The mantle of greatness on my shoulders is getting heavy. It sounds horrible but I totally get why so many of us fall to either affairs, alcohol, or divorce.
Its just SO unrelenting. Its a nightmare. I have no energy to do anything after a 60 hour work week, cooking, cleaning, walking youngest to bed until 11 pm and then waking up at 5. One day off a week. I’m just so fking over it 🤢
Open communication back up in your relationship and get over that first hump of stress and emotions that you’re avoiding from this communication.
You may want to get a therapist first to help you formulate what your needs and problems are. No time for therapy? MAKE FUCKING TIME. Jesus christ, who is going to help take care of anyone if you collapse mentally or physically. If you get diagnosed with cancer tomorrow, I fucking guarantee you will make time to go get your chemotherapy or leeches or whatever the country’s new health plans are like.
A mental health crash can be AS BAD as cancer, it has high levels of lethality and can leave lasting harm on you that never goes away, and ruins your plans for a better future.
So what cultural norm or image of yourself are you preserving by pretending to be stoic and invincible? Who are you protecting? What is your end game? You have to ask yourself some harder questions than you’ve been so you can prioritize getting healthier and reorganizing your life.
Likely you have a lot more options and solutions available to you to make the grind less soul-crushing but you can’t see those options because your soul is crushed. You have to repair one little thing at a time so you can get to a high enough place to see more options, and this is hard as fuck to do alone. Get your partner onboard with you or get a therapist or both or you will risk losing everything.
edit: I want to add something, to all the people out there suffering in their lives… Nobody is going to notice. Nobody is coming. Nobody will one day realize how much you sacrifice and give you some kind of reward or sudden, new appreciation. As awkward as it feels, if you want people to appreciate you, you have to ask for it, you have to tell people you don’t feel appreciated, you have to tell them how to make you feel appreciated and what you want to feel appreciated for doing. If you don’t do this early on and regularly, you are going to forget how to feel appreciated entirely and nothing anyone does for you will feel good anymore.