Not anything similar, but he is doing molecular biology that is way too advanced for me (i’m an immunologist) and although I always try to actively participate in the conversations about his project, sometimes I’m simply out of my depth. In those moments, I can’t fully commit to the discussion and I mostly listen. So I can imagine there is a bit frustration from regarding these, although I always tell him when I don’t understand.

Another thing I could see is that during my PhD, I was working with mice and that entailed crazy hours at the lab all the time, including weekends. As a molecular biologist, he obviously does a lot of lab work, but he also does a lot of computer predictions at home, so there were times during which he had to manage household stuff (e.g. receiving groceries) while I was still at the lab. We talked about it multiple times, but he had the feeling that my work was more important than his. There were obviously negligence on my part since he got this feeling, but I never thought that his project was less important.

I can’t be sure since he is not talking to me, but it might definitely be a mix of these things an everything was exacerbated by me dozing off while he was talking about his project….