Introverts married to extroverts

[Anonymous]

For those in a happy and long lasting introvert/extrovert marriage, how do you make it work? I'm an extrovert and I'm tired of my introvert wife.

[Anonymous]

Extrovert with DCs that are extroverted. My introverted DH is now my Ex. If it were just the two of us we might have made it but add the extroverted DCs and resentment built up with how much “me time” DH needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Extrovert with DCs that are extroverted. My introverted DH is now my Ex. If it were just the two of us we might have made it but add the extroverted DCs and resentment built up with how much “me time” DH needed.

This is my issue. We have two extroverted DCs as well and my wife always needs me time. It's almost to the point where she's ignoring the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Extrovert with DCs that are extroverted. My introverted DH is now my Ex. If it were just the two of us we might have made it but add the extroverted DCs and resentment built up with how much “me time” DH needed.

This is my issue. We have two extroverted DCs as well and my wife always needs me time. It's almost to the point where she's ignoring the kids.

So give her me time. Take your extroverted children out of the house, and give your wife time to recharge by herself in her environment when it’s calm.

COVID has been tough on the extroverts who feel they can’t get enough social interaction and do they things “out” that they need, but it’s also hard on the introverts who have no space or area to decompress. Their bandwidth is already short, and with more than normal people underfoot for longer periods of time, it can feel overwhelming. Cut her some slack right now, and use your extroversion to remedy that, and remedy your own need to go do things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Extrovert with DCs that are extroverted. My introverted DH is now my Ex. If it were just the two of us we might have made it but add the extroverted DCs and resentment built up with how much “me time” DH needed.

This is my issue. We have two extroverted DCs as well and my wife always needs me time. It's almost to the point where she's ignoring the kids.

So give her me time. Take your extroverted children out of the house, and give your wife time to recharge by herself in her environment when it’s calm.

COVID has been tough on the extroverts who feel they can’t get enough social interaction and do they things “out” that they need, but it’s also hard on the introverts who have no space or area to decompress. Their bandwidth is already short, and with more than normal people underfoot for longer periods of time, it can feel overwhelming. Cut her some slack right now, and use your extroversion to remedy that, and remedy your own need to go do things.

OP wants to do things without the DCs or at least that is what I would want to do but the extrovert doesn’t get that time because the introvert can’t deal with the DCs and the chaos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Extrovert with DCs that are extroverted. My introverted DH is now my Ex. If it were just the two of us we might have made it but add the extroverted DCs and resentment built up with how much “me time” DH needed.

This is my issue. We have two extroverted DCs as well and my wife always needs me time. It's almost to the point where she's ignoring the kids.

So give her me time. Take your extroverted children out of the house, and give your wife time to recharge by herself in her environment when it’s calm.

COVID has been tough on the extroverts who feel they can’t get enough social interaction and do they things “out” that they need, but it’s also hard on the introverts who have no space or area to decompress. Their bandwidth is already short, and with more than normal people underfoot for longer periods of time, it can feel overwhelming. Cut her some slack right now, and use your extroversion to remedy that, and remedy your own need to go do things.

OP wants to do things without the DCs or at least that is what I would want to do but the extrovert doesn’t get that time because the introvert can’t deal with the DCs and the chaos.

This!

[Anonymous]

I’m the introvert. Here are some things that work for us:
- I share my daily schedule with him so that he doesn’t inadvertently mess with it. It’s not that I can’t be flexible, but it makes me kind of stressed to suddenly add in something that takes hours to complete. Once we started doing this, he actually got to like having a plan for the day so that everyone could get done everything they needed to.
- my schedule does include some alone time for me outside of the house. I would prefer it to be every day, but an hour every couple of days works as well. Find that the kids are in bed, but I am still technically responsible for the doesn’t count. Time that I spend with DH doing stuff for him (listening to his problems, watching his television shows, most sex) doesn’t count. Time that I spend with DH doing stuff I like (talking about my problems, reading together, playing music) DOES count as alone time. As kids get older, I can have alone time with them. I like to cook and go on nature hikes with my eight year old.
- every now and again I get a whole work day just to get caught up and think about my work.
- I don’t get all hung up about him being late from work because he was talking to someone. That’s just his personality. This used to upset me, but I let it go.

[Anonymous]

Op - you make friends. You have friends. You do things with your friends. Ideally, you spend your time exclusively with male friends, or male friends sometimes with their wives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Extrovert with DCs that are extroverted. My introverted DH is now my Ex. If it were just the two of us we might have made it but add the extroverted DCs and resentment built up with how much “me time” DH needed.

This is my issue. We have two extroverted DCs as well and my wife always needs me time. It's almost to the point where she's ignoring the kids.

So give her me time. Take your extroverted children out of the house, and give your wife time to recharge by herself in her environment when it’s calm.

COVID has been tough on the extroverts who feel they can’t get enough social interaction and do they things “out” that they need, but it’s also hard on the introverts who have no space or area to decompress. Their bandwidth is already short, and with more than normal people underfoot for longer periods of time, it can feel overwhelming. Cut her some slack right now, and use your extroversion to remedy that, and remedy your own need to go do things.

OP wants to do things without the DCs or at least that is what I would want to do but the extrovert doesn’t get that time because the introvert can’t deal with the DCs and the chaos.

I am the introvert who posted below. I don’t think this is an introvert/extrovert thing. I can handle being in the house with my children. And having my extroverted husband there doesn’t leaks is LESS chaotic. As I said in that post, he will talk without thinking, and he will decide to do things that f*ck with my plans.

[Anonymous]

I am a introvert wife. He has a hobby. He does that hobby. I am ok with him doing that hobby (right now that hobby has shifted to finishing his dissertation, but in general he has something that allows him to get out and socialize. I NEVER care when we wants to go out. Movie with six people - cool, enjoy. Drinks after work, have fun. Everyone from your high school graduating class is joining a zoom call at 3pm, do it.

I have asked him to let me what things are important to him. He wants me to attend work things. He wants me to attend something with this couple. He wants me to see this movie. I will make time and do those things and will push myself (I HATE going to work social events with families but it matters so I do it). The trade off is he does not get upset when I don’t do the less important stuff. He knows it would be uncomfortable for me and draining and he does not ask that of me.

We also try to vary events. I only want to go out with one or two couples. He wants to invited 20 people. We try to balance those events.

We have young kids so the demands about time are different in terms of me time because it is actually less about introvert me time and more about Just time time to sleep or relax.

[Anonymous]

I think it depends on what you want to get out of life. I was more of an introvert as a child but now enjoy being around people a lot more, especially when it comes to my kids. I want them to have different experiences and not be alone all the time. DH is perfectly happy as an introvert-- sure, we'll have friends over once in a blue moon but he could do without it, unless he's suddenly in the mood to BBQ and it's a spontaneous decision to invite someone over after work on a Friday. The differences are also apparent when it comes to how we want to spend our weekends-- he's fine fixing things around the house, I'd like to get out, take the kids on a weekend overnight drive. He says we can do the same thing at home. I want to get out.

So again, if you want the same experiences out of life, it's good. If you're constantly butting heads about how to spend your free time, alone vs. with friends, at home all weekend vs. away visiting family/friends, doing activities that get you out, there could be problems.

Covid seems to have brought a lot of this to light more. I want to see people again, even if it means wearing a mask and/or sitting six feet apart over a drink. For some introverts, I imagine this is all a dream come true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those in a happy and long lasting introvert/extrovert marriage, how do you make it work? I'm an extrovert and I'm tired of my introvert wife.

I guess you've known that she's an introvert all along and have found a way to work through this. Why the issue now and why isn't it workable now? It's a bit of a strange post.

[Anonymous]

Introverts aren’t one size fits all, nor are extroverts. I am an introvert married to an extrovert. I spend much more time with my kids than DH does due to his work and travel schedule, and I love being around them. I also love alone time. When and if DH offers to take them somewhere without me, I usually revel in the solitude. When the kids were very little and almost always needed/wanted me, that was a mental challenge and DH stepped up to give me alone time for at least an hour every weekend; sometimes more. He wasn’t resentful, because he really didn’t get tons of time with them.

I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “how do you make it work.” DH loves being around strangers and friends alike in a way that I tend to avoid. I still love occasionally having friends and family as houseguests, going to parties or dinner with people that I like, spending time with the in laws. I don’t get a charge out of meeting new people, like DH does. I sometimes suck it up and go to a gathering with a bunch of people who are his coworkers but strangers to me, or other people that I don’t know well (it’s not just the extrovert who rises to the challenges of an extro/introvert relationship). None of these things are a strain on our marriage, and neither of us has grown tired of the other after 20 years together. There are strengths and weaknesses to both our characters, and neither of us views the other as inferior because of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those in a happy and long lasting introvert/extrovert marriage, how do you make it work? I'm an extrovert and I'm tired of my introvert wife.

We balance doing things together and having some time apart. We have some built in opportunities for being together just us, being together in a crowd, or being apart doing those things. When the other person feels antsy, we know it’s time to shift modes. I’m comfortable being at home if he’s at a party or vice versa.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those in a happy and long lasting introvert/extrovert marriage, how do you make it work? I'm an extrovert and I'm tired of my introvert wife.

Introvert is sometimes a polite way of saying something else. How serious is it here ?