Husband overwhelmed but taking more on

[Ilovetea42]

Nc for this as potentially outing. Sorry its a bit of a long one.

My dh is really brilliant- he does a lot for everyone, is very involved at home with our little one and housework etc. He has a very close family and a very intense job that can require him to be very responsive.

He's been under a lot of pressure with work recently, getting called in 4/5 of his annual leave days in one week, often getting called in to work during weekends and working very long hours and under a lot of stress. We have a small baby at home and I've noticed that he's getting to spend less and less time with baby which is tough on both of us as they can be very colicky at night and are hard to settle. It also often means he's becoming a bit more distant and nights where he isn't in the headspace to deal with a colicky baby are becoming more frequent.

Dh also runs a weekly youth club which he's done for many years and is very committed to and has recently joined a sports club one night a week (which I suggested because he has very few friends and no real outlet for his work stress). He has recently started talking about how he gets no enjoyment from anything any more, feels constantly on edge, like everything he does is a chore and has now stopped going to the sports club because he felt guilty being out twice a week for an hour each time. (I had no problem with this because I could see a big positive difference in him for going and was actively encouraging him to keep it up).

There's a bit of sickness in his family at the minute- nothing too serious just colds and flu and he's been running after everyone to make sure they have what they need. However he's just come home tonight after visiting family talking about how they were upset he wasn't visiting them and his granny more. (Granny hasn't recognised him the last few times we've visited/ been asleep/ has asked us to leave after 5 minutes because she's been tired so admittedly its been about 2 months since last visit to her). We see the rest of his family fortnightly usually and I'd offered in laws a weekly dinner to give it more structure and they didn't take us up on that.

He has really taken this criticism to heart and is now feeling guilty and is talking about going to see his granny for a few hours every week and trying to see his parents more. Now that in itself is not a bad thing- but the man is completely overwhelmed I'm genuinely worried he's going to burn out and if I'm honest I'm starting to feel the strain looking after a tiny colicky baby every day by myself. I feel like something has to give but it feels like he just keeps taking more on because he feels obligated to. I know he's under pressure so I try not to add to that but when he brings it up I try to encourage him to put some boundaries in with work before he burns out and he just gets really defensive and shuts down and says he can't and that he shouldn't have cut back on time with his family which means he'll cut back on time at home to accommodate them. We're not in a position for him to look for another job at the moment because my job is very uncertain and I'm currently on maternity. I feel like the thing I love most about him (the he cares so much and tries so hard to do right by everyone) is the very thing that's causing him to be so overwhelmed and I just don't know how to help him. Any advice?

I really feel that his work situation is the underlying cause of his stress around everything else. Why is it that so much falls to him? If nobody else can do what he does, then he needs to start pointing out that he is not getting holidays or weekends and there is a limited time for which he can continue before there will be a crisis, either illness or mental health related, and then they won't have him at all, let alone for his regular hours. He needs to be asking his manager and HR "what are you going to do to solve this?" and keep asking until he gets a plan and a timescale.

Poor guy. I know that when he's under pressure like this it's fire-fighting and there doesn't seem to be time to pause and find a better way. It's possible that he might just need to let stuff go wrong and not step in to do stupid excess hours before his work recognises what it is they are asking of him.

He needs to say No more at work. He is utterly replaceable at work, and is not at home. He will be respected more if he sets boundaries around his availability. No-one respects the person that does it all. People respect the person who says, "yes I'd be delighted to contribute to that; I have xyz to do this quarter, shall we put it on the agenda for next quarter?"

Good time to ask for a payrise, by the way. Cost of living's gone up and he's done lots of over-and-above. So.

I agree with you both, basically the staffing structure means there aren't enough managers at his level to cover the workload and funnily enough the staff on the next level down don't want to progress to management. He's been training some people up in certain tasks to try and get some cover but their rate of absence and sickness is really high (unsurprisingly) so it's not enough to make a noticeable difference. I've had this conversation with him a number of times but he just sees it as me criticising him for not being home more (which is secretly what's in my head but I'm so careful not to say that out loud). I asked him to look after our little one for one day so I could attend a redundancy meeting about my job and when I got home he'd spent the entire time working with the wee one on his knee and it made me feel so guilty for leaving which is unreasonable since that's been my only time away from baby in 4 months. I just don't know how to approach it with him in a way he can actually hear me and I'm worried about how we'd sustain this when I do go back to work because some nights I'm staying up ridiculously late just to catch up on housework because we get so behind. I've told him that he's entitled to his leave and he needs to fight for it, but the problem seems to be as you say he's firefighting so much that he doesn't feel like he can be off.

What would happen if his work called and you were on holiday thousands of miles away and he couldn’t physically get back to work.

Ultimately he just needs to say no to work, but some people really struggle with this. My OH is the same and it’s becoming a bigger issue as our child becomes older. Worked everyday for a bit on holiday. I have really tried to support her to push back and theoretically she understands but she just won’t.