Overworked Husband

When your husband is being eaten by his job. . .  It begins slowly, usually so vaguely that you can't tell the symptoms for what they are.

He's forgetful, and you wonder if perhaps he has early onset Alzheimers.  He forgets that you told him the brakes are squeaking on your vehicle (because brakes are so easy they are not something we pay someone else to fix) and when you finally say "The brakes started grinding today, can you please look at them?" he admonishes you for 'not telling him sooner'.  He forgets that he was going to look at the door that won't stay latched and gets irritated when it becomes impossible to even wiggle/lift/shove into a closed state.  He forgets you both had agreed to put this or that outing or event on the calendar as something fun you were going to do together and doesn't understand why you are so upset about something that he swears he never even discussed didn't come to pass.  He forgets that he said this winter, or this spring, or this summer, was finally the time you were going to purchase this thing, or do that home improvement project and tells you that it hasn't actually been two/three/six years since that thing/project was scheduled to be achieved when you bring up the subject.

He's short tempered, even after he's had his morning coffee.  He's grouchy in the morning, touchy after work, and doesn't even become fully human on the weekends any more.

He's hard to wake up in the mornings.  His alarm clock, sitting a foot from his ear, wakes up everyone in the house before he actually hears it enough to wake up rather than slam his hand down on the snooze button and continue sleeping.  When you try to wake him up, he mumbles work related questions at you. You can carry on an entire conversation with him if you can come up with enough technical work terms and he's still asleep during all this. And when he finally does wake up, he demands to know WHY??? his alarm clock didn't go off, or WHY??? you didn't wake him up sooner, and now he's late.

Nothing can please him.  Any attempt at cooking his favorite meal, or doing a spectacular cleaning job on the house goes unnoticed.  Instead of seeing the extra effort to cheer him up when he's down (and being cheered up in the slightest), he finds the next negative thing in sight to complain about.  It's classic come home from work to yell at the wife and kick the dog. Except the longer it goes on, and the fact that you don't have a dog makes it feel more like yell at the wife then kick the wife, and soon you are struggling with your own overwhelm and insecurities.

Eventually, you see the pattern, remember the symptoms from the last time his job became more than one man should have to handle on an ongoing basis.  And you begin to understand it's not you that he's unhappy with, it's his job.  Nevertheless, it still feels like its you who isn't making the grade.  A grumpy and overwhelmed man who doesn't recognize that he's overwhelmed and therefore grumpy is a very difficult person to live with.  To want to live with.

You love him so much, yet at times like this you just want him to go away because he's stressing you out with his stress (the stress he denies he is having), and you need a break more than you need his help or companionship.  Not that he's around enough physically, and certainly not mentally, to help much and he's not in a companionable mood more often than not.  Time spent talking with him should not feel like you are at some business meeting checking action items off of an agenda and making lists of what the next steps are.  Especially when he's in manager/boss mode and it feels like he's giving you an armload of work to accomplish and report back to him on.

What do you do?  Well, you hang in there, knowing this too shall pass.  Hoping that it shall pass SOON, and remembering that you really do love this man, that he really is a good person, and once the job stress subsides, you will have your companion back.