Well traveling as a threesome was certainly more stressful. Sarah had the task of balancing herself between two men in her life. She has the responsibility of having to make sure she divided her attention to each of us. Her wanting to balance the needs of two men while carving out some time for herself was not an enviable position. She was further stressed by dad's drinking and at times petulant behavior. I believed she found a rhythm towards the end where everything coexisted while not totally stress free, but kept in a easier place to handle.
I felt a kind of pulling myself of wanting to spend romantic time with my wife, yet having to navigate the minefield of stress she was feeling with dad. I have a certain relationship and way I take care of Dad. It works for me. My approach uses humor and self depreciating comments, along with directness at times, to get dad to look at his behavior. Needless to say, that approach did not always sit well with Sarah. I felt the need to handle more and with more care. The contrast of styles of caregiving led to stress. I am at ease when traveling alone with dad that if lousy events happen from hotels to food choices and everything in between he is fine and views it as part of the experience. I felt the stress of not wanting things to go wrong which I do not feel when traveling alone or just with dad. In fairness to Sarah, I have found I feel that more when traveling with any woman than a man. The process of traveling as oppose to the content. I work best when I am in charge of someone's care. The sharing of care was stressful as I did not at times know when to talk or shut up (always an issue with me, the shutting up that is). Through all the stress of this trip, Sarah and I had a breakthrough and reached new level of closeness and understanding. I do not know how to explain or how it came about but it just seem to happen. We got closer in spite of the stress.
This has been as we say in therapy, a learning experience. We can take what worked, what did not
and what we need to do differently. We all love Dad so it is not a matter of right and wrong but
allowing each of us to care give in our own way and respect the other person's ability to do it their
way.
I felt a kind of pulling myself of wanting to spend romantic time with my wife, yet having to navigate the minefield of stress she was feeling with dad. I have a certain relationship and way I take care of Dad. It works for me. My approach uses humor and self depreciating comments, along with directness at times, to get dad to look at his behavior. Needless to say, that approach did not always sit well with Sarah. I felt the need to handle more and with more care. The contrast of styles of caregiving led to stress. I am at ease when traveling alone with dad that if lousy events happen from hotels to food choices and everything in between he is fine and views it as part of the experience. I felt the stress of not wanting things to go wrong which I do not feel when traveling alone or just with dad. In fairness to Sarah, I have found I feel that more when traveling with any woman than a man. The process of traveling as oppose to the content. I work best when I am in charge of someone's care. The sharing of care was stressful as I did not at times know when to talk or shut up (always an issue with me, the shutting up that is). Through all the stress of this trip, Sarah and I had a breakthrough and reached new level of closeness and understanding. I do not know how to explain or how it came about but it just seem to happen. We got closer in spite of the stress.
This has been as we say in therapy, a learning experience. We can take what worked, what did not
and what we need to do differently. We all love Dad so it is not a matter of right and wrong but
allowing each of us to care give in our own way and respect the other person's ability to do it their
way.
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