This post is going to be a hot mess of a ramble because I just do not have the time this week to form a "proper" steemit post. It has been hard to cut myself away from this site a little bit in order to get through how much I have going on in my life right now. I see so many posts I want to read but have to save, and have an ever-growing list of topics I want to write about.
I just feel like garbage today emotionally and I really don't want my whole day to be overshadows by it. I have become recently really interested in our energy fields and have been trying to learn a little bit more about that, while also trying to be MINDFUL of whether I'm giving or receiving negative energy so that I can actively try to find a way to get away from it and replace it with positive energy somehow. I am starting to see read so much on just how literally our moods/thoughts/emotions effect our physical health and I don't want to put that extra strain on myself.
My husband, John, has been sending a lot of negative energy my way in the last few weeks. In a nutshell he either gets stressed out from work-related things and let's his annoyance of random habits of mine build up inside of him until it explodes because I guess as humans we always seem to deflect our worst selves onto the people we feel closest to and safest with. I do the same thing to him in my own way.
Right now aside from his full-time day job that keeps him plenty busy, he also is involved with a side business running a fantasy football site with a few other people. They are in the middle of doing a pretty major overhaul of the whole thing, working with some new guys to help them with the website tech and I volunteered to help them with design.
Why did I do this? John was pretty reluctant when I started showing interest in helping him improve his mock-ups...
We have a history of not always working well together on projects. When we were younger we used to have a business doing archival, videography, and creating really customized slideshows and montages and we always bickered through that. I always thought of him as just being bossy and not listening and he thought I was negative about everything and putting up fights every step of the way for no reason.
We work at the same company for our day job, and we've definitely bickered here and there when our projects intersect, but we've mostly figured out how to get along in that arena. I actually like that we understand what each other's work lives and stresses are, have shared experiences working with other colleagues, etc. He's fantastic at his job, I am very proud of him. He's directly responsible for a steady and constant growth that his team has and he works SO WELL with clients.
When he first started to get involved with this fantasy site, and he was helping the other owners build their current site themselves, I would be beside him most nights, helping him with how to do certain tasks in photoshop or illustrator, kind of getting sucked in to helping. I put together the first draft of what would eventually become their logo, tried to give design feedback/input, which was rarely taken and almost always questioned.
It has become very clear to me that the two of us do NOT have the same taste. All of them are in the camp of people (like so many of my clients at work) who think that when it comes to design MORE and MORE. That 'fancy' equates to shiny metallics and bubbly shapes with lots of drop shadows and embossing and clip art that makes me feel like I'm taking a PowerPoint class in 1995. Basically I think their website is terrible.
But, their content is FANTASTIC. They have a real opportunity with this relaunch to turn a passion project into a real business and I would love nothing more than to watch my husband succeed in that. I would LOVE it if all of the time he invests into this could be rewarded by supplementing our income and taking some strain off of life. It's worth the time and attention he gives it, but that doesn't make it easier when I am picking up the slack in the home and child-rearing department, on top of my own full time job and other interests and extra projects I could only dream of having time to devote to.
So naturally, I want to do whatever I can to aid in that success if I think I could add value. Even though I know working with my husband is difficult I literally could not just sit by and let them try to fumble their way through putting together a rudimentary UI when I could easily take their wants and needs and bring it to another level.
So I helped take a mockup of their main offering and improved the initial concept and finalized it over a few rounds of feedback. I asked their website design a few times and John would always dismiss it, get annoyed that I even cared, and would say that either the tech guys were doing it (like they didnt have a say, read, they never talked about it) or that they didn't have time for a full design.
Well then soon they all start finally talking about design and being asked what they want and I put together a mock-up late Friday night after coming home from a concert. It was fine, we threw on The Big Lebowski and had a nice night being productive. There was room for improvement but I started to lay out what the guys liked about some wireframes and it was a decent first step in my opinion. John seemed happy with it when we went to bed, he sure didn't criticize any of it.
Then the next morning the other owners see it and one of them actually said it looked like something his 2 year old could do. Thanks. So glad you appreciate the free help. They had some points, some valid, some that just sounded like the speak of clients who don't know design enough to know how to articulate or understand what they really want (my day job).
Last night after several calls between them, John showed me what they wanted in a mockup they threw together themselves. So many bad choices. Even the site they took inspiration from, is just not great to begin with.
It is so frustrating to want to see something be its best and to want to do good work and be held back. Because this is not my day job and my client is my husband, I am very honest with how much of a bad direction I think they are going in, and he takes it as me just being a difficult nightmare to work with. That I just want to fight him on every details for the sake of it.
I can't stand when in a relationship you are accused of malicious intent. I can be super bitchy and upset my husband a hell of a lot, I am far from perfect, but intention is an important word and I am not some kind of sociopath who enjoys tormenting her spouse for the sake of it. If I'm saying something you don't like it's because it's honestly how I feel and I want to be able to express myself to my partner.
So last night just sucked. I was so disheartened and frustrated at what I see as bad design, at my experience as a designer meaning not being respected or taken remotely seriously by these guys. We were on a cycle of this
John: what do you think about this?
Me: I don't like it
John: Well why not?? What's wrong with it??
Me: explaining why I don't like it
John: You think your opinion is the only one that matters! There are more than one way to do good design, you care too much! It doesn't matter what font we use!!
Me: of course im frustrated that literally every opinion I'm giving you blow up at me for and get defensive and are really showing that my own husband doesn't respect my design experience whatsoever.
This is one of the biggest blows because just a few weeks ago John was feeling frustrated and under appreciated for his own expertise as a media producer and I completely supported him, had his emotional back and validated him.
Then when I don't want to deal with this anymore (don't want to even do this anymore, but would never bail on him like that)- and he asks my opinion on something else, I told him to just defer to whatever (his partner) wanted and he gets all mad that I'm being passive aggressive and trying to start another fight when I'm literally just trying to avoid conflict at all costs. Again, being accused of having ill intent. I hate that so much.
I know I need to let clients have their way, but it is really hard to step back and not get too invested when his business effects my life every single day.
Any thoughts or words of wisdom whether you are a spouse, or a designer who can identify with any part of these struggles would be appreciated. It is fantastic timing to be butting heads like this days after I stopped nursing my son and am having withdrawals from all of the happy mommy hormones.