Finding a job

I just want to say something here.  I have hesitated for a long time about mentioning my marital issues on this board, mainly because I don’t like airing dirty laundry.  But I think here it might really help, because i have been in nearly your exact situation, time after time after time.

My husband is a good man.  He loves me, loves his children, works hard five days a week.  He is a Christian.

That said, he has MAJOR explosive anger issues, and always has.  He is also extremely OCD (I am not speaking in the diagnosed sense of the word.) He likes things just so.  He tries, honestly.  But if things aren’t just so, he starts going crazy.  He knows this is no one’s fault, but he still takes it out on me, and sometimes the children (indirectly, and not hitting.  We are a non-violent household, period.)

Going from one child to two has been a MAJOR and difficult adjustment for him.  He has to help out more around the house.  He gets less time with me.  He gets less time on the computer just to relax.  Now, just to clarify, all of those things are prioritized: I do make sure he gets time with me and to relax.  There is just less of it than before.

He too gets very stressed over financial issues.  We have been very tight recently, mainly due to car issues and (finally) paying off some of his residual debt from years ago. We have not been able to go on some trips he would like to.  We have not been able to purchase a second car as soon as we would have liked to since our previous second car died, so we have been sharing a car. 

Plus, his job is extremely stressful.  He is in the military, and is holding down two  positions, and being considered for one that is above his rank level.  He was hoping for a promotion this year (that would finally bring his pay grade up to the level of the job he is actually doing, which is also above his rank), and it didn’t happen.  That would also have eased matters financially.

How does he deal with this? Well, he will be fine for a few weeks, and then he will explode, usually over something completely inconsequential.  He will say horrible, horrible things to me.  He will do it in the presence of the children.  He will call me names.  He will threaten to leave or tell me to leave him.  He will say our DS  needs to go to PS (we have a firm commitment to homeschooling him; and because of his special needs, he would suffer more than most in PS.)  He will say I don’t love him.  I don’t respect him.  I am against him.  I am disloyal….all with absolutely zero foundation. 

Does DH mean these things? No.  But he says them all the same, and despite the fact that he usually apologizes either that night or the next morning and then is fine for another month, it still hurts like you wouldn’t believe. 

It got so bad (he crossed a previously uncrossed boundary) shortly after our recent second baby was born that I had to call my father on an emergency basis and have him drive seven hours to come pick up me, the children, and the dogs. I left for five days.  It was the hardest and most miserable thing I have ever done. 

It was also the best.  While we were gone, I put my foot down.  I told him how his behavior was damaging me and our children.  I told him that while I am completely and utterly loyal to him and love him dearly, I have the responsibility as co-parent of my children to protect them from harm, whether it be physical, emotional, or what not. I laid down conditions to our coming back. 

I never called him names, disrespected him, or was ugly to him.  I made my love clear to him, but was extremely firm in that his behavior HAD to change.  I knew he loved us, but the compulsive issues (everything has to be his way) and explosive periodic anger had to change.

So far, it has worked.  Not completely without incident, of course, but mostly.  He understood the need for boundaries and work on his part, and we hashed out those boundaries.  He has really tried.  He has stepped up to the plate.  He has not lost it completely since then….almost, last night in fact, but he stopped himself.  He has become clear that he is as committed to  homeschooling as I am, and he has stopped naming PS as an option.  He has been more sensitive to DS (who CAN be hard to deal with, and has always been a trigger for DH.  We have had a lot of the “Why don’t you do something about it?” that you mentioned.  Always shifting the parenting responsibility to me.) He has been more sensitive to my needs, and I have been better able to have spiritual conversation with him and bring him things that were troubling me.  He has, in short, humbled himself and thus earned far more of my respect than he had before.

He is really trying.  And part of what helped was this.  When he would accuse me of not respecting him, I would respond calmly: I respect you for who you are.  But I do not respect your behavior.  You have been acting in a manner unworthy of respect.  I love and respect you, but further respect has to be earned.  It is not a default.  If I were acting the way you are acting, I would have no right to expect you to respect my behavior.

I have been firm yet gentle with him, but I have also had to learn to be firm and gentle with myself.  I do not cave emotionally to his problems any more.  I do not blame myself for everything and cower in emotional corners.  This part has been a long hard road, and several people and books have helped me, but I finally feel that I am standing up straight and being the best parent I can be for my children (which I couldn’t be when I was so afraid of his temper and unpredictability that I couldn’t take the steps to protect my children from it), and the best spouse I can be (ditto.) 

Love is given.  Respect is earned.  These men HAVE to hear that.  And they should never, ever, EVER require you to do something because you need to be “taught” respect.  That is an abominable and un-Godly way of communicating.  It is used to manipulate for their own emotional well-being…and helps no-one, themselves included.

Again–I love my husband, very, very dearly.  But I also love my God, my children, and myself….and God has been working overtime teaching me how to balance all these things properly.  🙂 I know you love your husband and must struggle with communicating these things, because you see all his good qualities, but when you have to talk about the bad, it makes him look so much worse than he is.  Believe me, I know.  I have had family members try to get me to divorce my husband based on his behavior (I do not believe in divorce.)  But they do not see what a truly wonderful person he is, apart form the issues. 

Please let me know if you’d like to talk sometime. 

Amanda

My sister and her husband have been living in seperate homes for nearly 15 years.  He is much like your dhs seem to be — wanted everything just so, expected her to take care of everything to do with the house and their 3 boys.  Eventually they decided they would be happier living apart, but they are still great friends, spend a lot of time together and neither of them seem to have considered a divorce, even though their boys are all grown and gone (well, youngest is in his last year at University). I’m not sure it’s exactly healthy, but it somehow works for them. 

Misty….I have thought all those thoughts too at various times.  Please don’t feel bad about them.  They are honest.

I think the biggest thing (at least this is what I have found) is, no matter what you have to say to him, always, always reaffirm your love for him.  And then say what you have to say without backing down or being guilted out of it.  “I love you, but I have to say this.”  “I love you, but you may not say that to me.”  “I love you, but you may not do that to me.” “I love you, but I do not like your behavior.”

It is HARD to take charge of yourself and your emotions and reactions that way (believe ME.)  But it’s also pretty amazing when you do it.  I told my sister the other day that I feel a bit like a caterpillar coming out of a chrysalis.  😉

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Hi Misty, 

I have avoided posting on this thread for a while because, although my heart hurts for you, I was afraid of saying something that might come across as harsh or disrespectful. Like several others have said, I have also read your forum posts for the last couple of years, and it is very obvious that something in your home is out of order. And, honestly, it seems like it’s your husband. I mean, you said yourself that you know his expectations are so high that you’ll probably never measure up. It seems from your posts that no matter what you do it’s never enough. I’m sorry, Misty, but that’s not a healthy marriage. And I know others (including myself) have also suggested counseling for you and your husband, and the fact that he won’t even consider it also shows that he’s not willing to admit his part of the problem and take responsibility to change. I’m very glad that someone else posted before me that there comes a point when you have to put your foot down and stop being a doormat to be walked all over. You can do that in an honoring way to your husband–but YOU deserve that and so do your children. Your posts always seem to be about what you need to change, how you need to discipline the children, how you need to be more frugal, how you need to do this or that…I wonder if your husband is ever seeking counsel from friends or whomever about HIS part of your family and marital issues? Why is it just you? 

Misty, please don’t take this in a harsh way, but it seems like YOU are the only one trying to make your family and marriage work. And, I’m sorry to be the bearer of harsh news, but it will never work that way. God placed as much responsibility on a husband as he did on a wife, and those responsibilities and callings were meant to compliment each other. 

This time just two years ago, my husband was working four–yes 4–jobs. He worked at a benevolence ministry M-F from 8-5. He hurried home to change clothes to wait tables 3-4 nights per week from 5:30-11:30. On Wednesdays, he was paid to do music for a local youth group, and on Sunday mornings, he lead the music for our church, which he was also compensated for. PLUS, during the little time he had at home, he was trying to develop his own programming company (which I’m happy to say is now very successful!). He did this because there’s no way our finances would have worked any other way, and it was completely out of the question for me to go out and get a job. He did this because he knew the best person to take care of our children was me. He did this because he feels that there is no greater responsibility than to provide for his family, no matter what. So, I did what I could from home: shopped frugally, made my own laundry soap, kept the lights off and the AC up, drove as little as I could, purchased all our school stuff used or borrowed from the library, cooked instead of eating out, relied on hand-me-downs and second-hand stores for our clothing. And because of the sacrifices we made and the way we worked together as a TEAM, we made it through that very tough season of our lives. And it brought us together as a couple and made our marriage stronger because we were fully relying and supporting each other.

I’m not telling you all that to make my husband look better than yours. I’m simply saying that as a wife and mother, you’re holding up your end of things. Your husband might have to get a little less sleep or go hunting less, but it is HIS mandate from the Lord to be the provider of the family, not yours. It isn’t easy, but it can be done. Because of what my husband did for our family, I will never accept excuses from men who say they don’t have the time or energy to get a second (or third or fourth) job. 

Misty, I am by no means saying you need to divorce your husband. I believe marriage is forever, unless there are biblical grounds to end the marriage, and even then it must be approached with extreme caution. But, I don’t think you would be out of your rights to separate from your husband for a time of reflection and healing for yourself and a time of self-examination and possibly change for him. The dynamic that the two of you have created is not healthy for yourselves or your children, and we must protect our children from these things. It won’t benefit them at all to see their father treat their mother in this way or to see the two of you at odds so much. It may be, like Amanda’s husband, that your husband needs a wake-up call. You’re eventually going to have to respectfully stop being a doormat to be walked all over for your husband and start being a mighty woman of valor, who respects herself. 

I will be praying for you and your husband. I pray that God opens your husband’s heart and uses the power of His Word to change your husband. I pray that He gives you the courage you need to be bold and stand up for yourself. I pray that He heals your heart from the obvious hurts that your husband is causing. I pray that He will begin to restore what the locusts have eaten in your lives.

Much love, Misty,

Lindsey

On the job hunt …

What about offering a class to other homeschooling families for a small fee per child?  A lot of Mom’s seem reluctant to teach children to cook (maybe due to mess? not sure) and that would be a valuable class that I’m sure no one would mind paying a little for each week.  Or another subject Mom’s on this forum seem perplexed about would be Nature Study.  What if you taught a Nature Study class in a local park or greenspace for an hour or two each week?  I know lots of families who would jump on that and gladly pay for the service.  Older children could help mind the class and other than being your wonderful you (organized and CM loving) it wouldn’t take much.

I recently moved to a larger city and have noticed the intense schedules most families keep around our neighborhood.  Maybe another job would be to make meals and sell them in your neighborhood to working families with kids in school.  Who wouldn’t buy a well made pot of chili or soup during the week to make their lives easier?  Buying in bulk or with coupons could make that very profitable.  It seems like a win win to be blessing a family with a good meal and providing for your own family too.  A simple flyer in the mailboxes would get the word out.  Maybe an open house to “taste” your wares one Saturday would be good promotion. 

I always think it easiest to be home and working and not working outside the home where income is eaten away by the costs of working outside the home.