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So. We sort of wandered into a minefield last night--this morning, when H got home from work. They offered him a promotion and a raise, just giving him the title for the job he's doing now. They keep cutting staff and slashing bonuses, petty corners-cutting that makes it a mingy dark and pinched place to work. I don't understand why they don't just shut it down, rather than killing it off by inches. It's not like the owners need the income--in fact, it's losing money, that's why they're killing it off. But it's painful.
And by one of those sideral wandering paths we got onto why he's so unhappy, why nothing--ever--can make him happy. It hasn't changed since we discussed this ten years ago. All the work, all the time and effort and redirection of focus and energy hasn't changed this one thing in his mind, and I begin to think nothing ever can.
He felt like a failure years ago when the kids were young, when he failed to buy a house. That's it. That's why he quit his director's job and cut himself off from all his friends from college and the service and work. Why he became a curt, surly hermit who hadn't a kind word or a smile for anyone for about five years. He slowly came out of that one and did his best to be supportive and involved as a dad and a husband, but that was the limit of his effort at engagement. He purposely took jobs that required little to no interpersonal skills. That didn't save him from being avuncular with younger people, or a white knight to women in distress. I can think of three offhand, the abused wife, the grandmother raising the children of her addict daughter, and the programmer with health issues. Each and all of whom he got very involved in helping solve their problems and then faded almost forcefully out of their lives. He can't help getting involved because he's a caring person, but he bolts, he disentangles and walks away, and can be very cold.
I'm his only long-term relationship, and despite occasional lack-of-support on my part, he has no indication of severing it. There have been times when I was his ONLY human contact.
The incredibly frustrating thing, and what I said to him last night was, he holds this grudge closer to him, it's more precious to him than his health, than me, or the kids, or any dream of the future. It's his reason for going on, to carry this ember of resentment forward. For what? To poison our future the way it's poisoned much of our past?
I can't help him with this. All I can do is decide--again--if I love him enough to ... love him around it. To live my life up to the top and not expect or hope for him to share my highs, or to match them. To let him smolder and burn with resentment and self-blame and not give it room in my life. Because if I stay with him, that's the way it has to be. This is the third member in the marriage, the one that colors his every emotion and thought, and the one I have to cleanse from mine.
And by one of those sideral wandering paths we got onto why he's so unhappy, why nothing--ever--can make him happy. It hasn't changed since we discussed this ten years ago. All the work, all the time and effort and redirection of focus and energy hasn't changed this one thing in his mind, and I begin to think nothing ever can.
He felt like a failure years ago when the kids were young, when he failed to buy a house. That's it. That's why he quit his director's job and cut himself off from all his friends from college and the service and work. Why he became a curt, surly hermit who hadn't a kind word or a smile for anyone for about five years. He slowly came out of that one and did his best to be supportive and involved as a dad and a husband, but that was the limit of his effort at engagement. He purposely took jobs that required little to no interpersonal skills. That didn't save him from being avuncular with younger people, or a white knight to women in distress. I can think of three offhand, the abused wife, the grandmother raising the children of her addict daughter, and the programmer with health issues. Each and all of whom he got very involved in helping solve their problems and then faded almost forcefully out of their lives. He can't help getting involved because he's a caring person, but he bolts, he disentangles and walks away, and can be very cold.
I'm his only long-term relationship, and despite occasional lack-of-support on my part, he has no indication of severing it. There have been times when I was his ONLY human contact.
The incredibly frustrating thing, and what I said to him last night was, he holds this grudge closer to him, it's more precious to him than his health, than me, or the kids, or any dream of the future. It's his reason for going on, to carry this ember of resentment forward. For what? To poison our future the way it's poisoned much of our past?
I can't help him with this. All I can do is decide--again--if I love him enough to ... love him around it. To live my life up to the top and not expect or hope for him to share my highs, or to match them. To let him smolder and burn with resentment and self-blame and not give it room in my life. Because if I stay with him, that's the way it has to be. This is the third member in the marriage, the one that colors his every emotion and thought, and the one I have to cleanse from mine.