When I was a child, we lived in the same house as my grandparents in Long Island, NY. While both of them worked, I remember them coming home in the evening — my grandfather all kinds of, “Hi, how was your day?” before he went upstairs to the apartment that had been made up there. He didn’t seem to have a care in the world. My grandmother — nothing. She’d barely grumble, “Hi,” when she was on her way in and on her way out. And on the weekends, though my sister would go upstairs and spend time with her, I barely ever heard her speak. Even when I was up there with them — I would spend hours talking to my grandfather, yet I could barely get a few sentences out of my grandmother. What an extreme! And then, years later — I’m equivocating this to sometime around the time my grandfather retired and she was still working — it was like the dam broke, and she hasn’t stopped talking since!
I have to admit, she’s always been an enigma to me. I always wondered a) why she was SOOOOO quiet for all of those years, and b) why suddenly did she start talking, to another extreme, later on!
Very recently, the lightbulb went off over my head, and I think I understand. I UNDERSTAND!
I’m on a self-initiated talking hiatus at home right now, and I can see that it’s making my husband and my kids pretty uncomfortable. Because by nature, I am the communicator; before I started my business, my job was marketing and communications, so communicating was my LIFE. But I’m done for now.
By nature, I’m also a take-charge individual, and it was years ago established in an unspoken way that I would be director of the household, for EVERYTHING. Not that I wanted it; that’s just how it all went. And I didn’t really realize it — or mind it — while I was distracted and spending many hours with my work away from home. But right now, I’m tired of it.
And I’m just tired.
I remember sometime around 5 years ago, my husband went through this period when he was convinced that I didn’t love him anymore (I did), that I was having an affair in all of my work travel (I wasn’t), and that I was going to leave him (I wasn’t). It was mostly based on the fact that I was SOOO tired at the end of the day, that I was just done communicating — between directing my department during the day and directing everything else at home after work, I just couldn’t move my mouth any more! After the kids went to bed, I just wanted peace and quiet, and to turn on the boob tube and vegetate for awhile before going to bed so I could start the next day’s cycle all over again. On the other hand, he was a computer programmer and self-contained during the day, so he craved additional interaction at the end of the day. Somehow, without consulting me, he’d gotten himself all worked up in his head (without talking to me) that he made it a reality to him — and I had no idea, except the fact that he was cranky and sullen for awhile, and even though I’d ask him what was the matter, he wouldn’t talk about it. It took us having a really big blowup over some stupid things he did during this period — and me telling him I wouldn’t live like that — to find out the root of the problem and be able to work on it and get better.
I purposely worked on communicating with him more, paying him more attention, and it became more of a habit. So, by the time I’d decided to start my business and quit my job, we were humming along pretty well again. But here’s the problem — I’m a communicator, and spend a majority of my time with the plants now, which, though it is very soothing and balancing, leaves me with a deficit in the area of communication. I crave it, and 2 years later, I miss the constant, constant, constancy of having to do it! Before, I had a department of people and everyone related to my job to deal with every day. I had a group of friends that I saw at work all the time with whom I’d share a lunch break and regularly share and unload any issues that needed to be vented. And so, I could easily get past irritations around the household because I was able to study them, then release them, and then forget about them through my day-to-day interactions.
So, it’s been 2 years now, and though I do have a good group of friends, it’s a very different world for me now. I don’t have that regular interaction with others; most of my interactions are today very topical and, though friendly, just don’t do anything in the way of helping me work out the real stuff on my own. So I guess I’ve increasingly depended on my husband to be my sounding board, and I guess somewhere down the road over this period, I’ve also started to expect him to take a more active role in being there for me and maybe take on some of the household directing. Because having a business such as mine, until I can afford to hire someone (or go back to my old life at the office), that alone takes more time and stress than I’d ever imagined.
What a big mistake.
And I know it! Why, after 14 years (now 16, since it’s been 2 years since I quit my job to work full time on my own business), I should expect him to even SOMETIMES take the wheel and honestly think about how to make my life easier and ease some of my stress without me having to repeat, repeat, repeat myself, is really sort of silly, I guess. I guess it would be like having to actually drive a car after being chauffered without a care for 14 years.
I guess I thought, due to those long ago problems, that he would REVEL in the fact that he is a more central part of my life now, and that I depend on him more as my partner in crime. That he would be happy that he has what he wanted and naturally want to be more front and center, and take some kind of leadership role to alleviate all of my stressors. But instead, he seems to have lulled himself into some blissful ignorance so he doesn’t have to feel my stress, and go about living life and expecting that everything will be taken care of and work out just fine. All the details, the dirt, and the ownership of everything, to make sure it gets done — that’s mine. And I apparently, in his mind, have more time to do that now, with me having a business at home. And if I mention it, all I get is, “Oh, I feel the stress… you have no idea!” Really? I really DON’T have any idea, because he’s not doing anything to actually HELP alleviate it all, and he doesn’t even listen to our conversations anymore — it’s usually very, VERY obvious that he couldn’t be bothered with talking to me, that I should just get on and TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING, and let him go on with his day.
With that being said, even my “old role” doesn’t seem to work anymore. I communicate, I assign, I give deadlines, I explain financial issues, I try to be creative in problem solving — and over the past 6-12 months, I’ve noticed that it seems that no one is hearing me AT ALL anymore, husband and kids alike. In their eyes, it’s all on me, I guess. They don’t want to deal with the dirt, the difficulties, the stress, and so it’s obviously all on my shoulders, no matter how much I try to share it! I lose sleep at night, I have a constant pit in my stomach, it’s gotten to the point that I don’t enjoy my life anymore because IT’S ALL ON ME. And then, after I’ve tried to throw up red flags and asked for help, and dispairingly fallen back into the standard director role with which I’ve always been assigned, I have to repeat myself to my husband and my children over and over and OVER again, and STILL not be heard – and I HATE repeating myself to begin with.
Don’t get me wrong — it’s not like my husband doesn’t do ANYTHING. He does plenty — but he’s really like a robot. Typically, he only does something if I tell him it needs to be done, and usually, it’s nothing more, nothing less. That in itself is a problem, because after 2 years, I would think he would remember my guidelines about some things having to do with the business, but if I don’t outline the whole thing to a T, inevitably, it doesn’t get done. It’s like he just throws out all of the information instead of processing it, and just figures I will input all of the information every single time it comes up again.
Did I tell you I’m tired?
THIS is why. So I guess I’ve decided I just don’t feel like talking anymore, because a) it’s a waste of my time and effort, and b) maybe it will kickstart the thinking and action process of the others in my household so that it WON’T ALL BE ON ME. Because, for the first time in my life, I feel like I’m at a breaking point, I don’t know where to go from here, and I don’t feel like I have anybody to help me. But since I tried talking and yelling from the mountaintop until my face turned blue, I figured it would take much less effort for me to just zip it all up and let it go. I WANT TO NOT HAVE TO WORRY FOR AWHILE. Though I know I will; however, sometimes something has to break before it can be fixed. And I think my back has broken. Unfortunately, my husband is not the best at confrontation, either, so though I know he knows something is really wrong, he’s afraid to open the can of worms.
But I’M tired of doing it.
Back to my grandmother. She and I have very similar personalities in some ways. She likes directing and taking control. So maybe, at some point, she just decided to say “Screw it!” and clammed up. Because now that I think of it, she started talking again when my grandfather retired and she hadn’t yet. I remember her saying that he was driving her CRAZY. But it may have been that since his world changed, he took a different role, and she felt like she could talk again.
Good God, I really hope it won’t be years, like it was with her! I don’t think I can last that long in a stasis like this.