just how I'm feeling, I can't help it, although I feel bad about it.
I told him that I really would like to meet the couple another time, and that I'm hoping we can reschedule. (Of course he said no!) I simply can't see myself going out late tonight when I'm exhausted and have a week ahead of me that I need to prepare for.
He wasn't seeing my side of it, and was still questioning me, so we spoke about it a little bit. I guess I explained myself too much, because he told me to calm down. I wasn't yelling, but I was "going on a bit". I calmed my tone and calmly explained that I really was hoping for his support. I said that I can't help the way I feel right now but that this was just a dinner, and I'm concerned I'm going to keep pushing myself and it will ultimately cost me in the end. He said he's still going to go and meet them anyway, which I encouraged him doing if that's what he wanted.
He tried to give a little guilt, how he had to make special arrangements through work, and how "they were so excited for this dinner" and he wasn't going to take that away from them, etc. Once again I encouraged him to go if he felt like it. I'm just taking trying to take care of myself, and something had to give.
I started to walk away and then said I was really hoping to have his support in this, because it felt like he didn't understand where I was at.
Oftentimes he's selfish. I sometimes feel under-appreciated. I don't ask him for a whole lot and this is something I couldn't necessarily anticipate. I mentioned to him that I'm usually trying to find ways throughout the week to make his life easier, but that I really don't ask him for much. This was something I needed him to understand.
He snapped at me and said something about how I "made him come with me to my f***ing friend's house when he didn't want to," a few weeks ago.
I didn't say anything right away (which I normally would do). I just said that it was really unkind to say that, considering we arranged one of the two days of the trip so that he could watch the games in the hotel the entire day.
He started to raise his voice, and I just stopped him and said "I don't want to do argue, let's not". He said something like "If you don't want to do this, then stop talking", which is exactly how our fights generally take a turn for the worse. Usually at that point, I'll keep arguing. This time I walked away and closed the door.
It's still not easy, and it's not like this stuff will just resolve itself, but it's a lot better than it getting worse!
So now he's upset with me. Understandably he's disappointed, but sometimes I do wish for a little more from him.
