I want to talk, but this seems to render him incapable (long - sorry)

[trashcanjunkie]

I've been with my boyfriend for just over a year now. He works in mental health in a senior position and his regular hours are 8 - 5 or 6 mon to fri. He also works on the nhs bank in the same field at a much lower grade - nurse technician. When we first got together he was doing ridiculous amounts of bank shifts, ie every weekend, some times both days, and several evening shifts in the week and occasional nights.

After observing this for a while (during which time I witnessed him doing so many bank shifts that he ended up taking a day off his proper job) I tackled him about it, and he agreed that he had difficulty saying no when extra bank shifts came up.

When I tackled the subject with him he first of all said he needed the money. This was utter bollocks and I gently pointed that out. We then got to a stage were he was able to see that working extra was a go to thing when he felt stressed. He then agreed that it was a shit stress buster as it left him fucked. He agreed to cut his bank shifts down to one every other month (this took a little while, he had to wean himself off) He admitted he liked the feeling that people needed him - even though he agreed that wasn't true.

Now, that was a little while ago, and he's still struggling with stress, although he tries to keep this to himself. (that's his answer to stress management!)

I have no problem with him doing bank shifts til they come out of his arse, but I do have issue with it affecting the rest of his life outside of work, cos he's knackered and miserable.

He rang today to say he'd be working late tonight (I take care of his dog during the day.) He sometimes has to in his normal job. He was much later than usual, though, and it suddenly came to me that he might be doing a 'sneaky' bank shift. He rang after he'd finished and started telling me all the reasons he'd had to stay late ie there was some problem on the ward that needed him there blah blah blah, and although they were all perfectly valid and true, I got the whiff of bullshit. I asked him outright, 'did you do a bank shift then?' and he said (after a long pause) yes.

I was livid, but said nothing on the phone. I feel like he's been evasive about it, and said so when I saw him. He got very defensive and said he hadn't meant to, and that's not what he'd set out to do.

I feel like he's being dishonest with himself, and my answer to any kind of problem like this is to try and talk through the issues and understand things more. This seems to bamboozle him and shut him down. I'm not sure how to proceed.

yes I totally agree distance

As far as his position in his family - he has always felt needed by them. He is older than his brother by several years, and his mum had a breakdown after his parents marriage broke down when he was a boy. From what he's told me, it seems as though he took up the position of 'man of the house' and took care of his mothers emotional needs from then on. That has started to change significantly since I came along.

I have an inkling that part of his reason for working in mental health is that he feels very secure being the therapist to people who are extremely unwell. Kind of like a plumber with dodgy drains iykwim. Although he is extremely informed about what mental health is, and how everyone's can suffer from time to time, he struggles to apply any solution based thinking to himself, and is loathe to seek help elsewhere.

He's been primed his whole life to rescue people and take on the emotional suffering of others over his own. This is something I have worked really hard on changing in myself, cos that was my job in my family.

I think you are still doing it tbh. You are trying to highlight the 'error' in his personality so you can rescue him from it. I would focus more on why you are doing this, than worrying about his burn out, esp as you have children.

I worked in MH services for years. It is a very full, all encompassing, emotionally draining job. For some people it's addictive. I worked with a lot of nurses who's partners came second. They were always doing bank, I often wondered if they were unhappy at home. There was a fair amount of infidelity going around too.

The fact that he is lying to about bank shifts is a big red flag.

i think he says working late rather than bank shift to avoid you bringing up issue and lecturing him about it

not everyone and more men than women like to talk things through sometimes they just want privacy, no talking make their own decisions etc

he wants to work more you have a problem with it ( even if you think it is in his best interests) so he keeps quiet about it

Sorry but you need to back off. I would be dumping a partner who behaved the way you are doing - you've had some therapy so you think it's up to you to diagnose and 'fix' everyone around you whether they like it or not.
His coping strategy is his business, not yours. If you are not happy with the amount of time he has to spend with you, it's fine to end the relationship and move on, but this constant sleeve-plucking and insistence on talking about something that he doesn't percieve as a problem is maddening to be on the recieving end of.

Why is it 'bollocks' that he doesn't need the money, perhaps he wants to save up, perhaps he likes working a lot and the extra money is part of that? I agree with SGB, you need to back off and stop trying to get him to agree that he needs 'fixing', if you have expressed your concern, it's still up to him as an independent adult to decide what work he chooses to do, you are not married/have children together and even if you do, you won't agree all the time on what has to happen (which appears to be what you tell him!)

My husband has workaholic tendencies, but so do I, there's nothing wrong with working a lot if you love it, it gives your life meaning and purpose and you use it to cope with stress (and earn more money)- or at least we do not perceive it as a problem, even though we do get tired and stressed at times, it's how we prefer to live our lives. I think laying down rules on how much extra work he can do a year in is quite controlling and I wouldn't be stopping working because my boyfriend told me to.

I'm in no way blaming you for his work addiction HOWEVER... When you talk of being someone who wants to be their absolute best, always striving to better yourself, and you expect that from a partner, etc. - well, a man addicted to working coupled with a woman with this attitude and approach to life is only going to feel more of a need to work extra hard and long.

He has childhood issues that make him feel like he has to do his best and do lots for people. You insist that anyone involved with you has to do their best and do lots. Do you see what is going on here? You are attracted to each other because you unconsciously feed each other's dysfunctions.

You insist on perfection; you fall for a man who can't stop working. You also want to fix people and he has an obvious problem. You are helping create the problem that you then want to fix, so it'll never be fixed. You'll always feel like you're the one who is trying the hardest and you'll always have something you want to fix. This is what you get out of it. He has someone whose attitude condones his obsessive drive to work and serve and do his best, even if outwardly you complain, and, by you saying it's a problem for you, he actually gets to be the person who is helped, instead of him doing the helping, for once. This is what he gets out of it.

You do sound like you want to appear very together, no issues, very upbeat, very active, very capable, etc., etc., and he's got the problems. Well, we often choose people who act as mirrors to flaws in our behaviour that we can't see or don't want to see. The striving to always be the very best, all the time - he's showing you that it's damaging and ruins stuff.

If you want to improve your communication and get to the bottom of what's driving his behaviour ( and why you are so upset by it) I highly recommend Non Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenburg. Check out the reviews on Amazon but it's a very insightful and illuminating book written by a hugely experienced psychotherapist who has worked in conflict resolution situations around the world and is highly effective ( I couldn't put it down when I started it last week..!)

thanks for all the replies guys.

mumsyblouse, I really don't mind how much he works. I don't mind how he chooses to spend his time when he isn't with me, and he is not obliged to tell me anything he doesn't want to. The night I'm annoyed about, we had no arrangement to see each other, and he'd arranged to go out with mates post work for a drink. He rang me up to tell me he'd 'had' to stay late in the afternoon, and I'd offered to hang on to the dog, quite happily - I wouldn't have minded at all if he'd been upfront about the shift at that point, but he wasn't - he said he had to work late. He rang again after he'd finished work very miserable, cos he felt knackered, couldn't be arsed to meet his mates, and was already late for them, and wanting my sympathy. When I asked him if he'd done a bank shift, there was a long pause before he said it had been, at which point my sympathy evaporated, because of the manner in which he'd sought it. I feel like I'm allowed to have an opinion, cos it directly affects me when he's all sorry for himself. If he'd been upfront in the first place, yes I'd have had sympathy, but I would also have reminded him that he'd chosen to put himself in that position.

He's not addicted to work, but by his own admission he's had a problem in the past saying no to bank shifts, and he's made changes by setting his own boundaries and sticking to them. He's told me this has really made a big difference to how he's felt, in a positive way.

It felt like a bit of a backwards step, and I felt like a bit of a mug because I was being very sympathetic about how crappy he felt as he'd had to stay late. It's quite different in my head, if it turns out it was a bank shift he'd been offered and taken... And I wouldn't have been cross he'd done that, just a bit more, like, well, we've all got choices eh pet?

I can see your perspective, trashcan it is annoying when people moan about avoidable things, but this talk of boundary-setting sounds like what I do with my three year old, not my life partner. Sorry, I think you are overmanaging his life (under the guise of helping him) so when he makes independent decisions, such as doing a bank shift knowing he'll be knackered but still doing it anyway (I often work late knowing I'll be knackered, that's the deal) you are annoyed as he basically didn't do what you told him to. If you want to be really boundary-setting around it, you can say you are not interested in listening to him moaning after a bank shift. But he sounds like a naughty child confessing he ate sweets to his mother, sorry!

Solidgold I'm not sure why you think I've had therapy.... and I'm not trying to fix him, cos he's not broken.

I'd worked hard to create a nice life for myself and my kids before I met him. And I feel like that's worked. What's wrong with working to create foundations for a nice life together with somebody? I've been very open about this with him from day one, and he's been really happy with that.

We don't agree on everything, and that's really okay! (I hate it when men stand to piss in the toilet, he wouldn't 'sit to piss' unless his legs were broken) and we compromise quite nicely and agree to differ, but fundamentally we agree on the things we consider important. He loves me and I love him, and we are planning a life together.

he set the boundaries though! Not me, and I don't feel like it's okay to come back with the same problem, wanting support for it, when there's an obvious out. I'm only human, and listening to the same record is only acceptable up to a point.

I must have a bit of an ex-smokers attitude to smoking here iyswim. I used to work mega long hours in a high stress job. The money was great, but everything else wasn't. Then I got cancer. Everything changed for me, because I realised what was important to me was the quality of the life I live today. I totally changed my career, and now run my own very small business, which gives me much more freedom. I'm on a lot lower income, and I've never been happier, and I work at managing my stress because that's important to me.

He didn't need to tell me anything! We weren't supposed to see each other that night.