How do you and your spouse conversate during high stress?

Princess_Lily

Do you talk to your spouse about every thing that goes on?

DH insists about being at the big meetings, and staying involved
- but Im noticing he is sinking into a depression. Between the IEP meetings & conversations with the school, health issues (DH has a fractured arm) & financial circumstances (debt) we are in right now - it seems like our world is a bit insane now. I try to stay positive through this, talking is very cathartic for me, I enjoy it. The support groups Ive looked into (CHADD) meet at very inconvenient times - but I'm still on the lookout.

I want to keep DH in the loop, but I feel like the more I do, the harder it gets to speak to him. I feel like I should just write everything down, and this way, if he is wondering what's going on, I could tell him.

What do you guys do?

KL777

During high stress, we still try to communicate and try not to dwell on the issue that is highly stressful.  I fill DH in on selective things, like the school is doing testing for DS.  DS's poor behavior really stresses DH out so I don't tell him every single wrong thing he does.

JoJoGee

I would say I'm lucky, DH and I are pretty similar.  We stay calm during the storm and then unload afterwards.  In instances where it is impossible to stay calm (i.e. our extended NICU stay), then we have different times in which we each break down and take turns comforting each other. During highly stressful situations, we rely a lot on humor.  Our eyes will be full of tears, but we'll be cracking up laughing because one of us farted or something (immature yes, but it is what it is).

Binge watching netflix is also a great outlet for us.  

finsup

LOL - Auntie, my family would is the same way.

As for the stress - DH and I handle it differently for sure.  We always say that as long as one of is is okay, then we'll get by.  Its when both of us are feeling the stress at the same time that we run into trouble.

DS was dx a few months after we picked up our family and moved across the country.  It was, in my mind, the WORST possible timing (but when is a good time to get this news) and I spent the better part of a year processing and dealing with my feelings about the whole thing.  I probably could have used some counseling, honestly.

I'm the researcher and the talker.  I need to learn every detail about everything and discuss it to death before I make a decision, its a lengthy process.  DH evaluates options and makes a decision before I can even open a webpage to begin research.  He was trained in the Army to think fast and on the fly, evaluate and adjust on the go.  I'm not that way at all.  I view his way being too careless not analytical enough.  He views my way as analytical to the point of indecision.  Although we drive each other nuts at times, we do balance each other out well.  But you can imagine how this went when we were deciding which course of therapy we wanted to put in place for our ASD kiddo.

I have found that not everything needs to be a "deep dive" discussion.  Although I would like to discuss everything to death he does not.  So I save up the big conversations with him for the big decisions and big events, and deal with the little stuff on my own - talking with friends or other Moms.

The thing for me, is that even with a big network of IRL or online friends - DH is the only one who is "all in" when it comes to DS.  Other people care of course, and want him to do well and succeed, but the reality is that its him and I, and we have to be on the same team.