For those of you whose husbands work long hours...

[Anonymous]

Dh is a surgeon. We know a lot of people with big careers. I often find that some people use their careers as an excuse to check out.

Dh is a high volume surgeon and earns a seven figure income. He is very busy. He has dinner with us 4 nights per week. He takes our kids to all their sports games on the weekends. When he is with our friends and family, he gives you his attention and acts available. He has always been like this to me the entire time we were dating and together. He never made me feel like he didn’t have time for me.

We live in an area with a ton of biglaw, doctors, executives and business owners. While I don’t know everyone’s schedule, they are all high income. I would say everyone earns at least 500k if not 800k+. There are some parents who are never around. Others are very involved. I find the most successful ones are the ones who seem most involved or maybe you just notice them more.

I mean these busy people can find time to have affairs. If they wanted, they could make their family the priority. I remember girls who used to complain that their boyfriends didn’t have time for them when they were residents or bankers.

[Anonymous]

I would plan a driving vacation. That way DH could always join you later or leave early or just come for the weekend. You could do the beach or PA. They are good first vacations.

I’m a SAHM and I do this often. Dh often changes his flights. I just stay longer with kids.

[Anonymous]

I used to work in finance where the culture was to be at the office all the time. I took my job so seriously. I worked through my honeymoon. Not until I had a baby who required heart surgery did I realize that my job wasn’t that important.

[Anonymous]

OP -- you parent as if you are completely alone. That's it, that's all. What arrangements would you make? Take the emotion out of it. Empower yourself with logic and the power to make the decisions. Get things on the calendar (only a few) that are firmly non negotiable -- weddings of a close family member, a yearly vacation or two. That's it.

[Anonymous]

You can't have it all. My DH has purposely not gone all in on his career because I work full time and for us to both work full time and be present for our child and be partners to each other, it's a necessity. If one person is going to have a really demanding career, the other person will have to pick up the slack by either downshifting their career and becoming the primary parent.

If you are both going to have big careers, you have to outsource a LOT.

Something has to give.

[Anonymous]

I call BS on needing to work all day both Saturday and Sunday. Is this every weekend? I think he is just using work as an excuse not to hang out with you guys. He may be wasting time and playing catch up.

I have a friend who always worked a lot. He earns a lot of money. My friend stays home. We ended becoming good friends with them during Covid. Specifically the husband became friends with my husband and my husband says the guy is constantly texting him throughout the day. He is like a day trader, buys a lot of whiskey and scotch, watches YouTube, etc. he also does often work late. He is never available to help my friend with any childcare, chores or drop off pick up. The two times Dh asked him to do something during a work day, he was able to shuffle his day around to play golf. So he is too busy to pick up kid from school but not too busy to golf.

[Anonymous]

Don’t budge on the vacations. If you need to outsource the planning to a travel agent, do it. I’ve had vacations where my husband had to take phone calls, once he even had to fly out for the day for a meeting in the middle of our beach week, but we still had a great time. I find that those days away from the routine really help to solidly our bond as a family and make special memories that can make the grind of solo weekday parenting easier to swallow! We often take vacations with the grandparents because it’s hard for him to carve out the time in his schedule to get away. We can both vacation and check the boxes for grandparent time too. We’ve done Europe, the Caribbean and Atlantic beach weeks with them. It’s really nice becauase we have built in babysitters for the occasional date night, and there’s an extra set of hands to make the challenges of sightseeing or time changes with the kids more bearable (carving out one on one time for a moody kid, or staying with a preschooler to nap).

[Anonymous]

No vacation in 2 years? I would book the vacation with or without him.

[Anonymous]

1) make lots of mom friends and make lots of plans with them. especially ones that live close so you can do a last minute playdate when you're both bored (i've very aggressive about chatting people up on the playground etc....i'm an introvert overall who doesn't just make random small talk in line, but knew i had to put myself out there to make friends)

2) hire lots and lots of help so you can carry on with your plans no matter what DH does (if you're planning to go out to dinner, hire a baby sitter so you don't have to worry about dh last minute saying he has to work and can't take the kid. yes this is enabling but it also relieves a lot of your stress). hire help so that the domestic work is manageable for you and so that you get breaks, assume your dh will do nothing and just get what you need

3) work with a therapist on accepting this. only have another kid if you know dh isn't going to do any more just because the family needs are growing (i have 3 partially because i wanted an active family life for my kids even if their dad isn't a part of this, but i only did this b/c i can afford tons of help so its not too stressful)