Oops double post

My grandmother worked at the little Debbie factory when she was young.

My name is a month name so yeah. Does that count?

We’re good. I don’t think it got too bad here overnight because I slept through the night. I generally wake for bad storms…

Yeah I’m not a fan of bad storms but especially at night….

How are things for you?

Safe for now, for the next little bit. But more lines of storms coming in later.

My area

It’s really bad here.

And I’m now watching the news and the map of middle TN looks pretty rough. Lots of red and magenta on the weather map. Sigh.

Absolutely. Just waiting is maddening.

Legal stuff is such a pain and takes F O R E V E R to get through. I'm sorry you have to deal with that. I too need to find some fun. My dh has some medical stuff pending that will determine what we do over the summer. Could be some fun this summer or it could be appointments and such preventing us from having much fun. So I'm just kind of holding my breath till we figure it out.

This. These kids take a LOT out of you. So it's essential that you can have some bright spots even when they are having a hard period. You can't let the illness consume every fiber of who you are. Also, having one or two trusted friends that I could speak frankly with about what I was dealing with was essential. I didn't spread my kids' issues around all over the place because it wasn't my story to tell, but having a couple of people who were bedrock solid in the discretion department kept me sane. It just helps to offload the heaviness a few times a week, and I only visited a therapist twice a month. I often needed to talk many times between therapist visits.

This. This is it. I honor how hard this decision is and how you are standing firm on what your values and goals are, even if this is difficult. I think you're doing the right thing.

I’ll chat. Just got off an almost 2 hour call with my dd21. We had a minor misunderstanding yesterday and needed to clear the air. So all is good now. Got up late so I’m behind in pretty much everything especially with the phone call.

This is brilliant and beautiful.

Can't those things all be true? You can be grateful for your life and overall happy about the blessings. AND at the end of a long day be exhausted and handle things in a less than ideal way. Snippy isn't great but it's not the worst either. It's a typical response to a person who is tired. You shouldn't believe it is a moral failing and horrible awful thing (especially if it's not the way you generally live your life) nor should your husband respond to it as anything more than "my wife is just tired and this is a lot."

But his reaction to a sigh means that yeah, he was reacting to your emotion. Let me tell you something....your feelings leak. I'm a part of an extended family who NEVER argued. But it was SO crystal clear when people were not happy. Even If you can't say it out loud, it still leaks out. And it does for your dh. While ya'll are working on these things (identifying feelings and being able to own them) remember that your feelings are still coming out, just in other ways. I know you know when your dh is struggling. He knows when you are, even if neither of you can say the words. So the conversations just head it all off at the pass.

Ok, I see your list. That's a LOT and most of it aren't things that can be put off or handed over to someone else. And life can be like that. So in those cases, I go to my dh and say "I'm feeling the crush of all that needs to be done. I know I'll probably be short with you in the next week or two and I'm pre-apologizing for that. I'll do my best to be kind, but can you give me the benefit of the doubt if I sigh or seem frustrated? Because none of this is your fault. The situation we're in right now is just a lot. I'll get through it, but can you give me some grace and try to not respond in the moment if I'm not at my best?"

Another question... You're right to be concerned about consistently snippy behavior. Occasional snippy days are no big deal, but noticing a pattern is a good thing. Do you see a pattern to the snippy days? So own your own stuff "I get snippy when... I perceive him as snippy when" And ask him to do the same analysis both of himself and of you. Is this generally at the beginning of the day? End of the day? When you feel rushed? When you're hungry? This can help you troubleshoot planning your days to avoid snippiness. This is not to prevent you from being short with one another 100 percent of the time. But rather to try to head those moments off at the pass so that you don't fall into this pattern repeatedly.

Do you think it's the case that you are comparing your "snippy" marriage to the ideal that you have for a great marriage (NEVER disagree, never get snippy) so that when you have a snippy day you feel that everything is ALL WRONG.

No, I'm not saying that it's OKAY. It's just that AS HUMANS it will happen. IF WE COULD DO IT ALL PERFECTLY WE WOULD NOT NEED CHRIST. Or repentance. Or grace. I'm not saying (shrug) I hurt my family, no big deal. I am saying that no matter how much I try, I will accidentally hurt them. Because I'm human. They will accidentally hurt me. Because they're human. And that is the wonder of grace. I can extend grace to them because I'm human and so are they. Instead of looking at my failures as "OH WOE IS ME! I AM THE WORST!" I can see them as "Thank GOD that he loves me enough to forgive me in spite of my mess. Isn't he WONDERFUL!" The grace isn't about ME...it's about HIM. God's love (and my love for my family members) Isn't about me at all. I don't have to strive for it (because I could not do it if that were the case) I can just take joy in it. Now, I don't just wallow in failure because I'm too lazy to try. Or it's to hard. Or whatever. But I do my best to live the life I'm supposed to because of humble gratitude. I think the key is to stop thinking so much about my own performance. Because I generally am a screw up. But to do my best and wallow in the love that God extends to me.

I'm not saying their home wasn't lovely. I'm sure they were/are wonderful people. But, not having occasional spats isn't exactly normal. Perhaps they were all very mellow calm, loving folks. Or, it's also likely that nobody had a paradigm for how to have a disagreement. And so they swallowed their feelings. And it's possible that they were able to handle swallowing their feelings so they didn't suffer resentment. But that's not the norm for the majority of people. Your dh probably doesn't have much of a framework for handling disagreement because of how he grew up. So that's a place where he needs to grow and learn. How to be ok when someone is annoyed with you. How to handle your own failures. How to accept that sometimes we're going to screw up and hurt one another. For instance, my dh can get annoyed because I don't want to work cattle on a particular afternoon (this happened last week) He wanted to tag the calves and I had just pulled a chicken pot pie out of the oven, I had 40 minutes before I had to leave to take ds to Tae Kwon Do and we were all hungry. I said "No I don't want to do that now. We have to eat and get ds to tkd soon and I don't want to rush, get covered in manure, and try to scramble to get it all done." I don't know if he was irritated or not. (I think he did sigh. LOL) But his request was reasonable and so was my reaction. He wanted to do it, and couldn't do it alone and it didn't happen when he wanted to because I wasn't willing. But, how he handled it was on him. I was not tied up in knots over it. He could get resentful and I could move on in life. (He didn't get resentful, or if he did, he got over it pretty quickly) Nobody apologized for anything. We both had different priorities and that was fine. It's a part of life. As far as counseling, I've found it works better when I'm really specific with my therapist. "How do I handle it when I hurt my partner? We have a spat and I just can't let it go. It tears me up and I just can't stop thinking about it." "I can't sleep because I keep rehearsing my failures of hte day. I want to be a loving partner, but I keep snapping at my husband." "How can I learn to be okay with the fact that my supervisor gets annoyed at me when I have to take time off to care for my sick/dying loved one? I'm exhausted and sad and they are resentful. "

He wears a mask. And since you live with him, you're one of the few who sees it slip. A good counselor would have teased it all out.

You are correct. And you need to feel comfortable pointing out when he starts obsessing over things that can't be changed. "Look, You apologized about last night. You're not perfect, I'm not perfect, it was just a little spat. Please stop perseverating on it because then, you'll have to apologize for apologizing so much. It's enough ,It's fine. Let's talk about something else." And then just look at him impatiently like "I thought we were over this." when he brings it up again. I don't engage on perseverating. It's frustrating to me.