This is a really good point. When my husband and I “talk things out,” so often one of us just sort of gives in. We don’t always reach a compromise; we sometimes reach a guiltromise. Someone feels guilty about causing the other one stress and then we stop really thinking and start capitulating. What I find interesting is that when I’m the “winner” in these conversations, the guiltromise hits me and then I’m the one trying to capitulate.
It’s something we are always having to try to combat, because we both do it and it’s a very bad habit. Down with guiltromises!
I’m trying to avoid droning on and on about the internship thing, but long story short, he was rejected for two years in a row and was on the receiving end of insane amounts of pressure to lock it down the 3rd year. We had worked out a compromise in the rankings, but a colleague of his told him he was jeopardizing even matching at all by placing his best career fit at the bottom of the list. So I told him to rank it #1. I realized he needed a win after all the years of rejection and self-doubt, and it really looked to be a decision that could make or break his career.
He got his #1 choice, we were ecstatic, I got a job that fulfilled a long-term career goal of mine as Development Director of a small nonprofit, and one of the agreements we had in ranking it #1 is that if I needed to stay for 2-3 years to better establish my career, we would do that. We started making babies, I got pregnant as soon as we moved, we were on top of the world, and within 3 months it was shot all to hell.
[QUOTE=Tom]
You’ve contributed an enormous amount to this relationship over the years, both in the things you’ve done (the personal and career adjustments to the multiple moves) and the things you’ve deferred (having a baby). Right now, you’re giving to the relationship by taking on extra chores and apartment-hunting while trying to recover from a recent miscarriage. For him to say that he feels like the only one who’s been fighting for your relationship seems at least remarkably tone-deaf to your contributions, and at worst a remark calculated to snap you back into a posture of apologizing to him.
[/QUOTE]
I have contributed a lot, and I do think that gets overlooked sometimes.
But a lot of our early conversations following the miscarraige went like this:
Him: I’m doing XYZ to try to improve our situation. I was thinking ABC for our future. What do you think?
Me: I am apathetic to everything. I have very little hope for our future. I am willing to support you in whatever you think is best. ABC makes rational sense. Tell me what to do to help and I will do it.
Him: I am doing XYZ so we can achieve ABC and I am really exhausted and have no time for anything else.
Me: That sucks. It must be really stressful caring about things. You’re doing a great job, though, being proactive, and I think we have a pretty good plan. But I can’t help but feel like nothing we are doing will make any difference ever.
I mean, honestly, that would kind of suck to deal with. I can’t help the fact that depression is sucking the joy from my life, but it’s not very helpful when you’re trying to make life plans. When I’m not completely apathetic, I’m resentful, and even though I’m not verbally attacking him about my resentment, he still perceives it in my lack of engagement.
I am making an effort to change this. That is part of what talking to him last night was about. The apathy scares him a whole lot more than the resentment. I think he is afraid I am going to kill myself or leave him, neither of which is going to happen.
We discussed this last night, and it’s more accurate to say that it’s really about him prioritizing finding a job in July over the grief counseling. He is terrified he won’t find a job and we’ll all end up financially dependent on his family which is an issue he has and needs to deal with. Not to oversimplify, but, he’s never been poor the way I have, and as a consequence I don’t fear poverty nearly as much as he does. His mind jumps from ‘‘can’t find a job’’ to ‘‘financially destitute’’ without understanding how much has to go wrong in between.
When I first got pregnant we were in a lot more stable financial situation than we are now. So in his mind he is fixing that problem so we can support a child. He agreed he will schedule the appointment, with the understanding that he might miss out on some job prospects as a result. (This seems unlikely to me, but even so, as I told him, ‘‘We have to make it to July before we can think about jobs in July.’’)
If it’s a problem, and it legitimately might be, it’s my problem, not his. I usually want what he wants. That’s not even specific to him as a facet of my personality. If I’m with a group of people and they pick a movie that is not my preference, I will be happier seeing the movie that is not my preference if I know that it was the top preference of the majority of people I am with. If I play a game, I don’t want to win as much as I want the person to win who will get the most satisfaction out of winning. That is just how I am, and it is reflected in my marriage.
I’m not claiming that is a good thing. Just that if he keeps deferring the choice to me and I keep deferring to his preference, he can’t really be blamed for that.
I have told him for many years that this notion of ‘‘once I X, it will be better’’ is doing him zero favors psychologically because this is the reality of the career he has chosen. It’s arguable that now he is finally listening to that by shifting career tracks from academia to private practice. But as I said, he still needs a license before he is no longer dependent on others. It’s just a shit situation and we’re doing the best we can with it.
You are getting lots of good advice here, but I will throw in my two cents as well. During the most stressful part of our lives (my husband just came off of 19 months of unemployment literally the day after I gave birth to our daughter, I decided to become a stay at home mom, etc.) we found the thing that helped the most was being complimentary of one another. We had to force ourselves to find time to say how much we loved each other and thank one another for things that were important to us to keep our relationship afloat.
We didn’t do that right away, just let things continue to be busy, stressful, and completely different than they had been previously, and it led to insane paranoia on my part. Like, snooping through his email and calling him at work accusing him of cheating on me types of paranoia. And the thing of it is, if he had been planning to leave or seeing someone else who could blame him? I was INSANE. And he was insane too. After 19 months of feeling like he was failing at being an adult and a husband he finally got a job and he jumped into it with both feet, working overtime and bringing work home so he could be as productive as possible because he wanted to make it work so damn bad. He went from no work to essentially 75 hours of work a week (for a job that only paid him for 40) with an undercurrent of fear that he was going to fail again. Him being gone all the time while I wasn’t spending any time with other adults at all was certainly enough to push me to think he was leaving.
We had a crazy, crying breakdown where we decided that we just needed to ooze love at one another every day, even if we weren’t feeling it at all. He told me I was beautiful while I microwaved his dinner in a stained t-shirt and sweatpants. I told him I loved him even though he ran away from the baby and gagged in the bathroom for 15 minutes when she pooped on him. We held hands. We forced the affection. And it worked! I was less freaked out when he made it obvious and clear that he was happy and still in love with me and he was less freaked out when it was clear I wasn’t waiting for him to fail at being a husband and a father. That whole quote from Winne the Pooh about “wanting to be sure of you” is spot on. Make certain you two know you are sure of each other and you may find that a lot of the stress you are dealing with will go away.
Tonight was even better than last. I took a page from you pbbth because what you said really resonated with me.
He was really disengaged at first, said he wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk or spend time together tonight. I had said some pretty harsh things the night before so even though I was feeling optimistic/better I could see why he wasn’t. I told him I’d been looking forward to seeing him, and he said he was looking forward to see me too because he still likes me. I focused entirely on the positive (and sorting through this in my head, writing it out here, I can see there is a lot of positive), I told him I love him and that I’m not going to leave him. I don’t know why he had this fear. Anyway, I just showered him with reassurances and love and eventually he got it. And there was… making up.
I really don’t feel resentment at all right now, just gratitude. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world right now, which is closer to the status quo.
I thank everyone for letting me get it all out here and sort through it, I thank you for sharing your stories and encouragement, I thank you for not taking sides, I thank you for listening. I honestly think the worst is over.
A childhood friend of mine still goes to her mother’s house to cry. She doesn’t cry to anybody, she goes to her old room (which is now a guest room and doesn’t have a single piece in common with how it looked 20 years ago), cries her eyes out, fixes her makeup* and comes back out to the world.
Most of the people who’ve met her as a super-cheerful, super-composed, super-“arranged” adult have no idea that she was and still is a total crybaby.
Other people kill virtual orcs, spend the N-thousand iteration trying to conquer Denmark in less than 4 days (Hearts of Iron), or call their daughters saying “call me”, hang up and proceed to describe something completely inane for upwards of one hour, describing in excruciating detail what everybody involved was wearing (seriously, the more my mother has something she’s decided to Ignore with a capital I, the more she’ll describe people’s clothing in detail, up to and including my nephew’s uniforms, which as you can imagine don’t have much of a description per se).
I’m glad things are better but remember, whenever they’re bad and nobody has broken the servers, this bar is open 24/7.
We once jokingly asked her husband how did he recognize her in the morning. He said “oh no! I don’t acknowledge that I’ve seen her until she says hello, and she doesn’t until the warpaint is on!” Ooooo-K then!
1st - very sorry for your loss. 2nd - good for you. Sometimes it is hard to make the first move - especially if you are feeling resentment and think it is the other persons “turn” to do so. From what you have mentioned - it sounds like he is somewhat insecure. Doing what you are doing well help him feel more secure and more willing to open up to you.
I have a friend in medical school - while not the same thing I suspect it is similar. That person is basically abused by their attendings and admin and treated like slave labor. It has caused that person a ton of stress and created a great strain on their relationship with their spouse. It has changed their personality to the point where they are much less compassionate than they used to be, but once they are done (within the next year) we are hoping to get the old friend back. FWIW - that person is also paranoid about seeing doctors - apparently doctor confidentiality isn’t all what it is cracked up to be - if they get into the “system” apparently anyone in that persons hospital can see it. Of course they aren’t supposed to look, but apparently plenty do.
Hang in there. Depression sucks. Losing someone sucks. I know you said you were going to therapy on your own - and looking for grief counseling to go together - I can’t remember if you said you were going to grief counseling by yourself. I lost someone this year and have been going to a grief support group. I had been going to therapy. I found the support group much more helpful than therapy. You realize you aren’t alone. Plus the best thing is it is free (well many are) - I paid $20 one time for a workbook - that’s it. I bet there is a group for miscarriage specifically if you’d feel more comfortable with that. Of course - some wouldn’t be comfortable sharing at all - I have found it helpful - but you have to pick what works for you. You probably already know this, but just thought I’d mention it. I apologize if you already mentioned it.
You know the saying “doctors make the worse patients”? Goes the same with psychology and counseling. People working in the field just know too damn much to be able to be open and honest with a counselor.
Does your husband have an older or a close relative he has bonded with he could talk to? As a guy I can tell you being able to unload with another caring male is a extremely gratifying.
I haven’t posted but I’ve read your thread. I also read the ones about your miscarriage (I’m so sorry :() and your job. I’m fighting demons right now and not sure I should at the risk of saying too much, but I want you to know I care.
Hugs.
spiceWeasel you are a marvel and a treasure. So far, you are doing all the right things…feel validated:)
My hard times didn’t involve miscarriages, but rather a spouse of many decades who did not take care of medical issues and paid a very large price for ignoring every risk factor there is except smoking for stroke, and having a watershed event at age 58. (“Watershed” is neurological slang for ‘we are surprised you survived’). Whole different story. However, our relationship has managed to survive many serious ups and downs. I love the guy to my toes, and I’m pretty imperfect myself, and it’s hard to balance being a control freak, and enabler, and the Queen of De Nile. (I’ve managed, with a lot of help, to retire Cleopatra and Enabla, but Controlla is genetic)
At work I’m currently managing a person in your situation, mid trimester loss. (As the chief of the clinic med staff, and as her mentor, it’s wrenching). You are not alone.
Know that, as Gordon Bok so eloquently sings, the world is always turning toward the morning. Hugs.
Yeah, you gotta watch that kind of thing–it’s a great way to be when the sacrifices are spread around, but when someone else is chronically in crisis it seems unfair to ask them to make sacrifices. At that point, it’s fatally easy for “she’ll take one for the team” to become the default mindset and people to not even stop to think about any shitty consequences their choices have on you. I’ve been that person, and it really is a recipe for industrial-strength resentment. No human being is a bottomless well of strength and empathy and generosity, not a single one, and it’s unreasonable and unfair to expect any one person to constantly be the one who takes one for the team, even when it’s done subconsciously.
The resentment you’re feeling is a perfectly normal reaction to being treated unfairly and unreasonably, even if your husband and family don’t understand it. They don’t understand it because it’s easy to compartmentalize and minimize the effect of issues that affect other people when you’re not confronted with the whole mountain all at once. The tricky point is that confronting someone with the whole mountain of what they’ve been asking from you tends to make them feel like a real asshole, and then you feel like a super asshole for making them feel that way when you probably could have found a way to continue sucking it up if you tried hard enough. It gets especially tricky when you start feeling resentful about feeling shitty for trying to explain your resentment.
Unfortunately, I don’t really know of any better way than just plopping the whole thing out there. Trying to roll it out piecemeal seemed to just be a festival of denial and minimization–it was only when everything was out there on the table in a pile too big to sweep under the rug that it seemed to sink in and things started to truly make a turn for the better. I don’t especially recommend doing it at 3 am like we did, but if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes.
Good luck, sweetie. We almost fell apart from one uprooting and three years of residency–I honestly don’t think we would have made it through what you guys had been through even before the miscarriage and job issues.
Consider mental health help for your husband. It sounds like you sort of have it covered for yourself.
My wife and I had a stretch sort of similar to yours; I was severely stressed at work (most I’ve ever been) with very little recognition or relief, and after a long period of no luck conceiving a child, she conceived, and had a miscarriage at about 7-8 weeks. Despite not being quite the same thing for me as for my wife, it still was an extremely sad thing, and weighed on me greatly.
Anyway, long story short, after a few months of being miserable and depressed, we both decided to go seek therapy- I found a CBT therapist who I liked, and she found a therapist of her own.
All said and done, we came out of it stronger than before, but it took that extra outside nudge to get us on the right path for us to recover as a couple rather than having that sadness and stress pull us apart.
I was that person for a decade in my first marriage, sometimes because my husband was lazy or manipulative, but most of the time because there was no choice. It infantilized him to some degree, and I know his dependence was terrifying for him, so it’s not like the person on the receiving end of the sacrifice is going to be doing well either.
Yep, that happened to me in my last marriage. I became the adult and she became the child. And then she was unhappy that I was more like a dad. (so why don’t you get a job and contribute something instead of just fucking other guys)
SW glad you had a good night. I hope many more follow.
