It has gotten way worse since we started our own business, because now he doesn't have a boss. He struggles with staying up all night. He struggles with actually putting the hours into the business that it needs (other than customer demands). We have some money in savings but if we don't get our business to grow soon, we are going to run out of money and then go into some serious debt. I do the bookkeeping, but we have a toddler and can't afford childcare so most of my time is spent taking care of him. My husband has admitted he has this problem but hates talking about it. When I try to bring it up, we usually just fight. He has also admitted that he probably wouldn't be able to keep a job (he got fired from the first one for being late too often and the only reason he kept the second one was because he was so good at the work his boss put up with him being late).
I struggle with having negative feelings toward him on a daily basis, which is affecting my relationship with God because I feel like I can't repent of this (repenting means turning away from sin, right? But I can't seem to turn away from the negativity). Since all the household chores, child care, and the burden of our failing business feels like mine to carry, I feel anger toward my husband for not doing his part.
But by far, my biggest fear is that what will happen is this: I will finally be the one who has to get a job, while continuing to do all the chores and a lot of the child care, while he spends most of his time doing what he feels like doing, and I'm terrified that I will resent him for it.
I appreciate any advice you have, and of course your prayers.
Also, if anyone else (female) is going through something similar, I would love to connect with you on-on-one, not to bash our husbands, but to share our struggles and encourage each other.
Thank you for reading!
Husband and wife relationships are the hardest of all relationships.
It is, in my opinion, the toughest classroom in the schoolhouse. Expecting one or the other to change usually ends up in disappointment. Not to say that change is not necessary in certain situations, but to expect it in our timing is going to be a big letdown. Communication is a must, communication is not always possible, here is where it gets tricky. Men, speaking for myself and other men, have a hard time confronting our issues. We so want to just sweep them under the carpet and hope they go away.
It rarely happens, there is a common ground written in the Scriptures that allows each other to be themselves and time given to work out differences.
In counseling, as a counselor, I see it as a lost art, if you will, and that art being the two becoming one.
Which is such a lovely picture of Christ and his church, or the body of Christ, which he is the head of.
In Christianity, marriages have no head other than Christ, that is not a popular term that I use. For women yes maybe, but for men they rebuff, rebuke, the walls comes up, and their defenses start.
Until I can explain myself I lose the attention of most males, I am use to that.
I'm saying this to you, to get to my point, and that point would be, that the believer must see Christ in other believers.
The husband can't just see himself as the masculine male entity in the relationship, and the female cannot see herself as the fragile, feminine female of the relationship.
He is not just a husband, he is a divine expression of Christ. He is not just a father to a child, he is the perfect expression of the Christ in him. The same is true of the wife, she is the perfect expression of the Christ in her, that is expressed as the uniqueness of her creation.
This is what the Scriptures teach about relationships, we must see Christ in each other.
Apart from the pure teaching of the word of God and pure Grace message, relationships struggle. I do not have to tell you that they can be the hardest thing in this world, possibly, you will ever have to endure.
Bless you and your husband, search Paul's epistles, see what he has to say to the born-again believer, he has the cure for humanity and it's struggles.