Wife expects me to be "on" after a work trip
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Anonymous
| OP here. Ok team wife it is. When I am wrong I am wrong. We both work full time. Wife works as a floor RN so her shifts vary and some weeks its "part time" (we always try to sync my travel with a light week) but the average amount of shifts per month always equals full time status. |
Anonymous
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If you have control of which hotels you stay at, find a chain with mattresses that agree with you. Some hotel chains let you request feather free rooms if the feathers disagree with you. There is also melatonin and leaving the TV off. You need to seriously problem solve why you're not getting good sleep while traveling for work.
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Anonymous
| My DH comes back from work trips exhausted a lot of the time. But that's because he uses his kid-free time to stay out WAY too late having beers with coworkers or a friend in the city he's in. I have no issues with that, as long as he's All Hands on Deck with the kids when he comes back. And he always is, so it works for us. |
Anonymous
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Why can’t you sleep in a hotel room? I would have no sympathy if my husband got a quiet room to himself with zero interruption and “couldn’t sleep”
There isn’t any reason you shouldn’t come back rested. Next time take an ambien or a Xanax |
Anonymous
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Can you work out a compromise depending on the circumstances? If you don't get in until late, maybe your wife continues to take the night shift that night but then you take the next 2 nights. Otherwise, you take the first couple of nights home to give her a break and then she takes the next few to allow you to get a good night's sleep. I understand that you might be exhausted after traveling, but your wife has been at home doing everything without any help for the entire time you've been gone.
Also, you need to find a way to sleep better when you're traveling. Are you entertaining clients, having late dinners etc? Find a way to get more sleep at the hotel, on the plane, etc. so that you're as rested as possible. Lastly, sleep train your kids or do something to get them to stay asleep. The 3yo is old enough to stay in bed all night. My 3yo stopped yelling for us when she'd wake up in the middle of the night once we got her a night light. FWIW, I'm the DW and I'm the only one who travels for work. I absolutely do more than my share once I return home because I know my DH needs a break. Yes, it sucks to be "on" at home after a business trip (and mine are not "fun" trips) but I think it's only fair when my DH has been holding down the fort the entire time. |
Anonymous
| Let your wife commute for three days between her nursing job and a hotel while you handle everything else. After those three days are up, you continue to handle all of the nighttime wakings for another three days so she can catch up on her sleep after being in the hotel. |
Anonymous
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I'm the wife who travels and when I come home, I jump right back in. That's ... having a family.
Work on figuring out how to sleep better in hotels. Ear plugs, white noise, whatever. |
Anonymous
You are a good man. Sorry it is a tough period. It will pass. Good for you for reaching out and listening. 
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Anonymous
Female here, and I don't sleep well in hotel rooms either. Zero interruption is a fantasy - have you never stayed in a hotel? People have parties in hotels, there are kids, there are people who have loud sex or sound like they are stomping around. On top of that, the surroundings aren't familiar; it isn't your bed, your pillows, your environment, etc, so relaxation is already hard. To say that flights are not comfortable is an understatement, even if you are flying first class. Many people on travel party for sure, but I would say even more people are working 12-14 hours a day. That said, I agree that OP needs to take over child care after being gone. I think a better solution, however, if they could afford it, is to outsource some childcare for the days that he is traveling. |
Anonymous
Varying shifts can be really difficult, especially if she's picking up the odd night shift. That's really hard one's health. |
Anonymous
| You should do CIO. Problem solved. Kids that age shouldn’t be waking up all night. Mine were sleep trained at 4 months. Flame away, but I sleep well every night. |
Anonymous
Op here. This caught my eye and I totally agree but being an office nurse or using her nursing degree in other ways that would enable her to work only 9-5 is of no interest to her. "Floor nursing is who I am" is a common quote in our house. I would be very supportive of another job but I also understand thats not something worth exploring. |
Anonymous
I don't see why this wouldn't work. Alternate her hotel stay working trips with yours, and each of you covers for the other when the other returns home, so the one who was on trip can catch up on sleep. |
Anonymous
| Team wife. You have a room and bed all to yourself, figure out how to get some sleep! White noise machine and a sleeping pill! I use unisom sleep tabs and they knock me right out. I would be pretty upset if my DH was somehow more exhausted after a business trip than I am at home doing all the kid stuff and wakeups by myself. |
Anonymous
And yet, his wife, who is surrounded by familiar things, is not sleeping well either due to multiple children being up in the night and parenting on her own for several days. Why does he get the break to "catch up" and she does not? As for your issues with hotels, I've slept hundreds of nights in hotel rooms and the situations you describe are usually few and far between. More likely you work 12 hours (fine, exhausting), and then come back to a quiet dark bedroom. If you can't go to sleep, there are, as PP notes, a lot of things that can be done to address that that do not add up to OP's wife getting no break while he gets several nights alone AND then several nights to catch up on missed sleep. |