His help

I feel like I need to put a caveat for this post. I don't fully understand the nuances of various titles, or philosophies, or lifestyles at this point. I am not looking to offend anyone, but I am trying to work through some thinking for myself, so please bear with me. I am certainly open to explanations or even constructive criticism. The issue has to do with rules, or discipline, or - it's actually larger than that, having someone else be in any way responsible for my actions or decisions. I will try to be coherent here, but this one really swirls around in my head in a lot of directions.

We have been married some time, so of course there are, not really rules, but preferences, ways of doing things, habits we have worked out because that makes things run more smoothly. Some evolved after a lot of argument, some more easily. But all of these have to do with making the household run better, or with raising our children in an intentional, thought out way. We really don't interfere in things that have to do with our individual lives. We support and encourage each other, and we care about each other's success or failure, but we don't suggest or offer advice.

Recently, I have been working on a very large project for work. It is a bit daunting, and I have been much too easily distracted, ironically, often by pursuits like this. (This is much more interesting.) But, maybe its just a bad case of burning out a little too early. In any case, my husband did step in and come up with a plan, and a timeline, and goals, and all those management sorts of tools. He even checks up to make sure i'm hitting them. And I am extremely grateful.

But I am conflicted about it as well. I have always, from probably the age of 5, been self motivated, self driven. My parents had a fairly lassaiz-faire attitude, college was a fun challenge - so I rose to it, and the nature of my job was such that feedback on performance was never a huge component. I never did organized sports that had coaching, and for the athletics in which I participate now, I compete only with myself. So, overall, it does feel unnatural, a bit incompetent, even lazy to have someone else prodding and pushing. So, when my husband told me he was stepping in as it were, I felt ashamed and guilty. I had disappointed him, and made him need to take the time and effort to help me with my responsibilities.

I have to admit though that I also felt something new, which I'm not sure I can describe. Instead of lashing out and telling him to butt out, I felt quiet. I felt his care and his interest and even pride in what I had done and was trying to do. I was very anxious (still am) about being accountable to someone else, but I felt a lot closer to him as well. I also had more than a twitch of excitment elsewhere, which seems completely backwards to me.

I don't know what to do with any of this. I still can't reconcile the idea of asking him to take on more responsibility, why should he? And shouldn't I be able to manage myself? Is it possible that both of us would be better off, be enhanced by changing other aspects of our interactions this way? Or would I be the only beneficiary? And that doesn't seem fair. Yea - i know fair is a 4 letter word, that's the problem, I really don't know how to decide if it's right or wrong.