Reply to Is my wife being unrealistic about her expectations of my work life balance?

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Reply to "Is my wife being unrealistic about her expectations of my work life balance?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A lot of empathy missing from these replies. This is a hard time for both of you. Yes your wife is not being reasonable, AND she's going through a very difficult period of life and, in my marriage at least, we give each other grace.

Maternity leave with my second was one of the toughest stretches of my entire life. I would get to the end of the day and just cry myself to sleep for an hour then wake up and do it all again. Add in a snow day with a 4 yo and an exceptionally busy day for my husband and I probably also could have said something unreasonable or snarky. Thank god my husband let those kinds of comments roll off his back, stepped up where he could, and overall maintained better perspective than I was able to at that point in time.

[b]Have you ever spent five hours straight stuck inside with both of your kids? [/b]Five hours flies when you're busy at work but your wife was probably crawling up the walls and watching seconds tick by. It doesn't make her "right" it just means she was struggling.

OP, my advice to you is that the "reasonableness" of her comment isn't really the lens to look at it through. You are a team with a shared problem: you are both operating at full capacity, so any unexpected burden, e.g. a snow day, puts one or both of you over the edge. I'd try to tackle that part of the problem together. Where can you throw money at things? Where can you each let go of a little bit of expectations? (E.g. she wants the 4 yo picked up at a specific time, you want to get all of your emails sent before you leave the office. Neither one is necessary, you are both choosing a battle).

Fwiw my husband and I both work for west Coast companies and it's NOT easy. We say constantly that one or both of us should quit but we have golden handcuffs. I'm grateful we can each relate to the problem at least, it must be hard to be juggling the pressure of trying to log off at what is effectively 2 pm for your colleagues, and feeling push back at home if you can't get off until 2:15. It sounds like your wife will be going back to work soon - have you guys started to talk about your routine then? Maternity leave is short and hard, so I would spend less energy trying to draw out these arguments and more time trying to anticipate the next phase, which will last a lot longer. [/quote]

Snow day. OP's wifey should've taken those kids out to play in the snow. Yes, even the baby. Typical helpless millennial momma. I don't know how our species will survive.[/quote]

Wifey? Momma?  :shock: [/quote]

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