Self-Soothing Thwarted by Husband

Have a show on Saturday - have to play an hour and a half set, supposed to do play it with my husband. Got to exactly one song - played it four times and he managed to make so many mistakes I felt like screaming. Told him I'll do the show alone because this way, I don't have to worry about him making mistakes or otherwise annoying me, and I might actually have a good time.

First time I've felt like playing in weeks, so kept the acoustic and decided to work on learning a song by ear. He left the room, was supposed to stay in the back of the apartment. Playing along picking stuff up fine on my own - he comes in, starts playing with me, after I'd said that playing with him is so annoying it makes me not want to play at all ever, and makes my existence more burdensome than it already is. He comes back, and starts figuring out the song with me. I've been telling him for years not to do this unless I ask, now, after the insults and telling him to leave me the f alone, he does this invasive crap. Forget about self-soothing by playing around him - not gonna happen.

Finally, he takes it upon himself to tell me what the chords are, after I've figured them out, and have been playing them for 5 minutes. Told him again to get away from me, even called him a parasite to get him to leave. He asked me why I was calling him that. I want him out of here so badly - there's no way for me to calm down with him puttering around like some nervous old woman, and he's drunk to boot.

He does this whenever he's home and I'm working - even if I'm trying to write a new song - he's all over me with ideas, and other verbiage that I neither want nor am interested in. I've told him this again, and again, to no avail. This is part of the emptiness I feel - my communication skill are actually pretty good, but I'm dealing with a person who cannot respond appropriately. I want to get out of this miserable situation, like yesterday.

I love making music. I always have my acoustic nearby. I have about six guitars, three harmonicas, an electronic keyboard, drum machine, and enough computer software to record, and master my own songs.

Everyone is at different levels in their musical development. We shouldn't get angry at those that aren't as good as us. We should teach, and be patient. We were all there before - learning and sucking at playing.

I think you need to approach the issue differently. I also think its sweet that he is trying to play songs with you.

Perhaps, in a nice way (without name calling etc), just tell him that you appreciate that he's trying to play along and learn the songs, but that he really needs to practice on his own for awhile first, because his limitations are impeding your own development. Tell him that there are times when you can play together and times when you need to rehearse alone. He should be able to understand that. Explain that when you are preparing for a show, he needs to give you yuor space.

Honestly, I don't know the exact situation, so who am I to say anything? But if it gets real bad perhaps you can take your instruments somewhere else when you are getting ready for a show.

Hey Rocknrolla,

You sound wonderfully patient and compassionate which is beautiful. Sounds like you'd be great to collaborate with.

The issue with the husband is this: he's a wonderful guitarist - better than I am, but less confident. The only thing that stands in his way is his lack of self-esteem. He also spends most of his playing time working in things we never perform. He and I have talked about this many times, with varying levels of intensity. I wouldn't be so annoyed, and I certainly wouldn't expect to play with him if I didn't think he could do it. When he's practiced, he plays rings around me, which I absolutely love, and find tremendously inspiring. When he doesn't practice, and gets caught up in his own stuff to the exclusion of that actually makes us money, that's when I lose it.

The other thing we struggle with is when I get triggered and tell him to leave me alone so I can calm down, he has an extremely hard time doing it. I haven't wanted to play guitar outside of work for months. This was the first time I'd picked up the instrument when I wasn't getting paid to do so since April. When I asked him to just leave me to my own devices so I could avoid a meltdown, he kept buzzing around me like a bee. I finally had to put the guitar down and just sit there to get him off my back.

The last two gigs I had I did solo because it just wasn't worth the frustration. It wasn't as much fun, but it was liberating.