Tim says to me the other day “I think I’m struggling a bit…emotionally.”
Man, you know it’s bad when a guy says something like that.
It caught me a little off-guard and I didn’t know quite what to make of it, so I kinda just said, “Oh, ok. That’s no good honey”.
Later, I started putting a few things together; he’d been sick lately and unmotivated and had had more time than usual off work. He’d been sleeping all the time, playing games on his phone and withdrawing a lot. He’d been falling asleep on the floor before bedtime and falling asleep in bed when I’ve been talking to him.
Then alarm bells started going off – we’ve been here before! He’s been physically incapacitated and depressed and ended up dropping to part-time work! Are we back where we started???
Predictably, I went straight to mummy mode. My first instinct was to try to take the pressure off him. Maybe I should encourage him to take more time off work? Give him more relaxation time, ease up on trying to talk to him about everything?
Then I remembered I did that last time, and it hadn’t helped. In fact, his motivation dropped further and he ended up working less, I ended up working more and trying to take less of his time and energy up with our relationship and we became more distant and isolated.
So, I went back to the theory, and thought about what motivates a man. What are we always telling people? Men are motivated by challenge, being appreciated for sacrificing and providing, particularly for a woman and a family. So, I guess, technically, I’d say the way for a woman to support a man in this situation would be to keep asking for what she needs, because without that, he’ll be losing a primary source of significance and fulfilment, but also she should dial up the appreciation she’s outputting for his efforts.
So, deep breath, can I put my money where my mouth is? It’s a big risk! What if this struggling dude collapses under the pressure?
As usual, I have a million things that I want from him right now: to clean up his side of the room (not to mention the 4 sheds and overflow areas outside), focus on getting the final checks done on our house extension plans (and start building it for crying out loud!), fix my falling-apart car (or just buy me a new one) (But don’t buy me a new one, coz we need to pay for the house first!), take us on a holiday, just to name a few.
So while my car is on the blink, I’m dragging his clunky 80 series Landcruiser around. (I know, all the men – including my husband – just gasped in horror at my sacrelige!) On the way home from taking the kids to school today, I thought about messaging him to get back on his case and remind him to call the engineer about our house plans again. Then, the picture of me from when we were engaged that he has stuck in the window seal of the windscreen of said Landcruiser, slid down.
Yesterday, I’d looked fondly at that photo, thinking how he’s had it stuck there now for 19 years, how sweet! I’m always on his case about hoarding too many things, so I had meant to message him about the photo yesterday and tell him that I liked that he’d kept it and it made me feel special that he looked at it everyday, and had it up in his 4WD.
There’s always the temptation in marriage to punish the other person for their faults, and ignore where these become virtues. I struggle with appreciating him for his competency in having just what we need when we need it because I worry that it will encourage him to continue unhealthy hoarding behaviours. In a similar way, he struggled to compliment me about my appearance for a long time in our relationship because he felt it encouraged me to focus only on my external value.
But, after seeing what it did to me, and the difference it made when he decided to stop holding this back from me, I’ve decided to do the same for him. Now, I thought about that picture yesterday, and thought I’ll message him about it when I get home. But just like that funny noise in my car, once I’m in the door, I never think about it again til I’m back driving the next morning! (Much to Tim’s dismay, and hence why I’m now driving his car). So I knew that thinking about it wasn’t enough and thinking I’ll do it later wouldn’t work.
So I had to make the decision to stop the car then and there and write the message. For someone like me who’s all about efficiency, that was a hard call. But, I think it’s the one our relationship needed. I need to be able to ask him for what I need, and I need him to be in a fit state to hear it and act on it. So, I need to take the time to appreciate him for the things he does do in the relationship.
So, that was the start. It’s not easy to give out appreciation when you feel like he hasn’t been pulling his weight or when it feels like he’s been ignoring me, and only focusing on work. I feel isolated from him due to his lack of energy when he gets home after working long hours. But, I mean, the guy did say he was struggling, can I really ask for anything more? Normally what I’d do would be try to hold it all in and give him a break until he’s feeling better (a time that never seems to arrive and I always end up exploding at him eventually). So, time for a different strategy.
Instead, I asked him to make some time for me the next night. During the day I sent him a message and told him how much I appreciated him going to work and the long hours he was doing and that it made me feel safe to know he was earning the money that we needed. That night, he made the time to sit down with me and he listened to my boring and repetitive stories about my problems at work again, which made me feel happy and then he went and had a bath, and then I reminded him to get out of the bath (he loses track of time, while I am acutely aware of it most of the time), and then he even made love to me that evening, in a pretty spectacular way.
From my point of view, I am happy in the relationship and I am continuing to feel appreciative of him, despite his lower energy and I maintain a commitment to making time to appreciate him for the efforts he puts in, rather than trying to pick up the slack for him.
Fast forward 5 months later and I suddenly realised, I think he’s been doing better! He’s back working longer hours, but without the withdrawal afterwards, not falling asleep early, and he’s making time to listen to me. I asked him about what he’d said that time, and if he still felt the same. He said, “Nah, I think I’m better”. So I told him about my experiment, not to say that I thought I had “fixed him” with it, but that I had thought it might be more supportive than my previous strategy, and whether he agreed. He was gracious enough to say that he had noticed the appreciation more than usual and he did think it had helped.
No fireworks. But hey, no sick leave, part-time work or depression meds either! Just a man who’s back to normal (our new normal, which is pretty fabulous). It might seem like not much, but it’s the little things, a small shift in focus in the relationship, that can set a long-term trajectory that leads to great things.
Men and women have different fundamental needs in a relationship. Women need to feel listened to, men need to feel appreciated. Many life and relationship problems for men and women are resolvable through simply using this method: listen to women more, appreciate men more. Though all of us are tempted (out of love) to give the other person the one that we ourselves want, it is far more edifying to give them what they need.
little words 