Sticking your head in the sand

[WisdomOfCrowds]

Have you ever done it over something important? Just stuck your head in the sand and refused to engage with the problem even though that was clearly making the problem worse, even to the point it was affecting the people you loved? If so can you explain to me what you were thinking/ feeling while it was happening? I'm trying hard to put myself in someone else's shoes.

Journo?

Not a journo I promise. My partner has put us in a really shitty situation by burying his head in the sand and not dealing with something. I'm trying to understand so I can try and forgive him but I'm very much a "face things head on" kind of person so it's hard for me to imagine how he let it go so far. I try and empasidr but just circle back to "wtf were you thinking?!" When I ask I'm he just says he doesn't know, so I'm asking here instead.

Empathise*

I’ve definitely buried my head in the sand when it’s come to debt before if that’s the issue. And when I say debt I’m talking about amounts under £1000 - nothing life changing.
I’m very bad for ignoring any life admin type stuff until it absolutely has to be done or mostly after that point.

I’m the opposite and always react to things head on (not always a good thing tbh). I know of someone who consistently buries their head in the sand.

Examples: draining away his and his wife’s life savings, selling stock without her knowledge and taking out loans and not coming clean until she couldn’t pay for her food shop by which point they were in financial ruin.

Another fine example is said man not owning up to the fact he was the father of a child until presented with a paternity test.

When quizzed on why we determined it was a lack of courage to own up to what was going on around him. He fact he couldn’t manage the family finances emasculated him, and re the baby he couldn’t face telling his family of his monstrous behaviour.

Some people don’t have the courage and conviction to face up to the facts

He didn't go into any debt thankfully but he lost his job and lied about it for months, let us keep spending as if we still had the same disposable income as before, and only when the money ran out and I said "oh that's odd, the cards not working" did he finally come clean. Well actually, not quite, first he pretended to call the bank to sort it out... We have savings and he's got a Christmas temp job now for December then a new job starting January, so we're going to be ok, but I just can't get my head around it. If he'd been honest at the start we could have economised, budgeted, he could have found a temp job earlier. He says he just stuck his head in the sand and didn't/ couldn't think about it, but I just find that utterly bewildering!

Yes I've put it down to total spinelessness as well didsomeonesaybunny.

That’s more than burying your head in the sand! That’s living a lie.

Yeh, he lost his job a few months before I was due to give birth and his top answer is that he wanted to protect me from anymore stress Because finding out you're broke and have been lied to for months with a newborn is much less stressful. I just love scraping my old gift cards and nectar points together to get Christmas gifts for our toddler - not stressful at all!

Have you posted about this before OP? It sounds very familiar? Apologies if I've confused you with another poster.

Yeh I posted about it a few weeks ago under a different name when I first found out. I'm trying really hard to understand how this happened but I just can't imagine what was going through his head! White nose and static? Seriously I'm at a total loss.

He's been to the doctors where he scored highly for depression and anxiety but the doc (apparently) said that now he has a new job he should wait and see if that helps before considering medication. He gave him a leaflet about mindfulness exercises and sent him home. Now I've suffered depression myself before and have definitely felt unable to cope with basic tasks like returning phone calls or opening mail, so I get the depression and avoidant behaviours link, but surely this is a step beyond...