DH and i have been together for 10 years, two DC. Lots that's good, but also tough times including a period after our first child was born when i had decided to leave him.
We've just had a row over something minor (filling in a form - i passed him my computer to do write his bit. As he often does, something that I thought would take him 5 mins had become 30 mins and counting of pouring over details, editing and re-editing). I asked him to hurry up as i have other admin to finish this evening and he flew into a rage (thought i asked him aggressively) and stormed off. And right now (and after quite a lot of conflict recently) I'm wondering.
areas that worry me are:
This minor argument is reflective of a bigger issue. He is a perfectionist and spends incredible amounts of time on things that many other people would get done much more quickly. And i hate it. At work it means he is very slow to get things done (he'll check and re check and re check say an email he's drafted - sometimes spending 20 mins re-checking and slightly editing a pretty short email. And so frequently works very late into the night, is always behind in his tasks.
He's often incredibly tired (due to the working late because he works so slow) so then can be short and snappy with me, and the children. I really hate this, and think it needs to change. Lockdown has made it worse, and has been very hard for me to take, as while my work was directly involved with pandemic response and my working hours went up significantly, his work wasn't. If anything at the start things should have been quieter for him. Yet somehow he 'had' to do more hours than me. On less work.
the perfectionism and slow working that follows are driven by deep seated insecurity, I think, and i have a lot of compassion for that. But the children and me have to live with the real world consequences, and I am running out of capacity to work around him.
We react quite differently to stressful events, and when presented with a new one this leads us to fight over the 'right' approach rather than pull together. This does get better when something comes around again. But has been exhausting this year when those new stressful events just keep on coming.
I worry we don't have enough sexual chemistry / compatibility to keep us going. Sex was decent at the start (though never amazing) but as time has gone on has become less frequent with children, etc. We have talked about trying to improve this. But honestly both of us find talking about it hard. I'm motivated to try to find a way through this, but i'm not sure he is. I think he wants it to be better but is afraid of the introspection and vulnerabilty needed to get there.
But then there's lots that's good:
we have lots in common. Plenty to talk about. He's supportive of my career and proud of my success. He pulls his weight around the house (sometimes at the expensive of his sleep - he\ll stay up late doing domestic stuff even if he's had several late nights working recently). He adores our children and is on the whole, great with them. he listens to me on parenting (his parents - not british - were borderline abusive by modern standards) and works hard to do things differently / better than them. He's a thoughtful and generous gift giver. He's a believer in 'occasions' and good at dates (though tends to leave me to organise the logistics of a babysitter etc. We spend a lot of time together as a family of four and it's often great (it's not, though when he's tired and snappy after a late night). He's completely committed to us - he doesn't have many friends, nor see the ones he does have much (I'd like him to do this a bit more). He'd never go and get lost in a hobby the way some partners do (though, again, i think having something else outside of family and work might bring him a bit of stress relief and balance).
Sorry this is so long. But i feel like i (maybe we) need some perspective. After recent arguments I feel so angry and frustrated I consider divorce. But then we have great times together or as a family and i think that's ridiculous.
Do recurring disputes matter? Are we papering over cracks? Should we try to improve them? What if his insecure workaholic ways aren't going to change? What if our sex life is once a month-ish and vanilla as can be for the rest of our marriage?
Maybe it's time to try relationship counselling, to help us break out of these patterns?