She is totally fine being the breadwinner. She isn’t fine with me not having an income commensurate with my occupation. However, just having that didn’t make her the least bit more happy.
My job situation that I take full responsibility for resulted from maddening depression because the relationship was failing. I had two really good jobs go south over the last 4 years. During the first of those two jobs, I was also battling Severe sleep apnea (144 events per hour, which is bad) making me tired and nearly nonfunctional. Once this was diagnosed, the depression got worse.
She never seemed concerned about the sleep apnea issue, or happy i got it fixed. I think her contempt was fed by the idea I was just lazy, that admitting anything would make her feel shame.
I take responsibility also not having a good tool kit for resolving our communication issues. I didn’t know about some things I have read about recently. I also didn’t know that I did truly needed to reset my values, and resist my sense of entitlement which I’ve mentioned before.
I remember once asking her to lay off her constant nagging, give me encouragement, show some slight affection. When the second job was about to fail, she told me I couldn’t put that on her. Well, it was maybe not her fault, but if having a job meant so much to her, perhaps it was still her responsibility. Honest to God, i don’t believe that I wasn’t asking for a lot.
"I will not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. I will face my fear. I will let it pass over me. When the fear has gone, there shall be nothing. Only I will remain."
