This is a difficult subject.
Some would question my discretion at posting this on a "public" forum, but seriously, this is a virtual community, and I consider many of you friends. If it helps, pretend we're buddies sitting at Shoney's over a glass of tea, or the local brewpub over a Newcastle.
My wife and I have hit a rough patch.
When we moved to Alobammo, we left behind the one place we both had been, including friends, family, and "kingdom" for the last 22 years. ("Kingdom" is defined as knowing somebody in the business-- a friend who is an expert in almost any field, from whom who you can call in a favor and get it fixed for half the price)
The move was relatively uneventful, and wife and three kids have all made the transition with flying colors, making new best friends, very active in sports, high school band, youth groups, and so on.
My wife has a bizarre college degree, one that is not particularly marketable, and yet we got here and she found an organization that had been looking for the last 3 years for someone with exactly her specialty!
She loves what she does.
My job was a b!tch, and I was the only college-educated person in the group; the rest were grizzled 20+ year veterans of the company who only had their jobs because of time with the company and 'who they knew' (and a couple were total jerks);
so when I blew out my knee in June and was told by my surgeon that I could still do IT support, just couldn't lift/haul/carry equipment around, it was equal parts of relief and disappointment.
Still don't know how that's all going to shake out...I'm not on a 90 day "job search leave of absence", and they are SUPPOSEDLY trying to find a position for me. We'll see.
Anyway, enough background.
I'm somewhat an introvert, an INFJ Myers-Briggs.
In the dictionary next to the words "Hyperactive Extrovert", is my wife's picture.
We are really struggling to find 'common ground'; it pisses her off and frustrates her that I am not the fun-loving, life of the party like she is.
She claims I spectate, I don't participate in our family's activities.
I've made a HUGE effort lately, attending soccer games, HS Football games just to support my daughter in the marching band, attending LOTS of "extra" church activities with my wife in addition to just the Sunday morning services, and doing lots of activities in the 'spirit of community' as she has asked.
She told me today that things are getting busy for her at work, and she doesn't appreciate how little participation I invest into our family's activities...(wtf?)
I explained that I'm having a really tough time having to go through a work transition-- again-- right after we relocated to take a job down here, and I just needed some support and encouragement.
She asked me what that looks like, and I went through a long description.
She got mad and said I was calling her a fool (wtf again?)
I asked if this was a MINO (marriage in name only); she said 'at this point', pretty much.
I pour my heart out about how much I wanted to improve things.
She somewhere pulled out of that conversation that I was calling her a fool.
I tried to protest and say "not at all, that's not even close to what I was trying to say",
She was like "yes it is, that's what you communicated".
So in the midst of tough times, when I desperately need someone who sees the good in me, who trusts and encourages and reminds me that someone believes in me, all I get is a boatload of negative expectations.
Talk about sucking the wind right out of a guy's sails...
At least it's not raining.
