Frustrated

Disclaimer: Please don't think I'm a bad wife who bad mouths her husband -- or that my husband is anything less than amazing -- I just really feel like beating my head against a brick wall right now and I figure some of you may understand what I'm going through . . . 

OK, so maybe someone further along in recovery can help me out here -- what do you do (or how do you do nothing) when you can just see your husband being pulled in the wrong direction?

J has a good job, that he really likes most of the time.  The schedule is great, at 7AM-4PM, he's home most days by 4:30PM, and even though he's salaried, he rarely has to work more than this.  Then this week something major is going on at work, and he's been working 11-12 hour days most of the week, a full 17 hours yesterday, and he's going on 11 today and he doesn't know when he'll be out of there.  And tomorrow's looking like a good possibility for another 10 hours or so.  The last three days he's just been getting more and more tired and down.  His Dad even called me today and said, "I just talked to J, he's not sounding so great . . ."  My mother in law, when I was dating J, told me, "Out of all my kids, J was the least sick . . . but when he was sick, there was no doubting it.  He was the most sick of them all.  My poor baby."  What I've found in the last 8 years is basically this; it's true, J isn't sick very often, but when he is, his Mom trained him to be as whiny, needy, clingy, moan-y, depressed, down, tired and mopey as humanly possible.  (I have told my husband we will NOT be allowing our sons to behave like this when they are sick -- no future wife deserves it!  He laughs.  I am so not kidding.)  That's the vibe I'm getting right now -- you talk to him and he sounds like he's on death's door.  I mean, I do not doubt he is really tired and even overwhelmed.  I keep telling him how grateful I am he works so hard for our family, I've baked him his favorite treats when he comes home (they're catering lunches and dinners at work, so he's covered there), we're going 90 days without sex, but I'm offering him back or foot rubs 'cause I really do want him to realize how much it means to me that he's working this hard.  But every time I talk to him he just sounds so 'beaten'.  I want to grab him by the shoulders and just shake him and say, "I know it's hard, and I really appreciate it -- but get over it!  It's ONE week of working hard!  You've ripped off hours and hours and hours from this company while searching for pictures and videos of naked women, look at this as a way you can make it up to them!" and mostly, "For the love of all that's holy, DO NOT USE THIS AS AN EXCUSE TO LOOK AT PORN."  That's where it feels like he's at, all this mopey, this-is-so-much-I'm-so-tired-I-can-barely-function stuff is just paving himself a nice little road of excuses leading to porn.

I have a hard time with how much my husband has given himself over to laziness and apathy.  Don't get me wrong, he's a brilliant man who accomplishes a lot.  But he won't do anything that's hard unless forced, and he's gotten so entitled with work (like taking full days looking at porn instead of doing his job, among other things) and I find it so entirely unattractive.  I had a Dad who had the most amazing work ethic -- having my husband cheat his employer out of time, never stay so much as a minute past when he's supposed to, even if there's more to do, even if he hasn't finished his job -- having projects around our house sit half finished for months, even years -- it's so very disappointing.  And scary -- 'cause you know what else is hard -- porn addiction recovery.  And he really, really avoids hard things.


I feel porn has stolen so much of his potential.  I'm upset that he doesn't seem to expect much of himself.  He's a genius, and he won't really apply himself to anything remotely difficult sounding.

And if he looks at porn at work today, I'm gonna be so frustrated.  And angry.  And hurt.

I don't know what to do -- and maybe that's the point, I can't do anything.  Even if it feels like I'm staring at an oncoming train and know what's coming.  Is it appropriate/helpful/hurtful/way off base to just point out that his mood and sudden onset of acting so depressed and tired is a good indication that he's especially vulnerable and he should be extra careful?  Or is that trying to 'manage' him and his recovery in an unhelpful way?


Edited to add:
I find that by writing all this out, I really am working through it and getting to the bottom of what I'm 'really' feeling.  So, I keep coming back and adding to what I wrote so I have it all down 'on paper' in one place of what I'm finding about myself and my feelings.  Thanks so much for all of what you guys wrote!  I took the suggestions and told him how uneasy I'd been feeling about his stress level with work.  He says he's doing OK.  I told him the reason I think it's stressing me out so much is the whole 'he doesn't like to do hard things' . . . he's complaining about how much it sucks to have to work this much, this hard, and all I can think about in the back of my head is, "But you owe them, you screwed them out of countless hours of work looking at porn, you should be happy to have the opportunity to make some of that up . . ." which then basically translates in my head to, "And if you don't think you owe them anything, need to make it up to them with what you took from your employer . . . does that mean you don't see a need to make things better for anyone you hurt or stole from or lied to?"  See how talented I am -- I can totally make EVERYTHING about me :-)  (At least I'm getting increasingly self-aware!)  Anyway, we talked and he said that working this hard has actually been making him feel better, like he can accomplish big things, like he's useful to his employer -- but he's just been so tired, and he's not used to putting in these kind of hours and it's been hard.  And he's been too busy to even think about looking at porn.  Which is good. 
Earlier yesterday I had also wrote pages and page in my journal for Step 2; it had a question about what I wanted God to heal in me, and when I started writing it went on for two pages, and when I was done I was shocked.  I hadn't realized I had that many negative emotions and thoughts about myself and about my situation.  On one hand it was good to purge it all, to start the process of giving it over to God . . . on the other hand, I was surprised at all the negative emotions I had been squashing down, and now having to feel them all since they were right there on paper, was difficult.  I swear sometimes I feel like it's harder to feel bad than it is to just ignore everything -- but I know that doesn't work either.  I talked about this with him too, and he read when I wrote.  I think that was hard for him, he was really teared up reading all these feelings I have about myself since this has happened.  It's hard for him (and me) to see in it that I don't trust him with my mental and emotional well being.  On one hand this is good in my ever-increasing reliance on Christ, on the other it's hard 'cause I feel like I don't get from my marriage what I thought I was supposed to get. 
He thanked me for coming to talk to him . . . he says it's hard sometimes to know how much he's hurt me and caused me to distrust him, even down to his work ethic, but when I come to him and let him be a part of getting it off my chest or feeling better, he feels like I trust him enough to let him help me.  And he wants to help me.  It makes him feel better to be a part of the 'solution', and when I come and talk to him and cry and get it all out, it's painful, but I feel better afterwards, and that makes him feel like he's helping repair some of the damage that's been caused . . .