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The more I am on this board, the more I am discovering that many of the personality quirks I thought were unique to my AH are actually shared my many As.
Many times when my AH comes in, he complains of his hard day and being tired. He is less miserable than he used to be, but it is still annoying. He really thinks he is the only person who works hard in this world (and admittedly he works very hard) but man, it gets draining. Kids just spoke to him on phone. In thier conversations both kids asked him what was wrong. Apparently he said he was very tired. Again. He'll be coming over and I know will say something about it. Do I just ignore it? Any witty comments out there? We are going to be sitting down together to do our homeework assignment for our marriage class, and while I don't expect him to leap for joy his acting like he is going to the guillitine bugs me!
Thanks! That venting felt good. Any e,s or h would be appreciated.
Blessings, Lou
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Every new day begins with new possibilities. It's up to us to fill it with the things that move us toward progress and peace. ~ Ronald Reagan~
Sometimes what you want to do has to fail, so you won't ~Marguerite Bro~
Well thank goodness he doesn't live back in the day where he had to pillage (sp) for food and hunt and build huts and bang clothes on rocks, ect. Then he'd really be tired. lol
I have nothing. I'm tired myself. I cleaned house all day, washed both dogs, vacumed, did three loads of laundry, picked kids up from school, mowed the grass, took son to karate (where you can not sit down), came home and did homework with all three, read their AR books, weeded and hedged and tore down a huge tree, pulled another out of the ground (roots and all) , took out the trash, swept, mopped, gave ESH on here, set out clothes for kids for school in the morning.
I got up at 7am and I'll be going to bed at 1am and do it ALL again (except mow the grass) tomorrow. He's tired??? lol I really don't know if I am dreaming I'm typing this or if I really am. lol
I think that you have to jsut call them self centered. Me, me, me. The more that I read the Getting Sober books the more I ralize that they do act like each other. They are underdeveloped emotionally. Whew, I am impress with all you have to do. Take care of yourself.
I finally just started gently but firmly calling my AH on this. I remind him that he is not the only one in this world who works hard. He could be pulling green chain at the mill or falling timber in the woods all day. I tell him "Yes, your job is very hard, but many have it as hard or worse." (I am going to print out FOY's list and show it to him next time he does this.) I told him that sympathy is not what I think he really wants. What he really wants is intimacy, that has nothing to do with sex, that he did not really know how to get. The problem is that when he acts like that nobody wants to be around him because his neediness sucks the life out of everyone around him. After we had this conversation several times over a couple of months, he really did start to change his attitude. He still whines, but now he catches himself. And at the moment he is in really bad shape. My AH can't do a normal days work right now because he is so run down from his drug use. I still do not give him sympathy though. And now he tries not to whine about it.
Anyway, that's what I did. Hope it helps. You'll have to guage whether or not some of this would work with your A.
Either way, take care of you.
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~Jen~
"When you come to the edge of all you know you must believe in one of two things... there will be earth on which to stand or you will be given wings." ~Unknown
Me too on this: "The more I am on this board, the more I am discovering that many of the personality quirks I thought were unique to my AH are actually shared my many As."
I've started beating him to his ever continuing punch line of being tired by acknowledging his work. Like "I'm sure you have had a busy day just like me." or "I can tell you feel tired just like me and my day isn't over yet. See ya, after I pick up so & so."
I am also stating fact and acknowledging myself that I work hard which helps me. If I tried to share a difficult day with him, he wouldn't acknowledge it or really even listen. Just ready to tell me how his day was tougher than mine will ever be. Can't get bread at the hardware store so try not to go there anymore.
I dream of times when you greet a friend or person and so happy to see each other that this joy just takes away a lot of the exhaustion, sadness, struggles and is replaced by joy of the moment. Hopeless romantic maybe...... I always seem to remember and ponder the sadness of a remark our priest said - there are a lot of lonely marriad people.
Thank God for this MIP family!!! hugs, ddub
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"Choices are the hinges of destiny." Pythagoras You can't change the past, but you can change the future.
Oh and another thing . . . it must be VERY tiring to be an active addict or alcoholic when you think about it. That and the activities of daily life must completely exhaust them. Denial and obsession take a lot of energy :D .
LOL like that one Kim! I know when I lived with my A I was LAZY! I would leave jobs for him and of course they would never get done. Then I would complain about it. He always talked about how hard he worked, so much harder than me because he does manual labor and I work inside in an office so I have NO idea how hard it is...bla bla bla. Then on the weekend he would need to "rest" basically lay around and do nothing for two days. I like to get out and do things on the weekend so that didn't work for me. Now I work a lot harder, I work at work, I work at home, I work on the weekends, and I try not to complain. I appreciate all that I have and I didn't before. In my mind my thought was always ya you may work hard but for how long at least I have staying power. Ok maybe it was said a few times LOL. All I know is I'm sooo glad I don't have to deal with ANY of that anymore!
Thanks for the great responses. First off, I decided NOT to even ask him how his day was. There was a lot going on with the kids and our almost 3 yr old had to share his new "tricks" of the day, so he didn't get a chance to complain. As I shared our weekly to do schedule, I threw in that I was going to start taking a Meditation and Relaxation Class on Thurs nights for the next 6 wks. Probably wasn't the best time, but oh well. He acted interested, almost envious, but then it got too busy for the conversation to go any farther.
Since it is a rare event that he ever has a good day, I think I will make a habit of no longer asking and when he says he is tired, I will just say that I am too. Great idea, simple and true.
And yes, I really believe that he is exhausted, but it from all them emotional pain that he insists of carrying around (and blaming on me) as well as the obsession and denial. He looked great for a while, but is looking pretty rough again. I am going to just try not to notice and when I learn to meditate, perhaps I will be able to just move right through his negative moods.
Thanks friends. Lets just keep on keepin on...
Lou
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Every new day begins with new possibilities. It's up to us to fill it with the things that move us toward progress and peace. ~ Ronald Reagan~
Sometimes what you want to do has to fail, so you won't ~Marguerite Bro~
Lou.... I remember reading my first book about alcoholism, truly in the belief that NOBODY could possibly understand the chaos and lunacy that was happening in my home, with my A-wife. And then.... there was our life story, eerily verbatim, splashed all over chapter 1, 2, 3, etc.... I found it quite amazing, but yes, there are always "some" differences, but the behaviors are almost amazingly consistent...
I always believe that this is one of the key reasons why we can be so valuable to each other - we truly DO understand.
Take care Tom
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
With my AH, it was always the differences in our jobs....as to why he was more tired than me. His work was physical, mine was mental. He said he worked his body all day and I just sat at a desk all day. I tried to explain to him that physical exhausted was better than mental exhaustion in my book. That if you are physically tired, you can sit down and rest, read a book or something. But when your brain went caput at the end of the day, EVERYTHING ELSE shuts down w/it. He never got it. He just always thought he was more deserving of resting after work than I. I never got to rest until my head hit the pillow and that is when he would want sex b/c hey, he got some energy back while he sat on his butt for 3 hours after work while I tended to the kids and dinner and chores.
Hope was a hard thing for me when i was dealing with the A. Of course I still deal with him but in a very much removed way. I tried everything I could to make the relationship work, therapy (for me he wasn't interested), trying again and again, regrouping, recommuncating the works. He always had to be the center of existence. I would try to bring myself into the equstion he was not interested. I no longer expect much and that's hard but not as hard as being chronically disappointed. They make a drama out of a lot of things. Detaching is hard work (who said it was easy).
