When one of you is laid off or seriously ill or grieving a parent’s recent death, both of you get stressed. So does your relationship. Choose carefully how to deal with each other.
The last thing you need right now is to do a kindness for the other that gets rejected or sneered at.
If your husband or wife is working extra hours to make up for your loss of income, it’s kind to take on more of the vacuuming or to get the kids’ their back-to-school haircuts. Even so, it could really annoy him or her if you two fail to come to this decision jointly during such a challenging time. You need to find your Third Alternatives together.
Beware of assuming that your mate needs what you need when you’re working too many hours or too sick to get much done. The odds are good that you disagree. One of you craves help with chores (Love Language: Acts of Service). Another wants more time to talk through the new stresses (Love Language: Quality Time). Or to hear that this changes nothing about your feelings for each other (Love Language: Words of Affirmation).
It’s not just about Love Languages, either. One of you wants only to know that the stress will be temporary (“Did you send out any more applications today?”) or that they are right to seek routine while they heal (“Please don’t make the kids’ lunches for them. I can still do that, you know.”)
This is a time for asking what your spouse needs and suggesting options that would work for you. Don’t treat these as demands. You are not the only person who can meet your spouse’s needs. But you might be the only one still creative enough to come up with ideas for getting them met. {“Would it be helpful if I invited my sister/your father/our old au pair to come stay with us for a few weeks?”) Let the reaction to the options help you two both discover what a great Third Alternative needs to avoid.
And if your spouse isn’t asking you, it’s also a time for sharing what you need and asking for ideas on how to get it, so that you two can ride this roller coaster as a team and not as two stressed-out individuals on their own or as the needy one and the martyr, building resentments that will erode your relationship for months or years to come.