Dear Carolyn:
My fiance and I have been dating for about two years. He works really hard in construction and always comes home tired. I am volunteering 30 hours a week at a community service agency, working 30 hours a week as a telemarketer, and taking 18 hours of college classes. He is 25 and I am 22, and I feel we both have excessive amounts of stress. He’s really great! We don’t have many of the problems couples under stress have.
Unfortunately, no matter how much I take on or do, he claims he is always more tired and under more stress. He thinks because I am in an office or in class that I don’t work hard enough. He says physical work is more tiring than mental work. When I am sick, he is always worse. He is never very sympathetic regardless of my burden. Actually, I have been thinking about taking on another small job so he thinks I am “doing something.” What can I do to get him to understand this?
I’m Tired Too!
Dear Tired,
Dump him. It will accomplish absolutely nothing toward making him understand, but it will end a relationship modeled after the Bataan Death March.
Please read these words: To satisfy your fiance, you want to suffer more.
Please see how insane these words are. There is only one thing any of us should ever do to please a mate, and that is to be ourselves. It should be as good a version of ourselves as we can realistically sustain on a daily basis for a lifetime, but ourselves nonetheless.
You have one distinct advantage here. You’re already miserable, and you’re not even married yet. Mazel tov. Now do something about it. It may take 80 hours a week to achieve a worthy fatigue, but you can have guts in a minute. Or less.
———-
Tellme@washpost.com.
For more, chicagotribune.com/advice.
