Ep. 128: I Don't Have a Name For This Dynamic Other Than Marriage Shutdown

So in my first call, the male spouse, he's the one that sought me out.

He stated that he can tell that his spouse is like totally burning out, is mad at him all the time, and he tries to help.

And this is what he said to me.

I usually do it wrong.

My spouse describes what I do as anti-help.

He says he'll like forget to pick up after his messes.

He'll like leave clothes on the ground.

He'll leave doors open.

And it's just not helpful.

He also gave an example of how they ordered

these shelves for their kids' rooms.

And he said, like, look, I'll do this.

I'm going to take ownership of it.

You know, one week went by, another week went by, and another, right? And the boxes are still sitting in the middle of the room.

After being nagged to do it hundreds of times by his spouse, he was like, OK, today is the day.

Let's do it.

And he starts putting this together and hours go by and he's like nowhere closer to having these shelves together.

And eventually his spouse goes in and was like, just let me do it.

And on the call, they were like, in 15 minutes, she had it completely done.

And whether it was actually 15 minutes or not, this example, once again, solidified to her that I'm all on my own, that if I want something done, I have to do it myself.

And it solidified to him that I just make mistakes and it's like better for everybody if I just stay out of it.

But obviously this isn't working because they're coming to me.

So now let me talk about the second call.

She was feeling frustrated.

She's like, I feel like we come up with all of these plans that we're going to do and like we feel really hopeful and then nothing ever changes like when we get into our life and we're trying to do it.