If your spouse has much higher or lower energy than you do, how do you handle?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does he want?

To do exactly what he's doing now and for me to like it, not just accept it.

I'm this person in my marriage, and it's because I have to manage my activity level and physical strain pretty carefully or I pay a price for it the next day. You're asking him to give you a lot more of his energy, and you need to recognize that it will come at a cost for him even though it doesn't for you. For example if I go on a long hike with my husband, I know I will have a flare-up of nerve pain and it will bother me for a week. I'm willing to do it sometimes, but sometimes not, if I don't feel like I can handle the consequences without other problems arising.

I think your willingness to carefully titrate his energy usage and to accept that he needs recovery time will help you.

How will it help me?

Because he might be more willing to do the things you want if he knows he's got an appropriate recovery window and you're not going to overschedule him. R

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry that you married someone you're fundamentally incompatible with in this way. Maybe you need to own that choice and be at peace with it. Because you did choose it.

I'm really not understanding why you need him to be your travel and socializing buddy. Does time together and things in common need to be on your terms exclusively?

Because sitting on the couch night after night to spend time with him and bond in a way that works for him but does nothing for me makes me want to spend time in ways that do actually fulfill my needs.

Well, you want him to do things that work for you but do nothing for him (or worse, are actually stressful and depleting to him). So you're just as bad.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone who's the higher energy spouse, who can relate to what I'm saying, care to chime in? So far it's people who are clearly the introverted lower energy spouses explaining their needs for recovery and people telling me to suck it up, I chose him. Neither are what I'm asking for here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait, what makes you think he's not growing? That's very weird. He's growing in his own way.

I think you need to accept this as fundamental to him and not say rude and hurtful things like that. Do you want him to accept you as you are, and not say "When will my wife stop running around doing all kinds of pointless exhausting things, so that we can spend time at home together"?

Growing to me is gaining insight and new ways to look at the world and yourself. I try to grow by volunteering and "travelling local." I've picked up a foreign language in the last few years and spend time visiting and learning about the country where the language is spoken. I work with a not for profit near to my heart.

He doesn't think what I do is pointless or exhausting for me. He has no interest in joining groups or volunteering, and doesn't really like talking as recreation. He's content with me reading on the sofa while he watches TV or surfs the internet.

Well yay for you, but that's not "growing" for everyone.

Maybe you should be grateful for your good fortune in being born a high-energy person. Not everyone is so lucky. And maybe your judgmental attitude is not increasing his desire to spend time with you.

How does growing for an introvert look?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry that you married someone you're fundamentally incompatible with in this way. Maybe you need to own that choice and be at peace with it. Because you did choose it.

I'm really not understanding why you need him to be your travel and socializing buddy. Does time together and things in common need to be on your terms exclusively?

Because sitting on the couch night after night to spend time with him and bond in a way that works for him but does nothing for me makes me want to spend time in ways that do actually fulfill my needs.

Well, you want him to do things that work for you but do nothing for him (or worse, are actually stressful and depleting to him). So you're just as bad.

Ok I see, thank you. I just need to find other people to fulfill many of my needs, no one has offered another solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone who's the higher energy spouse, who can relate to what I'm saying, care to chime in? So far it's people who are clearly the introverted lower energy spouses explaining their needs for recovery and people telling me to suck it up, I chose him. Neither are what I'm asking for here.

You just need to find other high energy people to hang out with. Your spouse isn’t it.

[Anonymous]

I'm the lower-energy spouse so you apparently don't want to hear from me (which really says a lot about why you're having trouble in your marriage) but here are a few things that worked for us.

1) Not too much on the calendar. One social engagement per weekend. We don't just say yes to everything that pops up, we consider the totality.

2) My DH getting treated for ADHD, which makes him hyper, impulsive, and constantly craving stimulation to regulate. He hasn't been as antsy and has made better scheduling decisions since he got on meds. He used to just say yes to everything and then life was way too hectic and we wasted time on things that were not actually worth it.

3) Consistent sleep and wake times-- this attention to sleep hygiene has benefited both of us. We don't agree to early wake-ups and late night things except when it's really important. This means a lot of our socializing is during the day.

4) Travel stuff. We don't go places together where food poisoning is common, because I always get it. Expensive restaurants happen early in the trip because I hate sitting through some absurd fancy meal while I have food poisoning. We plan time to adjust to the time zone. I have an expensive inflatable mattress pad to improve my sleep quality in strange beds.

5) Pre- and post-travel. One thing I hate about travel is how he leaves his suitcase half-unpacked for a week following a trip. I hate how we are always in a rush to get to the airport due to his poor sense of time. I hate coming back to a messy house and no groceries and tired kids and the stress that places on us the following week. I also hate having to make all the reservations and I hate packing for the kids and unpacking, but they're so little that they can't do it themselves. So he's agreed to take on a much larger share of that kind of tedious crap. Because he's the one that wants to travel so he should do it. Again, getting him on ADHD meds has made a big difference here. Traveling with kids is just not something you can be disorganized about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait, what makes you think he's not growing? That's very weird. He's growing in his own way.

I think you need to accept this as fundamental to him and not say rude and hurtful things like that. Do you want him to accept you as you are, and not say "When will my wife stop running around doing all kinds of pointless exhausting things, so that we can spend time at home together"?

Growing to me is gaining insight and new ways to look at the world and yourself. I try to grow by volunteering and "travelling local." I've picked up a foreign language in the last few years and spend time visiting and learning about the country where the language is spoken. I work with a not for profit near to my heart.

He doesn't think what I do is pointless or exhausting for me. He has no interest in joining groups or volunteering, and doesn't really like talking as recreation. He's content with me reading on the sofa while he watches TV or surfs the internet.

Well yay for you, but that's not "growing" for everyone.

Maybe you should be grateful for your good fortune in being born a high-energy person. Not everyone is so lucky. And maybe your judgmental attitude is not increasing his desire to spend time with you.

How does growing for an introvert look?

You really can't think of any? No wonder you're having trouble.

I've grown in my knowledge of literature and my insights gained from doing so.
I've grown in my ability to play piano.
I've grown in my relationships with others through 1:1 conversations.
I've grown professionally, and not being overtired by optional weekend activities is important for that.

[Anonymous]

I grow from reading books, from watching documentaries, from wandering through a museum, from people-watching. All low-energy activities, and I'm not even a low-energy person.

Perhaps he's just an introvert which you're misinterpreting?

[Anonymous]

I think people learn and grow when they've had enough rest and when they're engaged in things that are interesting and rewarding to them.

And people don't learn and grow when they're feeling stressed, overburdened, and most of all, judged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone who's the higher energy spouse, who can relate to what I'm saying, care to chime in? So far it's people who are clearly the introverted lower energy spouses explaining their needs for recovery and people telling me to suck it up, I chose him. Neither are what I'm asking for here.

Well you did say "higher or lower" in your title. And you've gotten plenty of what I think is good advice.

I think you just don't like the reality here.

[Anonymous]

Some things we do together are home improvement projects (nothing super ambitious) and cooking. That way we're spending our energies doing something that actually sort of needs to get done, and that has some long-term benefit. DH likes to run around doing what to him is fun, fun, fun, and then when we're tired and depleted and out of time, it's time to do chores but oh no, he's too tired. I hate this.

[Anonymous]

I'm the low-energy spouse. We have our different interests and hobbies that keep us busy in ways that make us happy, and we compromise so we can do things together here and there. Usually that means dinner out during the week, socializing on weekends with friends whose company we both enjoy, or just hosting people at our home.

I don't need DH home with me all of the time, nor does he need me to be out and about with him whenever he wants to do something that I'm just not that into. Is your DH not compromising? Or do you expect him to match your energy level?

[Anonymous]

My higher-energy DH joined one of my hobbies (it's a weird, intense choral music thing). Of course everyone loved him and he got pretty into it. So he gets some social time and some like, intense sensory input and it's novelty to him, and we have time together on the drive. It's actually less exhausting for me when he does the work of driving. Maybe you need to find an activity that works for both of you that way.

[Anonymous]

OP, I know you said this wasn't divorce worthy but my husband and I got divorced over this basic incompatibility after the pandemic.

He immediately moved to Culpeper, a rural area in Virginia, and I moved to Penn Quarter! We see each other several times a year with our grown kids and there's no tension between us. He really loves the slower pace and not feeling like he has to compromise, and I love that I don't have to push him to do anything he doesn't want to do. I'm seeing a man almost ten years younger and it's opened my eyes to how much I was holding back doing what I wanted to hang with my ex. We have one kid like each of us, so it's obviously part of an ingrained temperament and not a character flaw on anyone's part.