I never stop learning how to be a better wife
Lately Adam and I have been bickering about, well, everything. I have a really bad habit of wanting to have "what if" conversations and Adam hates them with a passion rarely seen in my mild-mannered husband. I usually recognize when I'm heading down the wrong path and I pull out, conversation aborted pretty much before it's even started, but hormones (let's blame them while we can) have made me forge in to dangerous behavior. We were chatting last night and I started in on one of those hated "what if" conversations when all of the sudden Adam exploded.
I'll spare you the marital details because, really, what was said had nothing to do with us. The whole point of the story was to tell you that Adam's anger prompted us to talk about what's really going on with Adam.
It turns out that Adam has been under a lot of stress at work. He's the youngest person in his office, and has been for ten years, and they can often treat him like he's the 20 year old kid that got hired on all of those years ago. This can mean that they discount his opinions. Apparently Adam hears that he's "wrong" more times in a day than I do in a month and it's starting to dig in to his brain and cause problems.
It wouldn't be that big of a deal except that most of our fights have been about the baby. I have a lot of fears that make me edgy and unwilling to listen to him when it comes to the baby. I had a rough time feeling like I was being listened to when we had Mazzy when it came to her care and I'm overcompensating by attacking him before the baby is even here to "clear the way" for taking care of the kid in the future.
So....extra tension.
Now that I know that Adam feels invalidated at work I'm hoping to be more understanding. I recognize that he needs support right now and that I should push my paranoia about the future aside until I'm a bit more rational. (Yeah, I see the flaw in this logic, but maybe we can come back to my needs closer to the birth of the baby.)
Sometimes being a partner is hard work. We have to occasionally push aside what we think we need to build up our spouse so that we can get our needs met later. Well, that's the idea anyway.
Tomorrow is a doctor's appointment in the snow. The entire city is freaking out and I'm going to be so nervous driving the five-ish miles to the appointment. Adam will technically be driving and that makes me more scared. Why? Because he's never driven in snow before. I have. He's not going to let me behind the wheel, though, not with his stress level where it's at right now. He needs to feel like he's in control of his personal life until tensions die down in the workplace.
At least he has high hopes for tomorrow. I'll try to have them, too.
I'll spare you the marital details because, really, what was said had nothing to do with us. The whole point of the story was to tell you that Adam's anger prompted us to talk about what's really going on with Adam.
It turns out that Adam has been under a lot of stress at work. He's the youngest person in his office, and has been for ten years, and they can often treat him like he's the 20 year old kid that got hired on all of those years ago. This can mean that they discount his opinions. Apparently Adam hears that he's "wrong" more times in a day than I do in a month and it's starting to dig in to his brain and cause problems.
It wouldn't be that big of a deal except that most of our fights have been about the baby. I have a lot of fears that make me edgy and unwilling to listen to him when it comes to the baby. I had a rough time feeling like I was being listened to when we had Mazzy when it came to her care and I'm overcompensating by attacking him before the baby is even here to "clear the way" for taking care of the kid in the future.
So....extra tension.
Now that I know that Adam feels invalidated at work I'm hoping to be more understanding. I recognize that he needs support right now and that I should push my paranoia about the future aside until I'm a bit more rational. (Yeah, I see the flaw in this logic, but maybe we can come back to my needs closer to the birth of the baby.)
Sometimes being a partner is hard work. We have to occasionally push aside what we think we need to build up our spouse so that we can get our needs met later. Well, that's the idea anyway.
Tomorrow is a doctor's appointment in the snow. The entire city is freaking out and I'm going to be so nervous driving the five-ish miles to the appointment. Adam will technically be driving and that makes me more scared. Why? Because he's never driven in snow before. I have. He's not going to let me behind the wheel, though, not with his stress level where it's at right now. He needs to feel like he's in control of his personal life until tensions die down in the workplace.
At least he has high hopes for tomorrow. I'll try to have them, too.
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