My husband works 16-18 hours per day

[Anonymous]

Time to find a new job with a salary that matches his skill set. I’d start by updating LinkedIn and moving setting to “Open to recruiters” and then working on resume. I did the first step and was contacted by a recruiter offering me +40k salary bump.

[Anonymous]

Good lord - I make $95K and would NEVER do this. Ever.

My husband makes $450K and he does this - but that is what is expected for this type of pay. It would never be expected for my type of pay. I am a manager and I would never let my team work like this either.

[Anonymous]

I was about to say “yeah sometimes jobs can be like that for a bit and you just gotta suck it up” but then I read $95K and my jaw hit the floor.

Your husband needs to set better boundaries but you can’t force him to and you can’t nag him into doing it. I would do a butter research about resolving conflict in marriages to see how to approach this (just because it’s not a conflict yet doesn’t mean that conflict resolution skills aren’t useful). There are DBT interpersonal effectiveness worksheets online that are so good.

[Anonymous]

My husband had a job like this up until a few years ago (his salary was more like $180k, but we're both lawyers and he was working way more than I would for that money). He was so incredibly stressed out of his mind and I think he was blaming himself for not getting the work done, even though that was just not ever going to be possible. I think part of it was also that a big portion of his work was a project he initiated and it was difficult for him to give up control of it.

Long story short, he was miserable and the misery was carrying over to how he interacted with me and the kids. We had a come to jesus talk about it. He applied for an open in-house job with a client with a slight pay cut but with bonuses and stock options that actually have resulted in more money in the end. And most importantly his hours are VERY regular and the workload is manageable.

The transition period was stressful but I am seriously so thankful we're not there anymore. Your husband needs a new job. No one needs to live like that. He's killing himself slowly.

[Anonymous]

Wtf? He needs a raise and should be getting overtime! And they should hire more people! Sounds like they need him so now is a good time to negotiate as he probably has leverage.

[Anonymous]

He should quit and make more elsewhere for less work. Seriously. Find the other job first. I make over $150k and its straight 9-5 ish. No more. For more im getting a bonus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband had a job like this up until a few years ago (his salary was more like $180k, but we're both lawyers and he was working way more than I would for that money). He was so incredibly stressed out of his mind and I think he was blaming himself for not getting the work done, even though that was just not ever going to be possible. I think part of it was also that a big portion of his work was a project he initiated and it was difficult for him to give up control of it.

Long story short, he was miserable and the misery was carrying over to how he interacted with me and the kids. We had a come to jesus talk about it. He applied for an open in-house job with a client with a slight pay cut but with bonuses and stock options that actually have resulted in more money in the end. And most importantly his hours are VERY regular and the workload is manageable.

The transition period was stressful but I am seriously so thankful we're not there anymore. Your husband needs a new job. No one needs to live like that. He's killing himself slowly.

I am the poster and just wanted to add: SEVERAL times, like for 2-3 years, my husband would go through these times when he would talk to the people at his firm, and they would "get him more help" and reorganize things and hire more people and whatever. It never worked. The new employees didn't get it or didn't work out, or other stuff would come up, or etc etc etc. Unfortunately I think that once a dynamic like that exists it's really hard to get the employer to accept whatever boundary you want to establish. That's why I honestly would just urge him to start over in a new position. It's a good time to be looking.

[Anonymous]

What does your husband want to do about the situation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good lord - I make $95K and would NEVER do this. Ever.

My husband makes $450K and he does this - but that is what is expected for this type of pay. It would never be expected for my type of pay. I am a manager and I would never let my team work like this either.

Same. I make 95k and I work my 37.5 hours a week, and that’s that.

[Anonymous]

Why is he allowing himself to be abused? OP, if you work, can you live on your salary for a while? He needs to leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does your husband want to do about the situation?

OP here. I've been nicely encouraging him to explore other options but we have a hard time having an open conversation because he is always so busy and stressed. It feels like he (understandably) has zero mental capacity left to talk to me. And I think updating his resume after 10 years and job searching feels insurmountable on top of the work load right now. He is fiercely loyal (to a fault in this situation) and is proud of how long that he's been at the company. We both came from blue collar union families with pensions and the mentality of "put in my 30 years here and retire" and I'm trying to help him understand that it is very, very normal in the business world to work for several companies over your career. This is the company he interned with in college and then they hired him after graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is he allowing himself to be abused? OP, if you work, can you live on your salary for a while? He needs to leave.

I work PT on commission and care for the kids. I also don't have the option for health insurance benefits through my job unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does your husband want to do about the situation?

OP here. I've been nicely encouraging him to explore other options but we have a hard time having an open conversation because he is always so busy and stressed. It feels like he (understandably) has zero mental capacity left to talk to me. And I think updating his resume after 10 years and job searching feels insurmountable on top of the work load right now. He is fiercely loyal (to a fault in this situation) and is proud of how long that he's been at the company. We both came from blue collar union families with pensions and the mentality of "put in my 30 years here and retire" and I'm trying to help him understand that it is very, very normal in the business world to work for several companies over your career. This is the company he interned with in college and then they hired him after graduation.

That is noble, but his job will replace him in a nanosecond.
Show him this thread. OPs husband they are using you. They are saving six salaries. Why haven’t you gotten a raise?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is 100% your husband’s fault.

What people do in this situation is work from 9–5:30 (or whatever his hours are supposed to be. Then he emails his boss and says. “I’ve made X progress on the Widget project and Y progress on the Fidget project. Both deadlines are coming up next week. There is time to finish X or Y, which would like me to prioritize?”

As long as your husband does extra work, his boss never has to make hard decisions and the company never faces any consequences. In their eyes your husband is not going above and beyond, rather they were overpaying for too many team members before.

The bolded is important, OP, because the longer your husband is able to sustain this unsustainable pace and workload without the notice of his higher ups, the more sustainable those higher ups will believe it to be. If he continues to do more than his own job when they hire new team members, they will assume that they do not need to hire more team members. And maybe they do not. Maybe your husband could do THREE jobs instead of 6 and be fine. Who knows? The point is that right now, the people making the decisions about how many people to hire think that the work is being delegated appropriately and effectively. That needs to change.

In his shoes, I would use the language above, but I would also schedule a meeting with my boss to talk about the overall situation - a timeline for getting back to a higher staffing level, ways to mitigate the situation right now, raise concern about needing medical leave due to the physically unsustainable nature of the current workload, etc. If the answer is that they are staffing up in January, then I would try to negotiate some kind of compensation for the additional work performed over the last 6 months and until the new folks are able to pick up the reins. As others have said, $95k is way too little for this kind of work, even if he loves what he does. It is worth more and should be compensated accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does your husband want to do about the situation?

OP here. I've been nicely encouraging him to explore other options but we have a hard time having an open conversation because he is always so busy and stressed. It feels like he (understandably) has zero mental capacity left to talk to me. And I think updating his resume after 10 years and job searching feels insurmountable on top of the work load right now. He is fiercely loyal (to a fault in this situation) and is proud of how long that he's been at the company. We both came from blue collar union families with pensions and the mentality of "put in my 30 years here and retire" and I'm trying to help him understand that it is very, very normal in the business world to work for several companies over your career. This is the company he interned with in college and then they hired him after graduation.

That is noble, but his job will replace him in a nanosecond.
Show him this thread. OPs husband they are using you. They are saving six salaries. Why haven’t you gotten a raise?

This. The world is different than it was for our parents. They know a 10 year employee is risk-averse and unlikely to leave. What your husband doesn’t understand is that they don’t see him as a superhero for working this hard. They see him as a sucker.