Sweet injured man seeks non-bitch wife
So is this, like, *my* problem because I don't think it is
We’ve had this fight before. My husband had gone to the hospital in an ambulance and after I’d arranged for my parents to pick the kids up from school, packed a hospital bag, gotten myself to the city hospital, and learned that what I had feared was maybe a heart attack was something way more minor I had run out of Nice Lady points. I know he felt bad about how everything had gone down, and he was in physical pain, but I was now at this stage of comforting:
This brought up a nice vintage argument of ours regarding why I can’t be nicer when my spouse is injured or sick (especially when I perceive the downtime as being avoidable.) I’ve promised to try and have worked on it, but I’ve also yelled back, “You are asking me to be a completely different person than I am!” If I really put my back into it, I can summon up kindness and the occasional shoulder pat but even under the best of circumstances I am a nurse who takes care of business (⚡) more than doles out sympathy and sweetness. And this time was not the best of circumstances.
I decided to call in an expert. I emailed Cindy Kuzma, a sports journalist friend of mine who has a book coming out next month called Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries. She’s also been married to a human man for many years so I thought maybe she’d have good advice on how we could get through this recurring argument in a way that was productive but also, you know, affirmed everything I felt.
Q: What have you learned about how injuries affect relationships? My husband hurt his back, not serious, but it was quite inconvenient and will prove to be expensive, and I can’t stop being angry with him for not exercising regularly which I think could prevent this from happening. He is mad at me for not being nicer. I don’t know how people do this.
Cindy Kuzma’s A:
When we're injured we all need four main types of support—emotional (pretty self-explanatory), motivational (related, but more like cheerleading or taskmastering than soothing/listening), informational (what to do from a doctor, physical therapist, etc.), and tangible (physical assistance as well as cash and whatnot).
It is not possible or advisable for one person to be ALL of that for you, and there are times when there is a mismatch between what an injured person expects and what a person in their life is able to offer. That's when resentment can occur.
Maybe there's a way for you to both take a breath and recognize that if you are going to be a big source of tangible support right now, whether that's physically caring for him or doing all the shit he can't do, you can't also be his emotional support (he deserves sympathy but maybe he can seek it elsewhere). And maybe he can recognize that you have as much right to feel angry or upset as he does, and that you don't really have control over that. You have to touch on it in order to move through it to the place you need to be to support him.
After you FEEL YOUR FEELINGS, my favorite word to use to try to shift my mindset is "prefer." “I would prefer this not to be happening.” “I would've preferred him to take care of himself well enough to prevent this.” But it happened, so what can we do now? You don't have to be happy about it, but I find repeating that moves me on to solutions vs. being stuck in the anger.
I like Cindy’s advice, because it helps us avoid being stuck in anger, which is admittedly never an ideal place for a marriage, but it also lets me maintain the caretaking style that I prefer.
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