Reply to If you are a low energy introvert married to a high energy extrovert type A person

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "If you are a low energy introvert married to a high energy extrovert type A person"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]How do you handle it?

My issue is that my husband is a perfectionist who can't sit still. So he doesn't "understand" why someone would want to spend a couple hours reading a book or watching a movie or bingeing a tv show. He never does any of that. He watches or listens to sports on the radio but in the background while he's cooking or answering emails/doing office busy work, etc. When we go on vacation, he literally brings fiance journals to read on the beach.

He has an extremely demanding job and makes a lot of money. I'm a SAHM by his request and my own inclination (like I said, low energy introvert). I'm really good about keeping the house extremely clean and organized, which I know he appreciates. I make ~ 95% of the kids' meals. My DH loves to cook so he'll make a special meal once or twice a week if he has the opportunity.

But that's the thing, when he's not doing work for his job, he's home doing something constructive and actually useful like mowing the lawn or sanding down our patio furniture and staining it or weeding the garden or cooking an elaborate meal. He makes nice wood furniture as a hobby. He's gets up early before work to go to the gym every single day, including weekends. He needs very little sleep and thinks it's crazy and need so much more than him to feel ok (I do need a lot of sleep, at least 8 hours but more like 10). He has no problem letting me know that he thinks sleeping in on weekend mornings instead of getting up early to be productive is lazy. He's very involved with our kids too. He arranges his schedule so he can go their school events in the middle of the day, he chaperones field trips along with me, he does half of their activities (this is a chore we split at his request because he likes to watch them).

I'm not saying he's perfect. He has his flaws. For one thing, he is very practical, almost too practical. He HATES talking about emotions or anything introspective or speculative. He doesn't understand people who can't keep a positive attitude and hates hearing complaints. I can't even say something like "wow is it hot outside today" without him hearing it as a complaint. When to me is more like an offhand remark. I'm pretty good about ignoring all of that and I've learned to stop "venting" about any problem I might have to him because he doesn't understand that "supportive listening" is a thing people do. If I tell him about an issue I am having, he wants to fix it in that conversation and then move on. He hates when I belabor things because he hears it as useless complaining, whereas I see it as talking things out. Sometimes when you can't change something but have to deal with it anyway, venting a little steam really helps. I don't even know if he has recognized that I've stopped 99% of this in fear of him hearing me complaining. He also has a tendency to take a tone when I am talking about something he thinks is silly like celebrity gossip or a tv show. I think once I tried to explain to him why people cared about Prince Harry and Meghan's wedding. He doesn't feel any compunction about letting me know that he thinks it is stupid that I know information like this.

So I'm not saying he is perfect. But the thing is, when you add up what he does for our family vs me it makes me look extremely lazy in comparison and yet I don't think I am lazy, I am more like a normal person. I want to say, it's not my fault that you never learned to watch tv or read for pleasure! I haven't even watched the last few episodes of Games of Thrones because I haven't had time to myself without him around and he thinks watching tv and being involved in a show like that is super silly. I can't even mention things like that to him without him rolling his eyes or making a grimace.

Anyway, can anyone relate to this? What do I do about this? [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics