Dh and I have been having the same fight over and over again for about nine years. We have this fight about every 6-8 weeks, though the issue flares up almost every weekend.
The conflict is about time on the weekends. We have 3 kids under 10, and they take up a lot of time and energy. We get to the end of the weekend, and dh complains that he didn't have enough time over the weekend to catch up on work, and he complains that I didn't find that time in the schedule for him. Meanwhile, I'm so sick of this fight that I nearly beg to take the kids out for a few hours, or I tell him to go into the office, or go upstairs to our home office. He refuses. He won't tell me how much time he needs to finish his work. He won't tell me when during the day he needs extra time. But then he gripes about it later. He denies that I've tried to find him extra time. Etc etcetera
I'm so f**ing tired of this argument that I can't approach it rationally when I see it starting. I feel he's being passive aggressive, and it's making me angrier and angrier as the years go by. We've tried writing out schedules, we've tried him sending me a text at the beginning of the weekend saying he won't start a fight. Nothing really works.
I think this fight is about more than time...maybe it's about wanting more freedom, wanting a break, wanting to play the victim, wanting the power to make me upset. Who knows.
But I'm wondering...how do you live with an unsolvable conflict? How do you keep it from damaging your relationship? How do you keep working on solving the problem when it seems futile? Any thoughts?
The conflict is about time on the weekends. We have 3 kids under 10, and they take up a lot of time and energy. We get to the end of the weekend, and dh complains that he didn't have enough time over the weekend to catch up on work, and he complains that I didn't find that time in the schedule for him. Meanwhile, I'm so sick of this fight that I nearly beg to take the kids out for a few hours, or I tell him to go into the office, or go upstairs to our home office. He refuses. He won't tell me how much time he needs to finish his work. He won't tell me when during the day he needs extra time. But then he gripes about it later. He denies that I've tried to find him extra time. Etc etcetera
I'm so f**ing tired of this argument that I can't approach it rationally when I see it starting. I feel he's being passive aggressive, and it's making me angrier and angrier as the years go by. We've tried writing out schedules, we've tried him sending me a text at the beginning of the weekend saying he won't start a fight. Nothing really works.
I think this fight is about more than time...maybe it's about wanting more freedom, wanting a break, wanting to play the victim, wanting the power to make me upset. Who knows.
But I'm wondering...how do you live with an unsolvable conflict? How do you keep it from damaging your relationship? How do you keep working on solving the problem when it seems futile? Any thoughts?
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