My wife has a business apart from her full time job. In January the business has a two week period when it is profitable, and my wife sets up a market stall with her mother and sells clothes. I worked on markets as a child, but I stopped as I found dealing with people in retail was difficult because I suffer from acute depression and anxiety. This two week period used to take place during our winter vacation in Australia and would absorb most of our vacation period. I offered to help for a couples of days about eight years ago, but still felt the same way and did not want to repeat. My wife however, started expecting me to be involved every time, whereupon the whole vacation became something I dreaded.
We migrated to Australia eighteen months ago, and I have a full-time job here. I help my wife prepare stock for sale, which takes some time, but it is all I feel comfortable doing due to minimal people interaction. I have my own full-time job and teach online in evenings. Still, I offered to help her both Sundays of the sale period, the last of which is tomorrow. A few days ago, I was diagnosed as having a para-umbilical hernia that was very fatty, and the doctor advised me not to do anything that involved lifting or awkward body movements. I described what I did for my wife on the markets, and he said to avoid anything like that. I had to take a day off work on Friday, which my wife supported, but when she came home, she asked me to work an additional market day. I politely refused, and now she will not talk to me at all.
Now I know this is important to my wife and have tried to talk to her about it, but the situation has repeated itself for many years and I do not wish to be a part of her business when it comes to doing retail sales. I can help her in other ways for certain, but I cannot work in any line of work which involves sales or potential confrontation. The issue is that she is demanding something from me that I do not feel able to do because it makes me so anxious. The situation with the hernia is just making it worse. I do not know how to respond to her in a biblical way. I am not even sure what scripture says about this. Again,
We migrated to Australia eighteen months ago, and I have a full-time job here. I help my wife prepare stock for sale, which takes some time, but it is all I feel comfortable doing due to minimal people interaction. I have my own full-time job and teach online in evenings. Still, I offered to help her both Sundays of the sale period, the last of which is tomorrow. A few days ago, I was diagnosed as having a para-umbilical hernia that was very fatty, and the doctor advised me not to do anything that involved lifting or awkward body movements. I described what I did for my wife on the markets, and he said to avoid anything like that. I had to take a day off work on Friday, which my wife supported, but when she came home, she asked me to work an additional market day. I politely refused, and now she will not talk to me at all.
Now I know this is important to my wife and have tried to talk to her about it, but the situation has repeated itself for many years and I do not wish to be a part of her business when it comes to doing retail sales. I can help her in other ways for certain, but I cannot work in any line of work which involves sales or potential confrontation. The issue is that she is demanding something from me that I do not feel able to do because it makes me so anxious. The situation with the hernia is just making it worse. I do not know how to respond to her in a biblical way. I am not even sure what scripture says about this. Again,
