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DH is misdirecting his anger to me and it's getting old

erindawnerindawn member
in Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months

My DH is an unemployed science engineer and has been out of work for a while and has been looking for "the job" (vs. a job) for about 6 months now with no luck.  This has been frustrating for him, which I totally understand.

So, his way of dealing with his frustration and anger at the universe is to be crabby with me and tell me he's "worried he'll never find a job".  He's starting to nit-pick about every little thing.  He declared yesterday that the clutter (toys) around here are "really starting to effect his mood".  I told him I think he's misdirecting his anger and trying to exercise control over things that don't really matter since he can't control the job search.  He freaked out and told me I was using his feelings against him.

In general he walks around acting like I just peed in his Cheerios.  I walk on eggshells 1/2 of the time and I'm tired of all of it.  Why can't he enjoy this time with his son instead of moping that he can't find a job- then when he does find one he'll just *** about the job anyways.

 

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Re: DH is misdirecting his anger to me and it's getting old

  • purple_posiespurple_posies

    1. Tell him to clean and organize the toys in a way that would be satisfactory to him.

    2. Sometimes he probably just wants to b!tch and complain and have you validate his feelings instead of offering a solution.

    3. Don't walk on eggshells ... he'll get over himself eventually.

    4. It's stressful not having a job ? and everyone who has a job b!tches about their job.  It's just the way of the world, lol.

    But I'm sorry you're having these problems.

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  • dragon_chicadragon_chica member
    imagepurple_posies:

    1. Tell him to clean and organize the toys in a way that would be satisfactory to him.

    2. Sometimes he probably just wants to b!tch and complain and have you validate his feelings instead of offering a solution.

    3. Don't walk on eggshells ... he'll get over himself eventually.

    4. It's stressful not having a job ? and everyone who has a job b!tches about their job.  It's just the way of the world, lol.

    But I'm sorry you're having these problems.

    All of this.  If he's unemployed then he needs to take on the role as SAHD and clean up the damn toys himself.  If it was the other way around I'm sure he'd expect the same from you.

    I also want to add that even though it's understandable that he wants to find THE job but for now he just needs to find A job.  Otherwise he needs to treat looking for a job as his job.  Is he getting up every morning and spending a good 2-3 hours pounding the pavement?  Or is he relying on internet job search engines to do the work and think that emailing his resume to multiple companies is "job hunting?"

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  • criticalmasscriticalmass
    My husband is a mechanical engineer and his company has had to lay off a lot of people over the past year, they have also slowly started to re-hire employees. One re-hire stands out because while he was laid off he worked at Starbucks... thats right a highly educated engineer was working at Starbucks because he had a family to support and needed to keep active.
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  • SparkFishSparkFish
    I think you're totally right that he's trying to control things at home because he can't control the job situation. I was unemployed for 8 months a while back, so I can definitely understand his frustration, and I can also understand why he doesn't want to just take any job, especially if you can financially afford to have him out of work while he looks for a job he really wants. But, realistically, you can only look for a job so many hours a day, and then you need to do something to fill up your time. Right now his is filling his time with fighting with you, which is not cool. Sounds like he needs an activity that helps him feel useful and get out of the house. Since he has a background in engineering/math, maybe he could volunteer at one of those after school programs to get kids interested in science and engineering? Or maybe he could take a class at a local college to broaden his skill set? 
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