A Carbonated Triage

HildaCorners

If you can't see a way clear to standing up to your wife, you need help.

As I said, you need therapy for the depression. Either that, or hire Athol as your coach (though if you're in bad enough shape, he'll have you see a therapist first.)

In your Triage, you said you're the leader 9/10 ... if you can't tell your wife to buy her own e-card for her friend, you ain't no leader.

We can cheer you on ... but you are going to have to do the work. It's not easy work, and you can't get it all done without upsetting your wife ... but you can do this!

[By the way, the Awesome man with a morbidly obese wife, when asked "Please don't say I'm fat, it's hurtful" would say "Hurtful or not, it's the truth. I won't nag, or rub it in your face, but the fact remains, you are fat and I can't ignore the effect that has on me. I love you, and will do anything you need me to do to help you lose weight, but I won't lie to you." Then, stop talking about it unless she starts the conversation.]

Carbonated

"If you can't see a way clear to standing up to your wife, you need help."

"In your Triage, you said you're the leader 9/10 ... if you can't tell your wife to buy her own e-card for her friend, you ain't no leader."

Both of these issues are not helped by my depression, It's hard to explain it as to most people around me nothing seems wrong. I'm exhausted all the time. It feels like I'm a juice carton and someone has sucked all the enthusiasm, energy and joy out of me. It's going in cycles so sometimes I'm ok, sometimes I'm flat. When things are going wrong, or urgent I have no issue to standing up and getting whatever needs doing done. Mundane things, things that don't really matter if they get done right now, or in an hour, a day, a week, I just leave. They then pile up and make me feel worse.

The things I need to get done, overwhelms the time I have to get it done in. So I end up working late into the night, sometimes only getting 3 or four hours sleep a night. I've always known poor sleep makes me grumpy, but a mountain of work does too. It's a no win situation.

So as the first step on my action plan, I've started to get better sleep. My new rule is to stop burning the candle at both ends. I can't control the time I get up, but I can go to bed at a decent time, so I do.

My second rule (probably the hardest) is damn the work, it'll get done on my schedule, when/if I feel I can fit it in. If I can't get it done then there is just too much, I need to accept that isn't my fault and isn't my problem. I can only do what I can do.

I've got a hair cut, cleaned the gutters, tidied the house and spent some quality time with my son. Both the house and I are a lot more positive looking. When Monday arrived, I felt ready for it for a change.

I'm not pushing it. That's the limit of what I am doing this week. Next week I'm planning to get back to my 3 times a week on the elliptical trainer. That's something that the doctor advised me to start up again, but with the pressures of work I've not had time to do it. Rule number two being in place will help with that.

There has been no arguments, or cross words since Friday.

I'll update with my progress as I go along. I'm intending to read the first half of the book again this week.

Husband3point0

Describe your early childhood. Give us some background on other possible elephants. 

Is your wife the only person who scares you?  Who else can trigger that response?

Carbonated

Husband3point0 said:

Describe your early childhood. Give us some background on other possible elephants. 

Is your wife the only person who scares you?  Who else can trigger that response?

Hmmm childhood.... One things of note, probably relevant. My mother kicked my father out when I was tiny, with the help of the police. He went away to war a man, came back a violent, aggressive, vile shadow of himself. PTSD at a guess. I don't remember him at all, and consider him irrelevant to my life.

I'm not 100% sure it's my wife that scares me, having had more time to reflect, it's aggressive situations. I'm not clear if it's the confrontation I dislike, or my reaction if I let myself get involved. When I tip over the edge, I can be explosive. Anger takes over me, and I can get to the point where stuff goes flying. What a display of manhood eh?

Bringing up my childhood has made me remember back in school where a group of lads thought it was good sport to wind me up to the point where I lost it and started striking out at the nearest person to me. I slowly learned that the best course of action was to bottle it up and not let them get to me. Eventually they moved on to another target. I remember dragging that poor kid up to a teacher, and letting rip at her about how they should be stopping this from happening. I got lines for that, but it did stop.

There was another incident recently where the computer stopped working. I went to fix it and she ripped into me again like I'd done it to her. In my head I was cool calm and assertive, "Look I don't mind helping you out, but if you talk to me like that again, you are on my own. The way you are talking to me does not help me recover from my depression."
In reality it was more frustrated and contained a fair few swear words. I think My point got across though.

In the last month, since that, things have been getting better. No arguments, no fights. She has started loosing weight, at least 8kg, and it's a strict weight loss as well. No breaking the rules of the diet even for special occasions.

My weight loss has finally slowed, I've now lost more than 4" around my waist, I'm going to need to replace all my clothes, as they now hang off me and make me look awfully thin.

This month I'm going to start exercising regularly, hopefully setting this as an example to my wife who will also do the same.

My medication gets reviewed at the end of this month, but I'm not ready to come off it yet. While I don't like being on medication, I won't take pain killers unless I really really have to, I'll need at least another 6 months of these. The difference they are making is amazing.

So, I and we are doing well at the moment. I'll post again with any updates, sooner if things start to head downhill again.

Like_Water

Carbonated said:

 In my head I was cool calm and assertive, "Look I don't mind helping you out, but if you talk to me like that again, you are on my own. The way you are talking to me does not help me recover from my depression."

2 observations:

1. Based on your writing from a couple of posts up-thread, you could really benefit from a more-structured system of time management.  Every one of us has way more to do than we'll ever get done; that's the nature of life.  We choose what to focus on and what gets taken care of later.  Something as simple as a running list of things that need to be done can add a lot of comfort to your situation.  A more elaborate system like David Allen's Getting Things Done may suit you.  Don't go overboard; just write things down and make conscious decisions rather than always feeling like there's something more you should do.
   
   
2. The quote above should end after "...you are on your own."  Don't give the impression that she has to stop unacceptable behavior because you can't handle it; just tell her she has to stop her unacceptable behavior and leave it at that.  You are telling her she has to change because of a weakness in you; she needs to change because she sees strength in you that won't put up with being treated like that.

IrishGypsy

If you use a smartphone, then calendar apps - or something similar - is a great way to be reminded. I have a memory like a sieve at the best of times. I now use Google Calendar on my android phone to pop up with reminders that stay there until I mark them as 'done'. 

I've knocked off countless tasks now thanks to it. So much so, that my wife asks me to stick a specific task in there now as she knows it works for me. Perhaps worth a try?