Reply To: How do you know when its time?

I want to explain one thing. I don’t think my husband is a “cheuvanist” overall. I think he has some cheuvanistc VIEWS. He can be sweet and helpful at times. He doesn’t look at a garbage bag and say “NIMBY(not in my back yard, meaning, not my job). What irks me is when I feel he should take care of his “stuff” and he just drops the topic. Maybe it’s really about opening the lines of communication. Being able to talk so we can really hear each other and not just have our own agendas and ideas of how things should go. If you could hear that silent voice of your wife’s talking, what would it say? I think if I really tuned in to my husbands true neshoma, his hopes, wishes, dreams and fears, it would say “I’m having a hard time making Parnassa and I feel really guilty about it (and lousy about myself). Deep down I wish I could be every thing you’d want, but it’s not working. Could you work? And then if he could hear me, he’d hear how lousy I feel about myself that I want to do more, but that I’m scared. There’s so much that’s happening underneath the surface. We can be married to each other, and so far apart emotionally. And the longer it takes to talk the more scared and untrusting we become. We need to hear our spouses wishes, hopes, dreams and fears and not be afraid to listen. After we do that, we need them to hear ours (and be shown that talking about it is safe and we won’t be criticized). This whole business is so scary, but it’s too big a deal to let it go easily. If there’s even a teeny bit of kindness and hope that she can hear you, and you her, then I’d say, fight for it.