Workaholic Spouse?
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Anonymous
Ditto. Sounds like your husband is hiding from his family or worse. 
Bes wishes. |
Anonymous
And how much do you see him on weekends? I'm also on pace to bill 2800 hours and the reason I work all day during the work week is so that my weekends remain relatively clear. But there's no way to protect both my weekends and weeknights with any consistency. It sounds like the OP's husband is protecting the weekends. |
Anonymous
I work pretty much the same hours and I'm quite certain I'm just sitting in the office responding to (non-sexy) e-mails most of that time. OP has a legitimate concern but there's no reason to make up a new, fake concern. |
Anonymous
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OP, I haven't read all the responses, but want to share my experience. Married, kids are 6 and 3. DH workaholic, known him for 11 years. With time, I understood that, although he appears very confident, he overworks because he is insecure, wants to be seen by colleagues as working hard, feels a strong need and desire to be respected and admired (which he is) by colleagues at large (not only direct colleagues but also other people 'in the industry'). He also feels quite comfortable in the work environment on comparison to home, where little battle and chaos arise all the time with the kids and, as we all know, educating and raising kids can be exhausting. So he subconsciously avoids the home environment which is the one more challenging for him. He is also a bit emotionally shut down, so when you try to reason with him about the true motives for his actions, he can't find them.
I am not saying your DH is like this or has all these issues, but workaholics usually use work to shelter from something, somebody, or even themselves. We are working with a therapist, but it is going slow. He is 49, so not that young and I am very tired of this
Good luck. |
Anonymous
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Op, a few things. First, the schedule your husband is working is not sustainable. You are missing out on a coparent. Your daughter is missing out on time with her father, and he is doing the same. Not only are you missing time, but more importantly, you are all missing experiences as a family. Once your daughter develops more of a sense of self, she will need and want you both home in the evenings. You two will need each other for moral support on a bad day, and to share in the cute things she will soon say and do. Your husband's schedule means that none of you spend any meaningful time together which means that you won't be sharing ideas and dreams, everything from "Let's watch this tv show, or go to this event" to "I'd like to sail across the Atlantic someday". You will communicate about the running of the household, but not about what is in your hearts. My husband posted on this thread early on. He used to work your husband's hours. It nearly broke us up, and we did separate for a time. A large part of the problem was that even when he began to work a more normal schedule, we had lost the ability to talk, I had been wanting to stay home, but didn't know how to even address it. The sequester eventually got me, and that has turned out to be a good thing in terms of family and marriage happiness. Second, if you and your husband are both healthy, someone somewhere will start looking good if you two do not make each other a priority. It's why many long-distance relationships fail, people want to be with people who are physically and emotionally present. You may very well love your husband, and he may very well love you, but your comment about his secretary was very on point. If not her, someone will look good to him, and it will be someone he interacts with on a regular basis. The same will happen to you. Lastly, you do need to make some mom friends. You and your daughter both need interaction with other humans during the day. This may be as simple as finding a moms group or it may require a move if you don't fit in in your neighborhood. We moved twice before we found our nitch. We probably could have reduced that to once had we communicated better. (see early point on the work schedule and communications breakdown). Your feelings are always valid. You need to know that. You are just as entitled to your feelings and desires as anybody. All you owe yourself, your child, your husband and the rest of the human race is that you act with integrity. You have every right to sit your husband down and tell him "This is what I need to be happy". If he can't or won't meet your needs, you do have options, painful options but options all the same.
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Anonymous
Listen priorities are screwed up.....at best on this part. At worst, another woman. Most likely: escaping the toil of 9 MO, hanging out with coworker friends, and working on an affair. At some level, you must know that. What is the point of having a child and not spending time? It was a mistake he feels most likely. I am a guy posting too, so I have particular insight into this, and not a bitter woman. No real loving husband and father would do this. So clearly, he isnt a loving husband and father. You need to sit him down and ask what the real next steps are. You shouldnt even be in a position to be asking for his devotion. Think about all of this. This makes the most sense without any extraneous assumptions, a la Occams Razor. |
Anonymous
| emails can be sent from home. Seriously, what year is this? 1993? |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
1. Make sure you have a life insurance policy on him. 2. Have the # of a divoirce lawyer handy 3. Track all his expenses 4. Track all calls on his cell phone before 9:00 am and after 6:00 pm. Don't forget to check the text messaging part fo the bill. 5. Check his mistresses neighborhood for his car 6. Confront him. Good luck, Thanks for the hardh chuckel.. Totally needed a good laugh and you provided it.. THANKS!! |
Anonymous
| 19:46 you are badly misunderstanding Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is that he is really into his work and prioritizing it over his family. |
Anonymous
| He is being who he wants to be. Assuming he is not being unfaithful, you are going to have to live with it. Build your life with plenty of your own interests. People are all different. There are those who desire to work, what seems like, nonstop. Good luck ~ |
Anonymous
No one could be. If you loved your wife youd 1. be at home as much as possible (including arranging work to accomplish this), 2. youd be into your own DAUGHTER. Believe it or not microbrain, we're in agreement. I suppose youre last post was a "disagree to agree" statement. |
Anonymous
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My husband works in finance and the hours were like the OP described. Only recently, after more than 10 years of work and a promotion to the highest level, did the hours get a bit better.
I did hire a babysitter and I have lots of close friends which helps. Also, eventually, I figured out when he was slow and began scheduling vacation during that time. For instance, nearly everyone in his office takes off during spring break so we now go away then too. We did end up in family counseling though, not because of our marriage but because the hours are hard on the kids. After that he starting spending more time with them -- but I regret that it took so long. The hours bothered the kids most in late elementary school/middle school. |
Anonymous
Since you seem to be projecting with the "microbrain" comment, let me clarify for you: Occam's razor is a principle of parsimony that states that, among competing hypothesis, you should select the one with the fewest assumptions. Based solely on OP's explanation that husband works too much, you concluded that the "most likely" explanation included that: (1) the OP's husband was avoiding his daughter; (2) that he was secretly not at work but in fact handing out with co-worker friends; and (3) that he was working on an affair. You did precisely the opposite of what Occam's razor instructed you to do with the available information: You substituted the simplest explanation for one that made unnecessary assumptions. So let's be clear that I am in fact disagreeing with you. And I'm not disagreeing with you just for the sake of disagreement: I think OP has a legitimate concern about a husband who is a workaholic, and its unnecessary and unhelpful for people to make up new problems, like that he is secretly hanging out with his friends instead or working on an affair, since OP provided absolutely no information indicating that such was the case. |
Anonymous
Clearly you have an interest in mental arm wrestling and feeling professorial in explaining OR and wanting to feel a need to come back. That said, you neglect basic human nature. There was no love of work prior to all of this from the husbands part. Suddenly he has no more time to set things up to lead to making the baby. Now there is a baby there suddenly is no more time?!? Plus much of his work can be done at home but is not. In this day and age we all know a lot can be done barring certain professions. So nanobrain, the least assumptions that makes sense is what most have been insinuating all along. And yes we agree that there are fundamentally misaligned priorities going on. But it makes no sense that its suddenly pure work. Its an escape and it's not innocent and it'll lead to something unfaithful. If you need help in figuring out how that plays out just post your question to me. Plus don't feel you're impressing me with your definitions. Its called Google and Wikipedia. Anyone.can copy and paste. As for thinking logically, search engines aren't quite there yet. Sorry. |
Anonymous
When did OP say any of that? I don't see anywhere in her post where she said that the husband became interested in working late only after the baby came. It sounds like he's always taken his job seriously and that the concern is that he hasn't made enough of an effort to re-prioritize now that he is a father.
Based on what? What information did OP provide that suggests her husband is looking to be unfaithful? Just that you don't believe he could really care about his job a lot? What other fact that OP actually wrote supports this inference?
I didn't respond to you to impress you or to teach you logic. I responded because I don't think its responsible to make OP worry about a non-existent problem when she has a legitimate one to deal with. Best of luck, OP. |