Carolyn: I have been with my husband for a total of 10 years now, and we are both in our early 30s. I absolutely adore him.
I am an introvert. My husband is a true extrovert who has MANY friends. When we decided to get married, I knew that was his personality and was fine with his going out and attending parties whenever he wanted to and I would stay home on occasions when I wanted to.
The problem is that the older I get, the more occasions there are when I want to stay home. Specifically, visiting his family is just exhausting for me. We always have a billion things scheduled and go from place to place having lunches, coffees, dinners, drinks, etc., with all his friends and family.
I love that he enjoys all of this, I really do. However, I find myself dreading these visits.
What is the right balance here? I really care for his family, they are great people and I love them to visit me in our home, but I feel out of my element and overwhelmed when we visit there. Help! I want to do the right thing for my husband.
ANONYMOUS
As your foray into good-sportsmanship just demonstrated, sometimes the right thing for your husband is to do the right thing for you.
You love him and you like his family, and haven’t clipped his extrovert wings, so the important things are there. Meaning, you don’t need to prove your affection for either by pasting a smile on your face through lunch, coffee, dinner, drinks and the dread “etc.”
Instead, you can explain to your husband that the social interactions that energize him have a draining effect on you. Then point out that the enthusiasm deficit he detects isn’t purposeful — you’ve really tried to rally for him — but it is real, because these visits wipe you out. Then say you’d like to start including some breaks on your next visit so you can really enjoy yourself with these great people, instead of just trying to appear as if you are for fear of hurting their feelings. Then, ask him if he has any preference in the way you handle these breaks. Quantity of social time comes at the expense of quality. Therefore, neither of you will like the results if he rejects either-or and expects you to have his capacity for both.
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