DH is a wonderfully selfless person with an easygoing attitude who spends most of his life helping others. I deeply appreciate his selflessness/easygoing-ness and I tell him that often.
HOWEVER. Sometimes his selflessness causes frustrating situations. He often "martyrs" himself unintentionally, over-committing his time & energy and then gets depressed / tired because he hasn't prioritized self-care or work / family responsibilities. I often try to help him see how he brought it on himself unnecessarily, but, he continues. I don't have a lot of empathy at this point.
Two examples:
1) Last week I took a nap. I fully planned on putting away dishes & laundry when I woke up - two chores I actually *enjoy*. He *knows* I enjoy those things, and they are "my" chores. Instead, he did it while I was asleep, to "help me out." But then later on he complained about how he didn't have time to do his grading, and was stressed out for the last 2 hours of the evening.
2) Today I asked him to put acid in the pool and anchor the some shelves, two things only *he* can do. Instead, he hung up the laundry and cleaned the pool, which were 2 things our babysitters were going to do tmrw during naptime, like they do every other day (so this is nothing new). It's 2:30 pm and now he's cranky because he didn't eat lunch and he's "behind" on his work (teaching stuff and a side business.) And now I'll feel like a nagging b*tch if I remind him about the 2 things I actually asked him to do.
These kind of things happen at least weekly, where he goes out of his way to be helpful (truly, it is a desire to help, not get attention or praise) but then ends up staying up too late then and/or putting off his own, more important things. Then, ultimately, his tiredness & crankiness impacts our relationship.
Anyone have a similar DH? How can I help him prioritize better? Or how can I deal with the fallout of crankiness and lack of sleep and try to maintain some semblance of empathy....? Maybe I'm just venting here, I don't know.