u/InfamousCut755

So my wife is constantly anxious. she’s a stay at home mom finishing her masters and now starting a part time job after 3 years of being home with our two boys. She’s an amazing woman who takes a lot on. With all of that though she’s constantly stressed and on the edge. When I leave for work throughout the day it’s like any little speed bump turns the world into her enemy, I get grouped in with the things bothering her and we end up fighting for a bit then not talking for a couple hours and when she picks me up it’s like we’re okay again she becomes calm and happy. We’ve talked recently about how she’s needed more help at home and I’m taken on more of the chores anywhere I can from watching the kids to handling the laundry for the week and cooking our meals and that’s no problem. I just don’t know how to handle the moments during the day when the stress of the kids and life stop her from being able to talk to me as someone who’s there to help her and be her partner because it’s like the irritations send her into defense mode

So my parents divorced when I was 12 and it was messy in the way that they used me against each other and made me pick sides. Being 12 I thought I had to and chose to go with my mom. Now I’m pushing 30, I have two kids and a better look at how my mom is as a person and how my dad was based on how he was raised. So I’m sitting here coming to terms with bettering myself and teaching myself how to communicate and navigate my own marriage coming from two emotionally distant parents who didn’t give me the tools to really see my emotions as anything but a impediment to others. While down this journey I’ve thought about my dad and how we haven’t talked since the divorce. How his parents abandoned him at the same age and moved across the country without telling him. How he was never given the tools to be a rounded person and a part of me is so deeply sad for him and I feel like I’m coming at him with some kind of recognition but the other side of me is pissed that he hasn’t been in my life. I reached out to him months ago and never got a reply but I look at my boys and I think about how no matter how fucked emotionally I am I would never give up the chance to be in their life so it hurts me when I think that he saw that opening and decided to not take it. I don’t know if any of this is cohesive but essentially I’m mourning a relationship and a place to be able to go to if I need help or just to talk that I never really had and I don’t think I’m ever going to have.