How to deal with a workaholic?

[Anonymous]

Before divorce, I would request couples counseling. If he says no...ask him how he plans to handle 50% custody?

[Anonymous]

This story sounds very fishy. As you describe it, he contributes effectively nothing to the household: time or money.

I’d guess either: (1) affair or (2) you’re only telling one side of the story.

If in fact the story is as you describe it, I’m not sure why you’re not already seeking divorce, since he is effectively not a part of your family (time or money).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This story sounds very fishy. As you describe it, he contributes effectively nothing to the household: time or money.

I’d guess either: (1) affair or (2) you’re only telling one side of the story.

If in fact the story is as you describe it, I’m not sure why you’re not already seeking divorce, since he is effectively not a part of your family (time or money).

I believe it.

But for my workaholic spouse it was due to mental disorders like ADD and autism coupled with 40 years of terrible defense mechanisms to protect his image. Resulting in not a kind defunct ManChild but and A-hole one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Before divorce, I would request couples counseling. If he says no...ask him how he plans to handle 50% custody?

He’ll throw money at it for nannies, sitters and au pairs—or even ask to use the one you go out and hire and manage.
The freeloading will continue.

But really you’ll get full custody and decision making. He can’t handle it. If he tries and gets it you’ll be back in court in a couple years proving it all over again.

[Anonymous]

OP, I was married to this guy. It started when we moved here. He got a thinktank job that he was very excited about, and he spent the first 6 months networking like crazy. What he always told me was that it would slow down once he got acclimated, but it never did. There were almost always after work events, to the extent that our only friends in this area were people he knew from work. He traveled constantly for work - conferences and meetings in various places that were mostly things he wanted to do rather than things that were necessary for him to do for work. He was out of town at a conference on our first wedding anniversary. He was out of town at a conference on my birthday for 2 years in a row. When I complained about that, he suggested that I come with him, but a) I had my own job (though not as interesting or impressive as his) and b) it's boring to just go to someone else's conference and it wasn't like we were spending any quality time together anyway. He paid for those things out of pocket when they were not covered, so we had to budget for his extracurricular travel and he had to have nice suits because he'd get called to the Hill for various stuff. The result of that was that I was under constant financial scrutiny for things like going out to lunch or buying a $30 pair of shoes, but it was perfectly okay for him to drop $1000 on work clothes every few months. He was the one who wanted to have children - lots of children, in fact. He saw himself as a very involved father because he took 2 months of paternity leave with our daughter. However, he was never the one to cover a sick day with her, never was the one to take her to a doctor's appointment, never went to any of the events at her daycare. Sending her to daycare itself was a huge bone of contention between us because my admin salary essentially all went to childcare and when I suggested that if he wanted to have multiple kids, it might make sense for me to stay home with them since daycare is very expensive, he accused me of trying to "get out of contributing to this family" and said that it would be grounds for divorce if I pushed it further.

That was when our daughter was about 7 months old. After her first birthday, he started pushing me to try for a second, and I went along with it because I didn't know what else to do. I had several miscarriages, which he not-subtly blamed me for a couple of times in the middle of an argument. After my 3rd miscarrage, I told him that I was not interested in trying anymore "for a while" and he got really upset, accused me of a bait-and-switch about kids. That was pretty much the beginning of the end.

I started going to therapy ostensibly to figure out how I could save/improve our marriage. Every suggestion from my counselor was met with a reason that he couldn't do that and that I should do it instead. As time went on, I realized that he and I were on really different pages about what it meant to be a family and a married couple. We separated when DD was 2.5.

[Anonymous]

Ultimatum and then divorce. Sounds like a loser

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I was married to this guy. It started when we moved here. He got a thinktank job that he was very excited about, and he spent the first 6 months networking like crazy. What he always told me was that it would slow down once he got acclimated, but it never did. There were almost always after work events, to the extent that our only friends in this area were people he knew from work. He traveled constantly for work - conferences and meetings in various places that were mostly things he wanted to do rather than things that were necessary for him to do for work. He was out of town at a conference on our first wedding anniversary. He was out of town at a conference on my birthday for 2 years in a row. When I complained about that, he suggested that I come with him, but a) I had my own job (though not as interesting or impressive as his) and b) it's boring to just go to someone else's conference and it wasn't like we were spending any quality time together anyway. He paid for those things out of pocket when they were not covered, so we had to budget for his extracurricular travel and he had to have nice suits because he'd get called to the Hill for various stuff. The result of that was that I was under constant financial scrutiny for things like going out to lunch or buying a $30 pair of shoes, but it was perfectly okay for him to drop $1000 on work clothes every few months. He was the one who wanted to have children - lots of children, in fact. He saw himself as a very involved father because he took 2 months of paternity leave with our daughter. However, he was never the one to cover a sick day with her, never was the one to take her to a doctor's appointment, never went to any of the events at her daycare. Sending her to daycare itself was a huge bone of contention between us because my admin salary essentially all went to childcare and when I suggested that if he wanted to have multiple kids, it might make sense for me to stay home with them since daycare is very expensive, he accused me of trying to "get out of contributing to this family" and said that it would be grounds for divorce if I pushed it further.

That was when our daughter was about 7 months old. After her first birthday, he started pushing me to try for a second, and I went along with it because I didn't know what else to do. I had several miscarriages, which he not-subtly blamed me for a couple of times in the middle of an argument. After my 3rd miscarrage, I told him that I was not interested in trying anymore "for a while" and he got really upset, accused me of a bait-and-switch about kids. That was pretty much the beginning of the end.

I started going to therapy ostensibly to figure out how I could save/improve our marriage. Every suggestion from my counselor was met with a reason that he couldn't do that and that I should do it instead. As time went on, I realized that he and I were on really different pages about what it meant to be a family and a married couple. We separated when DD was 2.5.

Whoa. How long have you been separated? Does he pay for alimony? Are things better for you now?

[Anonymous]

I used to be a workaholic. At some point, I realized that I got that way because I grew up in an alcoholic family. And then later I had my own problems with drinking. So you might look at his family of origin to see if that tells you anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I was married to this guy. It started when we moved here. He got a thinktank job that he was very excited about, and he spent the first 6 months networking like crazy. What he always told me was that it would slow down once he got acclimated, but it never did. There were almost always after work events, to the extent that our only friends in this area were people he knew from work. He traveled constantly for work - conferences and meetings in various places that were mostly things he wanted to do rather than things that were necessary for him to do for work. He was out of town at a conference on our first wedding anniversary. He was out of town at a conference on my birthday for 2 years in a row. When I complained about that, he suggested that I come with him, but a) I had my own job (though not as interesting or impressive as his) and b) it's boring to just go to someone else's conference and it wasn't like we were spending any quality time together anyway. He paid for those things out of pocket when they were not covered, so we had to budget for his extracurricular travel and he had to have nice suits because he'd get called to the Hill for various stuff. The result of that was that I was under constant financial scrutiny for things like going out to lunch or buying a $30 pair of shoes, but it was perfectly okay for him to drop $1000 on work clothes every few months. He was the one who wanted to have children - lots of children, in fact. He saw himself as a very involved father because he took 2 months of paternity leave with our daughter. However, he was never the one to cover a sick day with her, never was the one to take her to a doctor's appointment, never went to any of the events at her daycare. Sending her to daycare itself was a huge bone of contention between us because my admin salary essentially all went to childcare and when I suggested that if he wanted to have multiple kids, it might make sense for me to stay home with them since daycare is very expensive, he accused me of trying to "get out of contributing to this family" and said that it would be grounds for divorce if I pushed it further.

That was when our daughter was about 7 months old. After her first birthday, he started pushing me to try for a second, and I went along with it because I didn't know what else to do. I had several miscarriages, which he not-subtly blamed me for a couple of times in the middle of an argument. After my 3rd miscarrage, I told him that I was not interested in trying anymore "for a while" and he got really upset, accused me of a bait-and-switch about kids. That was pretty much the beginning of the end.

I started going to therapy ostensibly to figure out how I could save/improve our marriage. Every suggestion from my counselor was met with a reason that he couldn't do that and that I should do it instead. As time went on, I realized that he and I were on really different pages about what it meant to be a family and a married couple. We separated when DD was 2.5.

Whoa. How long have you been separated? Does he pay for alimony? Are things better for you now?

We've been divorced for 10 years. He does not and never paid alimony. I remarried 5 years ago and have a younger child. Things are completely different (in the best ways). My ex and I have a cordial relationship. He sees our daughter a couple times a month.

[Anonymous]

He's having an affair, IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I was married to this guy. It started when we moved here. He got a thinktank job that he was very excited about, and he spent the first 6 months networking like crazy. What he always told me was that it would slow down once he got acclimated, but it never did. There were almost always after work events, to the extent that our only friends in this area were people he knew from work. He traveled constantly for work - conferences and meetings in various places that were mostly things he wanted to do rather than things that were necessary for him to do for work. He was out of town at a conference on our first wedding anniversary. He was out of town at a conference on my birthday for 2 years in a row. When I complained about that, he suggested that I come with him, but a) I had my own job (though not as interesting or impressive as his) and b) it's boring to just go to someone else's conference and it wasn't like we were spending any quality time together anyway. He paid for those things out of pocket when they were not covered, so we had to budget for his extracurricular travel and he had to have nice suits because he'd get called to the Hill for various stuff. The result of that was that I was under constant financial scrutiny for things like going out to lunch or buying a $30 pair of shoes, but it was perfectly okay for him to drop $1000 on work clothes every few months. He was the one who wanted to have children - lots of children, in fact. He saw himself as a very involved father because he took 2 months of paternity leave with our daughter. However, he was never the one to cover a sick day with her, never was the one to take her to a doctor's appointment, never went to any of the events at her daycare. Sending her to daycare itself was a huge bone of contention between us because my admin salary essentially all went to childcare and when I suggested that if he wanted to have multiple kids, it might make sense for me to stay home with them since daycare is very expensive, he accused me of trying to "get out of contributing to this family" and said that it would be grounds for divorce if I pushed it further.

That was when our daughter was about 7 months old. After her first birthday, he started pushing me to try for a second, and I went along with it because I didn't know what else to do. I had several miscarriages, which he not-subtly blamed me for a couple of times in the middle of an argument. After my 3rd miscarrage, I told him that I was not interested in trying anymore "for a while" and he got really upset, accused me of a bait-and-switch about kids. That was pretty much the beginning of the end.

I started going to therapy ostensibly to figure out how I could save/improve our marriage. Every suggestion from my counselor was met with a reason that he couldn't do that and that I should do it instead. As time went on, I realized that he and I were on really different pages about what it meant to be a family and a married couple. We separated when DD was 2.5.

Whoa. How long have you been separated? Does he pay for alimony? Are things better for you now?

We've been divorced for 10 years. He does not and never paid alimony. I remarried 5 years ago and have a younger child. Things are completely different (in the best ways). My ex and I have a cordial relationship. He sees our daughter a couple times a month.

Thanks for responding. Glad you’re in a better relationship and doing well. Can’t believe your exdh didn’t pay alimony. Ugh. You’re lucky to have gotten out.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a loser and it does sound like he's having an affair. No one with an ordinary "education job" with the feds needs to work that long/hard.

[Anonymous]

Usually, the trade off for being in a lower paying career is that you have more free time. Working biglaw hours while in government/education is odd.

I’m not going to jump to “affair” like others but I am wondering, what’s your DH avoiding by never being home?

[Anonymous]

This sentence is a red flag: “And he pays out of pocket for most of his travel expenses for work.”

You sure those are work trips? If so, why is he subsidizing his employer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This story sounds very fishy. As you describe it, he contributes effectively nothing to the household: time or money.

I’d guess either: (1) affair or (2) you’re only telling one side of the story.

If in fact the story is as you describe it, I’m not sure why you’re not already seeking divorce, since he is effectively not a part of your family (time or money).

Agreed. If it's what OP describes, there is someone else in the picture.