Poor poor pitiful me

You know I love my husband. You only have to read the many posts around our marriage to understand how very much I love him. But right now I'm struggling. A lot.

HB is depressed. He told me last weekend that he believes he is burning out. He is beyond busy, that's for sure. He is a music teacher and has responsibility for two schools. That means double everything - two choirs, two bands, two musicals, two concerts....not to mention double the classload and having to remember over 600 students. It's a lot. Plus the board that he works for is, as most boards are, severely underfunded and the decisions made with what funding they do have are probably questionable. The schools can't afford class sets of materials for his program, so he spends any free time during the day that he does have at the photocopier.

And that's just his job. In addition to this, he has about several other interest areas outside of work.

He is an athlete who needs to have a work out or run as part of his day.

He is a musician. He plays in one band that has regular gigs and also practices every Sunday afternoon. Besides that band, he is in high demand as a musician for just about anything that's going on in our local community. People are always asking him if he will sit in on this production, that concert, accompany this person for that event....and he always says yes.

He is a father. Although Frodo and Mini-Me don't live with us full time, HB has a full time presence in their lives. He makes getting to every hockey or basketball game a priority. He will work dropping in to just hang out with them into his schedule.

He is a Christian. He is constantly agreeing to provide service to the Christian community to which we belong, or our parish, or just to people we know in general. I have seen him come home, dead tired, come into the house only to go right back out again to help our neighbour move furniture or take care of some other chore.

And right now he's burned out. So, although he is also a husband, our marriage and the things that go along with that are not high on his list. What is high on his list is sitting on the couch and bitching about how much he has to do. And as I've said, they are all very valid complaints.

But as his wife, I feel compelled to help. To change. To fix. And yet, I know that's not what I'm called to do in this case. What I'm called to do is to listen. Just listen. Receive it, and not judge.

I'm failing at that task.

I'm so frustrated with it! Last night I couldn't help myself. I offered about four different solutions (all mine...none his) and he accepted none of them. In fact, he listed two obstacles to each solution that I offered. He got snooty with me when I offered to help with something specific. He snapped "what can you do? Go play lead guitar for me in the studio on Saturday? Teach my classes tomorrow?" which prompted me to storm up the stairs, lock myself in the bathroom and soak in the tub until my skin was wrinkled. We slept, backs turned to each other, all night.

This morning we both apologized. He acknowledged that he could have answered more politely by simply saying if he thought of anything I could help with, I'd be the first to know...and I acknowledged that the more appropriate action for me to take is to listen instead of trying to fix.

But here's the thing that I can't say to him.

His behaviour is pushing every old button that I have from my first miserable just-for-a-minute-by-mistake marriage. I feel like I'm walking right back into that house that I lived in with that asshole I made the mistake with right now. He was depressed at the end of it all as well, and would spend hours sitting on the couch just staring at the wall. I couldn't handle it, and in the end, the marriage ended. Which was not a bad thing, nor was it the reason the marriage ended, but it still pushes those buttons for me.

In fact, even though I know it's a totally unreasonable thought, I'm starting to wonder if I drive men to depression.