If your spouse works all of the time how do you not become resentful?

[Anonymous]

I am really struggling with this. My own husband has a side hobby which he happens to get paid for that started out as a few hours on Sundays to being gone almost all day/evening both Saturday and Sunday. The extra money helps us but it's not like we are paycheck to paycheck. I admire his work ethic and I know I logically shouldn't be angry at him for going above and beyond to provide (Im a SAHM) but I AM getting angry. Honestly I'm at the point where part of me thinks he does it just to be out of the house.

We have an infant and since he works full time during the week and is gone all weekend all of the parenting is on me. Add in that our baby is a really crappy sleeper and I am up multiple times at night and basically the sole caretaker 24/7. I am just worn so thin. I understand he has the stress of being the provider for the household and so technically it's my job to do take care of the baby but Im exhausted. And I just can't take being home by myself with the baby all of the time. Especially weekends when I see my friends and other families spending time together. Mpm groups would probably just wear me out even more at this point. DH and I haven't gone on a date since the baby was born 10 months ago (we have gone out to eat with the baby twice) and I am just getting horrendously depressed and lonely. I have expressed all of these feelings to no avail. I have cried, have gotten angry, have tried to compromise with only half weekends and he still does whatever he wants. I'm becoming extremely resentful and detached.

How do I just accept this is my life now? I know some women who have husbands that travel a lot and maybe they can offer insight? It's just not how I envisioned family life at all.

[Anonymous]

What kind of work/hobby is this?
How much money is he bringing in?
And you really don't need the money?

I guess my answer depends on what the details are.
For example, if he loves to play poker and is now spending all weekend at professional poker player tournaments, hoping to hit it big, that's one thing.
If he's a high school teacher for his full time job and is working with at risk youth on the weekends to bring their homework to jails and detention centers, that's another.

If he is bringing in a couple hundred dollars a weekend coaching sports and hanging out with the guys at baseball fields and after game bars watching replays, and is bringing in $175/year, that is also not a great situation

But if by not needing the money you mean you are getting by with the monthly bills but not saving and have credit card debt, then he may be doing the right thing by getting extra work every weekend.

Lots of nuances here OP!

[Anonymous]

Friend is a wedding DJ. Probably pulls in an extra $20k per year but I wonder if it is stressful on his wife. He's gone from noon to 2 am on Saturdays April-Sept and usually either Friday or Sunday as well.

[Anonymous]

I just bitch about it to my friends. That's why God invented playgroup.
For the most part at home, I just tell him how much I love and respect him for working so hard. Oh, and have him run simple errands. Pick up this or that, arrange social plans, etc. There are ways he can participate in your family life without being physically present.

[Anonymous]

Tell him you'll have to begin hiring a babysitter for a few hours a week so you can get a break and some sleep. That might cancel out some of his weekend earnings, and that might help him see the impact of being gone all the time.

[Anonymous]

He probably does. But you're not likely to change him. Accept, hire help, get away yourself. Better than no spouse at all - it's all relative.

[Anonymous]

Hire help, period. If he doesn't like it, then he can stop "working".

I'm in somewhat of the same position and and counting down til the kids are gone, then I will be too. Sometimes I feel like ending it now so I can at least get every other weekend to myself!

[Anonymous]

Hire help. He might not understand how stressed you are.

Put on the calendar the weekend you want him at home. Plan it ahead so he can take the weekend off. You can either ask him to take care of the baby so you can sleep in that weekend or plan to outing.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are basically a single parent. What's the point of even being married?

[Anonymous]

NOP.

I'm struggling with this acceptance from the point of view of a girlfriend turned fiancee. My FI has a great job, but his work often extends into the late hours of the night by his own doing. When he's with me on weekends he's working from (my) home. He works from his home after work hours. He puts in 8+ hours at work, plus another 3-4 hours every night, sometimes 6! He's a total workaholic, we don't have kids, and I'm worried how this picture is going to look a couple years down the line when I am ready to have a family with him, and he's going to make me feel like a single parent because he's always busy with work.

I don't resent him now, and he's aware that his long work hours make me feel neglected sometimes, but I also know that he's been at his job 2 years and he's trying to get ahead with a huge promotion, so maybe I just need to back off, let him take care of this, nail that promotion, and then things will get better. Friends have warned me that may not change.

[Anonymous]

Doesn't he ever want to be with his kid?/that would really concern me. What is his response to being an absentee parent?

[Anonymous]

Why don't you get a fucking job so all the financial stress won't be on him?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NOP.

I'm struggling with this acceptance from the point of view of a girlfriend turned fiancee. My FI has a great job, but his work often extends into the late hours of the night by his own doing. When he's with me on weekends he's working from (my) home. He works from his home after work hours. He puts in 8+ hours at work, plus another 3-4 hours every night, sometimes 6! He's a total workaholic, we don't have kids, and I'm worried how this picture is going to look a couple years down the line when I am ready to have a family with him, and he's going to make me feel like a single parent because he's always busy with work.

I don't resent him now, and he's aware that his long work hours make me feel neglected sometimes, but I also know that he's been at his job 2 years and he's trying to get ahead with a huge promotion, so maybe I just need to back off, let him take care of this, nail that promotion, and then things will get better. Friends have warned me that may not change.

It won't change. My DH has always been like this and it didn't stop once we got married and then had a kid. There's always more work to be done. His laptop is a permanent fixture on our kitchen island.

[Anonymous]

^ PP, Does the marriage suffer or do you get over it and find other ways to keep your marriage alive and happy?

[Anonymous]

Has he said he is doing this only for the money?info the posterbwho suggested she get a "fucking job,"/she has one. Full time day and night nanny, which would otherwise come out of the hhi.

However a job may give the OP a break from routine and some leverage in dealing with her husband's residential spend all his free time out of the home.

Op before you had the kid did you discuss the financial implications of staying home?/may i ask what the hhi is now with and without the " ”hobby?"