I wonder if anyone else has had this come up in a relationship: I enjoy my job pretty much, but there are times when I’m working twelve or fourteen hour days and feel pretty beat by the end of the day.
When I come home, though, I occasionally get a bit of the cold shoulder because (it seems I’m getting the message) I was in the office all day “enjoying myself.”
My wife stays home with the kid most of the time, but back when she was working she was strictly a nine-to-fiver. She accepts (with some mystification) that sometimes I work late in the office without any sort of overtime () because there’s a project or something, but that just goes to show it really just comes down me getting my jollies while she’s stuck at home. So feeling worn out from working (not that it’s so often) gets me about the same modicum of sympathy as if I were whining about a hangover.
Anyone else have these types of issues come up? (Stories welcome . . . ) What’d you do?
One of the reasons I had such a good relationship with a certain relative’s ex is that both of us travelled a lot for work - and both of us got treated as if we lived on vacation. In her words “I come back from spending a week at a fair, most of it on my feet, and people behave like I’ve spent it on a golden beach, drinking colored drinks with paper umbrellas: it was frakking Frankfurt! People from there come here for their vacations!”
I also happen to loathe face time with the heat of a trillion supernovas (that’s an European trillion), and I’ve had times/projects/bosses which caused a lot of it, and people think that being paid to do nothing at work is “great.” Uh… not when you have to be there for 12-14 hours and have to do exactly nothing, i.e., no reading, no browsing, no nothing. Serious.
Oklahoma City used to have its own professional symphony whose members earned pretty much a pittance. Most had to take second jobs to get by. When they asked for a raise they got very little sympathy, at least as reflected in the editorial pages. The sentiment was mostly, “Hey, you shouldn’t complain. At least you’re doing what you love.”
Needless to say, the last time I checked Oklahoma City does not have a professional symphony now.
ETA: Oops, it looks like they do now. I was talking 30 years ago.
In your wife’s case, does she get much adult interaction during the day? It might be more an issue that she’ jealous that you get some adult conversation, without kid stuff, when she doesn’t. Which still doesn’t make her attitude fair to you at all, but it might be a different explanation that not thinking you work hard because you like your job.
Or you could be totally right, because I have seen people with that attitude.
The only time in my life I lived with a girlfriend, she was pretty much housebound, as she was ill and not allowed to work. She got pretty lonely. At the same time, I was working on a project where unpaid overtime was expected of me. So I was miserable at work, and when I got home, I’d get berated for always being at work. It was a pretty bad period of my life.
And I’ve been asked to work on musical projects for free. When I said I don’t work for free, I’d often get the “but you enjoy it, so you owe me” attitude. The worst of this happened when a coworker was planning a big party at the close of a very long project. (Same one mentioned above, but I had been off of the team for about a year.) He promised all of the project managers that I would show up with my guitar and play for everyone. They all got very excited, and told everyone about it in the invitation e-mails.
The day before the party, he decided to inform me that I was playing. Huh? News to me. I said I was sorry but there was no way I could do it. He pitched a minor hissy fit. “But you LIKE playing! And I PROMISED them you’d play! What am I supposed to do now?” I don’t know, tell them you’re a jackass for promising something that someone else can’t deliver?
I finally ended up doing it, as this guy could have potentially made my life much worse. But it was a huge pain in the ass. To this day I want to punch the guy.
I have never regarded anything I’ve done for a living as ‘work’. Even when I had a proper job, most of it was just sitting at a desk tapping a keyboard, or sitting in meetings. These days I don’t even do that much.
My ancestors, from not too many generations ago, were miners who did 12 hour shifts of hard, dirty, physical labour under very difficult and dangerous conditions, 5 or 6 days a week, 50 weeks a year. I know this can start to sound a bit like the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, but I can assure you that to the people I’m talking about, it wasn’t very funny at all. As a consequence, I’ve never honestly thought that sitting in a comfy office, using a computer to do something or other, never lifting anything heavier than a folder, constituted ‘work’ in any meaningful sense.
I think this is the key here. You are working 12-14 hour days and she is home alone with a child for most of her waking hours. Without a break.
She does NOT get a chance to stop work and go to lunch. She does NOT get to go to the bathroom alone for the next 5 years. She does NOT have the ability to run out for a cup of coffee, have an uninterrupted conversation with an adult on the phone, and, depending upon the age of your child, she may still be getting up multiple times during the night to care for a child because you are “worn out from working a 12-14 hour day”.
It is unfair of you to expect her to ALSO work 12-14 hour days caring for a child alone, and then get no relief from you when you come home, too tired to take over the child care so SHE can get a break. I expect that is the main reason you are getting the “cold shoulder”. Do you expect her to break into a lap dance for you and give you a massage and a martini simply because you managed to stroll home before midnight? What do you expect?
Try this: Occasionally, come home at a decent hour (while the sun is still up). Take the child out somewhere. ANYWHERE. So your poor wife can take a nap, read a book, eat a whole, hot meal without getting up six times - ANYTHING that does not require her to pay attention to anyone but herself for four hours. Do this AT LEAST once every other week.
Forgive me for sounding bitter, but I lived this same nightmare, but from your wife’s point of view. She might have agreed to stay home and raise your child, but it is an exhausting job. Give her a break, and you may get a more enthusiastic greeting when you are actually home.
I’m a musician in the theater. My schedule varies wildly; I have times when I’m working three-four hours a day, and I have times when I’m working 10-11 hours a day.
I bust my ass for most every gig I’ve got, but it’s still sometimes hard to get respect from non-musicians about how hard I’m working.
Don’t get me wrong, it is a lot of fun (usually). But I work hard for the privilege to get paid to do what I love.
And, even though I often have stretches where I’m working less than 5 hours a day, I still have to practice. And, I am typically working seven days out of the week. Real vacations are extremely hard to plan, and a week’s vacation usually involves turning down a month-long gig and all the pay involved therein. And, it’s rare that I even get a weekend completely off.
I was lucky that when my kids were little 8 hour days were pretty much the norm and there was no e-mail access at home or on the phone, so when you were home you were pretty much at home.
Our kids took naps - and my wife (who stayed home) got them into play groups which both gave her a break and was good for them. And five year olds don’t need to be in the bathroom with you.
But the biggest disconnect I’ve seen is the now outmoded notion that doing the minimum and coming home early is compatible with getting raises and, these days, even staying employed. Layoffs happen to good people also, and long hours is not substitute for effectiveness, but I suspect most partners would prefer a few more hours at work to months of worrying about where the next dollar for food is coming from.
On a more general plane, I know someone who occasionally takes the attitude that anything at all – work, charity, play, downtime – that someone does not like doing is ennobling and praiseworthy, even if they do a terrible job at it. Conversely, anything that someone likes to do or enjoys doesn’t really count as good work or a good deed even if it was done very effectively.
This can even change as one reveals one’s feelings on the matter; this person can be praising you for volunteering at a charity, and if you reply, “I actually enjoyed it a bit,” there will be a studied silence followed by a dismissive comment about how someone else didn’t like doing it which really makes them a hero.
It’s the standard of expectation of a medieval flagellant and it’s frustrating.
I’m totally with Divine Comedienne on this one. I remember a lengthy rant I directed at Mr.Q when he came home one day while I was doing the SAHM thing. He had the temerity to mention reading a newspaper article at lunch!! I was so freaking pissed.
I’m now a grad student. I love what I do, but it can be pretty stressful at times. People don’t tend to get that, though, unless they’ve also done the whole grad school thing.
With all respect, I think you are making assumptions and breaking out the tar and feathers prematurely.
Koxinga said:
and
Bolding in both cases mine. As we are hearing only one side, your interpretation may indeed be correct. However, going by his words alone it seems that he does not work insane hours all (or even most) of the time, and while his wife has their child most of the time, it appears that she may get a break now and again.
If she doesn’t, than I am with you DivineComedienne. If she is the sole full-time caregiver, she and Koxinga ought to look into a parents’ day out-type program for 2-3 days a week so Koxinga’s wife can have a break to nap, shop, clean, read, etc.
Lucky you, your kids napped! My younger kid didn’t nap for more than 45 minutes at a stretch for the first four months, and didn’t sleep more than 3 hours in a row at night for the first 19 months (and consequently, neither did I).
Playgroups are not “breaks”. Mom is still on duty, making snacks, refereeing arguments, etc.
You have obviously never been home with a 5-year-old who HAS to go to the bathroom at the same moment as their caregiver (even if said caregiver ASKS the child beforehand). Or tried to pee with a 5-year-old standing at the door, talking to you through the door, the entire time. Every time.
It’s Hell to be a SAHM. The hardest job in the world.
No, they don’t, but they sure are good at knocking on your door and wanting to tell you something right when you’re in the bathroom. And as soon as you get exasperated and tell them to leave you alone, it will turn out that the reason they were knocking was because someone is at the door, for an appointment you forgot about.
Yes, my 9yo still has to talk to me about something right away when I’m in the bathroom…no matter how many times I’ve told her that she needs to wait until I’m out.
How many kids do you have? We figured out early that our second was not as breakable as we thought our first was, and consequently the second learned about sleep a lot better. The first one did wake up every three hours until we went nuts (I did equal nighttime duty) and talked to the doctor about it. Turned out that letting her cry it out, while very painful for a week or so, solved the problem. Won’t work all the time.
They are if one mom takes all the kids, and you rotate. Sometimes all participate for the social interaction. I think it is good to have a kid learn that she has to listen to other adults also. My wife has stayed friends with the others in the play group ever since, though not as much after we left town.
By the time our youngest was five we were in a house with multiple bathrooms. A five year old is plenty old enough to go without supervision - ours were in pre-school part time by this age. I know all about talking outside the door, though. The Mom is not the only person who gets to enjoy this. Then there is helping the kid poop. “It’s packing its bags. It’s sticking its head out …”
I’m definitely not knocking the job of SaHM - my wife did it, and we’ve seen the benefits all through our kids’ lives. (The youngest is about to graduate from college.) But it is one job that gets easier over time. Though last night I stayed up way too late fixing a formatting problem on my daughter’s resume. I’ll take diaper changing over fighting with Word any day.
I wouldn’t agree with that. I like being a SAHM. It’s just not easy and you don’t get a lot of breaks. But some gumption and determination go a long way–anyone can figure out how to get some breaks if they try. And it’s the most flexible, self-determined job around. No one is telling me what to do and as long as my kids are healthy and cared for we can do whatever we want.
) because there’s a project or something, but that just goes to show it really just comes down me getting my jollies while she’s stuck at home. So feeling worn out from working (not that it’s so often) gets me about the same modicum of sympathy as if I were whining about a hangover.