I find lately psychology very interesting. It has really helped me to understand my and my family's reactions better. I have to make my family a bit healthier and correct many mistakes we had made before.

Let's take an example. Yesterday, my wife initiated a discussion about how I should work in the future. I have been postponing for months now to find a new job. She has started getting angry at me. And she told me that she doesn't understand me.

I actually have a reasons not to commit to anything yet. And it's not because I'm lazy, or I don't want to work. Not at all, but because my current goals are very different. As I mentioned above I want currently a heartier family that take a lot of my time and energy.

Last year, before I resigned, the mental state of our family was a disaster. I was stressed, my wife was super stressed, and we couldn't really talk about almost anything without going into war or just escaping from the whole discussion. Our kids were also in a very bad state. The constant stress and war between us stressed them as well. We couldn't really help them with their problems as their biggest problem was our biggest problem, the constant war.

This situation has changed a lot. I believe we are on a very good trajectory now, but we are still far from our goal (at least my goal). My wife is still super stressed, and it takes extreme energy from me to handle the situation. It also requires a lot of energy to help the kids with their problems. I really don't want to sacrifice these results and go back to the old state.

I raised my points to my wife. She immediately refuted them as those are only excuses. She didn't even try to consider what I'm saying. My immediate reaction was to fight back, then I rather stayed quiet. I did flight.

As I didn't really answer, she got even more upset. She pushed on. 'I can't understand you'. She even added that I don't give a shit to her thoughts, her fear (anxiety) of not having enough money.

This topic we have already discussed and even though I can understand this fear it's not something that is a present danger to use. Apparently, she couldn't fully align with it.

Now it's clear that being in those states not helping us to have a healthy, constructive discussion. Refutal of my feeling, and the feeling of not being understood (from my wife) make us feel unsafe. Unsafety triggers flight or fight response instead of constructive discussion. I have to calm down and think through how I can phrase my reasons that my wife can understand it. That she doesn't feel unsafe. In order to achieve this, I first need to make sure that her fear is addressed. That we are aligned and I completely understand her reasons.

It sounds easy. It is not. I can spend a lot of time unravelling every single one of these disagreements. And we have a lot.

And exactly this is why I'm afraid of committing to something that takes away a significant amount of my time (and my wife's time as well, because suddenly she has to take back some of the duties at home).