Hannahfluke
Member
On her blog, GalaGirl was talking about emotional flooding and said this about an experience she had recently with her husband. She was wondering why he reacted the way he did and why it was so hard for him to recognize that she was flooding.
My boyfriend is wonderful at doing just this for me. Holding me, petting me (sometimes literally petting my hair calms me down), just letting me spew out everything that I feel like crap about and letting me just get it all out. My husband, not so much. He wants to know what's wrong so he can fix it right now, with me giving him step by step instructions on how to fix it for me.
My boyfriend has been out of town since the 18th of December. I've been dealing with the stress of Christmas, the stress of life in general, the stress of possibly adding a friends with benefits relationship to my life, the stress of coming off birth control after getting an IUD (I think this is resulting in my hormones being all out of wack). In general, I'm just feeling kind of on edge. My husband has been reacting to it with frustration. He just doesn't seem to get that I sometimes can't give him a detailed list of what's wrong and what he can do. Yesterday afternoon, he did hold me for a while, which helped, but then he kept pressing for something he could do, which I don't know. We did have a good night playing board games with some friends, a good dinner and good conversation.
This morning, a few things he said triggered me right back to the emotional flooding. We're throwing a New Year's Eve party tomorrow. The problem is that he's gone all day today, I work 8 am to 6:30 pm today and 5:30 am to 4:00 pm tomorrow and New Year's Day. I'm leaving the party early and crashing at my boyfriend's place, but it's still stressful. I told my husband it might be good if he cleaned off his part of the dresser today before he left and he just got frustrated with me, because he was late already. A few other little details happened that just left me frustrated and feeling unheard. I sent an email to my boyfriend, asking him to reassure me that I'm a valuable part of his life. We talked on the phone for a few minutes, but he's in Scotland, I'm in the US and there's not much he can do from there.
I suppose I'm looking for advice on how to communicate with my husband in a way that leaves me feeling understood instead of frustrated because he just wants me to solve my own problems. How do I get out of this loop without the usual physical and emotional support I get from my boyfriend, how do I help my husband learn these things that help me?
EMOTIONAL FLOODING
and just whip out the automatic general purpose TLC comfort bandaid of
"I see you are upset. There, there. Poor baby. It will pass. We'll sort it out. You'll tell me all about it. For now though... there, there.Just shush..."
Pat, pat, hug and rock me or something. How come my KID can get that on auto pilot? Why are adults not able to see/do this for other adults easily?
Galagirl
My boyfriend is wonderful at doing just this for me. Holding me, petting me (sometimes literally petting my hair calms me down), just letting me spew out everything that I feel like crap about and letting me just get it all out. My husband, not so much. He wants to know what's wrong so he can fix it right now, with me giving him step by step instructions on how to fix it for me.
My boyfriend has been out of town since the 18th of December. I've been dealing with the stress of Christmas, the stress of life in general, the stress of possibly adding a friends with benefits relationship to my life, the stress of coming off birth control after getting an IUD (I think this is resulting in my hormones being all out of wack). In general, I'm just feeling kind of on edge. My husband has been reacting to it with frustration. He just doesn't seem to get that I sometimes can't give him a detailed list of what's wrong and what he can do. Yesterday afternoon, he did hold me for a while, which helped, but then he kept pressing for something he could do, which I don't know. We did have a good night playing board games with some friends, a good dinner and good conversation.
This morning, a few things he said triggered me right back to the emotional flooding. We're throwing a New Year's Eve party tomorrow. The problem is that he's gone all day today, I work 8 am to 6:30 pm today and 5:30 am to 4:00 pm tomorrow and New Year's Day. I'm leaving the party early and crashing at my boyfriend's place, but it's still stressful. I told my husband it might be good if he cleaned off his part of the dresser today before he left and he just got frustrated with me, because he was late already. A few other little details happened that just left me frustrated and feeling unheard. I sent an email to my boyfriend, asking him to reassure me that I'm a valuable part of his life. We talked on the phone for a few minutes, but he's in Scotland, I'm in the US and there's not much he can do from there.
I suppose I'm looking for advice on how to communicate with my husband in a way that leaves me feeling understood instead of frustrated because he just wants me to solve my own problems. How do I get out of this loop without the usual physical and emotional support I get from my boyfriend, how do I help my husband learn these things that help me?