Workaholic Spouse?

[Anonymous]

Let me start by saying how much I love my husband. We've only been married a couple of years and are still very young. We have a 9 month old baby, and I am currently staying at home with her while he works a white collar job downtown.
Tonight is a typical Monday night- it's 9:40 PM and he's still at the office. I can probably expect him home around 10:30. Tuesday through Friday he will be home before 9:30, sometimes as early as 8:30. He gets into the office around 7:45 AM, so leaves our house around 7:15. Our baby wakes up at 7:30 AM and goes to bed at 8 PM, so he generally only sees her on the weekends. She loves him to death- gets so excited if she's still up when he gets home, squealing and smiling- but I wonder if they're really getting enough "face time" during the week.
It may be that he's still young and "paying his dues" at the office, but I don't know how long I should let this schedule go on before having a serious sit-down conversation (preferably with a therapist present so he doesn't take it personally). I've proposed that we start having a family dinner at 7:30 on weeknights, then he can go back to work in the home office after dinner if he needs to. He's said ok, but won't really commit to doing it. Sometimes he will call me at 7 saying he's just sending one last email then coming home, but then I'll call the office an hour later and he's still there. If his secretary was a lot cuter, I'd be worried
I understand that he wants to give his job 110% and am so grateful for his financial support and appreciative of his hardworking nature, but being a SAHM can be very lonely, especially since I don't know ANY other SAHMs, only working moms. I'm just worried that he and baby aren't getting enough bonding time together. I know I'm not getting much time! Let's not even get started on the non-existant sex life...sigh...he's almost always falling into bed and passing out cold.
Have any of you had to broach this topic with your spouses? Am I being unreasonable? Maybe I'm just jealous of all of the government workers in this area who leave their desks at 4:59 PM every day. I just don't understand why my husband is relatively high up in his company and has to stay so much later than everybody else. Don't you have to set limits at some point?? Don't be too cruel to me- I've never really held a traditional office job so I don't really know the office culture.

[Anonymous]

This is bs on his part. My husband billed 2800 hours last year and is on track to do the same this year but still comes home for evening hours. He works from home after dinner. He absolutely should be able to come home in time to see his daughter for half an hour or hour in the evenings.

[Anonymous]

21:51, not all jobs allow you to telework, despite what the media cheerleaders want you to believe.

With that said, coming home at 8:30pm and later is just not sustainable.

You need to say this, unequivocally, to your husband. If you want to package it as "therapy, or I am going to find happiness on my own," then so be it.

1) Where do you guys live and how long is his commute? A move may have to be in order.
2) My wife began SAH in March due to sequester and has made several friends with the MOMS club in her zip code. Please look into that or into other social opportunities for SAH moms.

[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,

[Anonymous]

You're not being unreasonable. He does not have to be working 12+ hour days every day. He is either managing his time very poorly or is unable to say no. The reality of being a working parent is that you have to achieve some kind of balance, and that balance should be a thing that your spouse has input into. He has created a life where he does not see his child except on the weekend. If that's acceptable for him, that bodes ill for your future. If he is unable to do a family dinner every day of the week, maybe he would be able to structure his schedule so that he has two "long days" in the office and three shorter days - or whatever his workload requires.

But honestly, having been in this town a while and worked on those offices, my bet is that it's 50% poor time management and 50% him choosing this life for himself and blaming the job.

[Anonymous]

What industry does your husband work in? In sales, accounting or finance these kind of hours can be par for the course while building your career. There's a big emphasis on face time and leaving early or arriving late can be really frowned upon.

What worked with my husband's office culture was midday meetings. I'd head into the city with DS every Wednesday and meet DH at a kid friendly cafe or museum. He could usually carve out 60-90 minutes. For some reason the odd long lunch didn't carry the same "not pulling your weight" stigma as a shorter day did.

[Anonymous]

OP Here

11:51 LOL. It's not that bad- he actually is at the office.

12:02 He works in finance. He's a VP, but I think because he's so much younger than the other VPs he still feels the need to prove himself all the time. The long lunch is definitely a good suggestion and something we do occasionally. Should probably start doing it more often.

[Anonymous]

You need to step back and start a discussion about what your shared values are as a couple about family time - what you do together as a family, how often, when, etc. Then you can decide if this is going to be a life-long problem (if you have different values) or something short lived, and go from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP Here

11:51 LOL. It's not that bad- he actually is at the office.

12:02 He works in finance. He's a VP, but I think because he's so much younger than the other VPs he still feels the need to prove himself all the time. The long lunch is definitely a good suggestion and something we do occasionally. Should probably start doing it more often.

Honestly, OP, please also start a conversation about family values with him. Make sure that you are on the same page, or, if you're not on the same page, that you have a game plan for how to get on the same page.

I used to be married to a workaholic. I was in no way concerned that he was having an affair with anyone other than his job. He always had totally legitimate reasons for not being around, for working all the time, for prioritizing anything that happened at the office over everything that happened at home. It started when he took a relatively prestigious position (in a non-profit here). We did not have a baby until he had already been in that position for 2 years. I thought, based on all the conversations we'd had, that he would scale back his hours at work when we had a baby, but he didn't. The expectations by his supervisors, peers and staff was that he would be in at 8 and out at 7, plus work related travel and work related evening events, had already been solidified by the time the baby arrived. We went to therapy together and I went to therapy alone. We made agreements, made dates, made plans, and he followed through on exactly none of the things he agreed to do. We have been divorced for a year now, and while I noted a small uptick in his involvement in our DD's life (we share custody) for a while at the start, he is right back to where he was 2 years ago now - traveling all the time, working long hours, etc. I wish very much that we'd started working on those issues earlier, before they became so severe that they were unfixable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're not being unreasonable. He does not have to be working 12+ hour days every day. He is either managing his time very poorly or is unable to say no. The reality of being a working parent is that you have to achieve some kind of balance, and that balance should be a thing that your spouse has input into. He has created a life where he does not see his child except on the weekend. If that's acceptable for him, that bodes ill for your future. If he is unable to do a family dinner every day of the week, maybe he would be able to structure his schedule so that he has two "long days" in the office and three shorter days - or whatever his workload requires.

But honestly, having been in this town a while and worked on those offices, my bet is that it's 50% poor time management and 50% him choosing this life for himself and blaming the job.

This post nails it.
OP, congrats to you on your perspective though. He probably doesn't love missing out on everything an working those hours, but at least you are trying to work with him. I'm glad he's a VP too. I used to work crazy hours and lean in like crazy as a single woman and it got me nowhere. So glad his work is appreciated. But he really does need to block out time on his calendar to go home. If that's what it takes, he needs to schedule it. He should also try to schedule in a workout at lunchtime if he can because this life sounds unhealthy. Sometimes, also, it is the assholes you work with who can't manage their time and it screws up your day. Hope you can find out if it's face time, time management or an inability to say 'no'. Good luck. Do you have family nearby? Find a babysitter so you can get away too.

[Anonymous]

He is over doing it. And unfortunately your marriage is on the fast track to divorce court. No way will you be able to sustain a happy marriage with someone coming in at 10:30 every night. DH works that late on occasion but since we had DD it's pretty rare. If he's not willing to make the change it just shows that he really wasn't ready for a family.

Marriage counseling is your best hope.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, you guys. That's just what I needed to hear (minus the part about my marriage being on the fast track to divorce court ). I guess I just wanted reassurance that my opinion is valid before I made a big deal over it. I think you're right about getting counseling; we definitely shouldn't wait until we're both completely exhausted and resenting each other to work on our issues. I just wasn't sure if this was normal or something that everybody else was experiencing and I was just being a wuss. I know that he's trying to support our family the best way he knows how, but I think that he doesn't really realize that you HAVE to say no at some point, and that point is BEFORE 9:30 PM! As women, I feel like it's not easy but fairly clear-cut ("I'm leaving at 5:29 sharp because the nanny is going to leave and I have to breastfeed") but unfortunately, employers don't always understand that men with babies also have parental responsibilities that require them to leave work at a decent hour. Sigh...this sure ain't Sweden.
I think I'm going to set up a weekly lunchtime therapy session for us near his work so we can talk about some of this stuff. It may be that the workload just is what it is for now, and I can definitely ride it out, as long as I know that this is not going to go on indefinitely. Having been raised by a single mom and a workaholic dad, I'm really sensitive to the long-term consequences that getting into this pattern can have on a family.

[Anonymous]

It is entirely possible he needs to work 12 hours a day. However, most white collar jobs that require that amount of hours also should allow for some flexibility for when it gets done. He should be able to get ready for work, see the kid right as she is waking up for ten minutes before he heads out the door, then get home at least a few nights a week in order to see her for a half hour or so before bed. He can then start up work again once she is in bed.

[Anonymous]

I agree it's too much - he needs to be home with the family. But as a man, let me offer a different perspective than the various women here.

Have you talked to him (i.e., asked) and listened (if he has shared) what are the pressures he is facing at work? It's very easy (we are human after all) to to jump to conclusions or to try and come up with reason, or to go down the road of pointing fingers.

do you know if he feels the need to do more to provide now that you are a family of 3? do you know if there is anything from his background that makes him feel he has to do more than he should? (was his dad a deadbeat or unable to provide?).

yes, he signed up for a family - but was he always driven when you were dating? was his drive something that attracted you to him in the first place/ keep in mind you signed up for that too - he can't just change that aspect of him on a dime.

this is not about who's right or who's wrong. As a man and father, there is nothing more important to me than my family (my DD). I have friends who are incredibly successful and it took them a better part of year to extricate themselves from the pressures of high-flying jobs - to set more reasonable expectations and to slowly spend less time at work and more time at home.

I get your frustration as I had picked up all the pieces when my exW went back to her work (we both have very demanding high pressure jobs). But there is a lot that is possibly going on in the background, that he may not have shared with you, but that may be important factors as to why he is spending so much time away from home - best to ask and listen and hopefully, it's nothing that can't be easily fixed so he is the father and DH you want him to be.

then again, I could be wrong.

[Anonymous]

OP, just another voice of support here. My DH and I have a baby the same age, and DH generally works 60-80 hours/wk, sometimes more (for instance, he worked Sat noon to Mon 5pm with only 3 hours of sleep in there). It has been easier for me to set some expectations, as I also work full-time. However, I work from home and have a lot of flexibility, so it's easy for him to feel/assume that I can or should be handling the majority of our childcare and home-related duties. We've had a lot of arguments, and it has been a slow process, but he is gradually coming around to adjusting his schedule and realizing that he can't continue to work the same way he did when we were childless. One thing that has really helped was getting him to commit to picking our son up from daycare. It's not that I can't do that task, but when my husband does it it means that he's home in the evening and gets to spend some time with our son. He never manages it every day of the week, and some weeks (like last week) he doesn't manage it at all... but he knows it is what's expected, and I'd say on average he picks him up three times/week. That's three nights/week we're home together as a family, and it's been good for everyone. It's fine with me if he needs to do more work from home after DS goes to bed - just having him there and present for 2 hours makes such a difference to me.

Anyway, I agree with the PP who suggested that you try to see if you can get your husband to commit to being home early a few nights per week, or staying home longer a few mornings per week, whatever you feel you need. If the expectation is there and he has agreed to it, it will be harder for your husband to call and say he can't make it that night.