There's probably a better subreddit, but I'm not familiar with which is best so I thought I might try here and see what you guys could suggest. I'm trying to figure out how to help my husband overcome or better manage stress and to deal with his work situation.
First off, my husband is a super duper awesome person, man and worker. But he struggles with some personality traits that, while usually good, go into overdrive in a bad way. He's wonderful, caring, smart, always asking if I need anything, etc. However, he's also responsible to a fault. By that I mean he takes on responsibility for things over and above until he can't take the stress and freaks. His body will start to physically manifest negative symptoms because he's so worked up. In the past he's developed ulcers, had panic attacks, and most notably and recently it affects his sleep – he will become an insomniac or only be able to sleep for 1-3 hours a night. His brain just can't get out of the loop on what's on his mind, which is typically work stuff. He doesn't have a lot of other outlets either, with covid or our financial situation cutting out typical releases like the gym, sports and friend outtings.
His work is mentally intense. Requires a lot of understanding of a highly specialized technical field, attention to detail keeping projects on track. Since starting there, his work has been piling it on more and more, giving him essentially 2.5 worth of people's tasks. Senior Management and his direct boss have given him responsibility to fix areas of the business that are not in his job description, but he's uniquely qualified to fix (due to his master's degree and previous work experience). His work says yeah yeah we need to hire someone else, then just doesn't or takes 12 months. Literally no one to escalate to, they're all piling it on. It's less work for him to just do the tasks of 2.5 people than to try to keep 5 other Senior Management folks to task on hiring and fixing the fundamental issues. And unless his projects to fail (which reflects badly on husband) they just won't fix anything. It's kind of like his workplace is the abusive spouse, promising to fix things then just never doing it.
This is where I come in and admit how I'm also part of the problem. Because of covid and other issues, I was laid off of the last two jobs in 2020 and haven't contributed since. I haven't been nearly the partner I should. If typical gender roles were reversed, most of us would instinctively say “wait, he's been a bum not contributing to the house for two years? Kick 'em to the curb!” You wouldn't be wrong. I haven't hustled like I should so we weren't relying on him alone to make ends meet. To fix this, I'm currently in the final vetting stages of getting a job offer, complicated by the fact that I'm 8.5 months pregnant so will have to delay the work start date (and therefore financial contributions to the household) for several months until kid is born and settled a bit.
So essentially, my husband feels stuck. His workplace will never stop piling on more work, no matter how much he gets done. I can't be the main breadwinner right now so he can't quit, and he can't rely on his workplace getting any better. His Responsibility-streak can't just dump tasks off because he's really the only one who has the background to do these extra tasks and if things fall apart, he'll be out of a job anyways.
So why post any of this? I guess I was hoping for some thoughts, ideas, strategies you guys might have how I can help him.
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How do I find a therapist or psychologist that might help him work through some of these mental gymnastics and resulting physical manifestations? I'm not hopeful he'll want to go, because it's just extra time out of his day when he already gets home at 7-8 pm every day, but it might be one avenue to explore to help him develop the tools to tell work to back off, not his problem.
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Any books, resources, other Reddit feeds you think might be helpful?
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How as a spouse can I help him disrupt these mental loops he can't shake keeping him up at night?
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What are your anecdotal stories I might find some nuggets of wisdom in?
Thanks all. I'm probably going to cross post this elsewhere, but seeing as this is an abusive relationship (abusive workplace specifically) i thought it might be worth posting here.