Anonymous wrote:Friends and meaningful activities seem like winners.

You can of course spend a lot of meaningful time with children sans spouse.

But, both my spouse and I are workaholics, so perhaps not super well suited to give advice....

Also, maybe there is some value to his world view, perhaps not for you, but for the world. I had a friend who i thought was a work a holic, who ended up winning a Nobel prize

I do not think he would give a shit to the nobel prize on his death bed.

Ask you DH to read, "The Top Five regrets of the dying". Or if he is more of a business kind of a person, ask him to read a book by of all people, the father of disruption theory, "How will you measure your life?".

Anonymous wrote:Create your own life. Don't expect help or him to show up. Just schedule your life and make it a good life for the kids. Sadly, it won't change, but don't fight about it or be angry. Let it go. The anger only hurts you.

This is perfect advice.

I ended up deciding to be a SAH parent when I realized I just couldn’t handle all of the work responsibilities on top of the home responsibilities. I would never have made this choice if i didn’t trust my husband completely. I was pretty successful in my own profession and making decent money, but he was making 3 times as much, so my net contribution did not really change anything. My biggest reason to consider staying in the work place was for health insurance. My husband left the decision to me. I decided that since money was not a reason to work, the constraint was time and how do I want to spend my time on this earth. I decided to devote myself to raising my kids and making the household less stressful and more fun. Work is highly overrated IMO. I had an established career and did not need to prove to myself my own professional worth. I don’t know if it made any difference in the outcomes for my children. They might have been very successful anyway. But for me, my life was way less stressful and more satisfying.

Anonymous wrote:I operated as a single parent when my children were growing up. The key to happiness is to rely on yourself and make your own life with your children. You have a lot of flexibility and money to orchestrate wonderful activities and trips without having to consider his schedule because he isn’t available. If he can show up, great, but don’t count on it. In the beginning,I found the situation overwhelming. But over time I grew to love the freedom it gave me.

My kids are now in college and my husband has retired. We have ample resources to do whatever we want which is great. We enjoy each other’s company and are having a great time. Our kids are both on their own journeys and doing very well. It’s not the way I was raised or would have chosen, but you can make it work with a grateful mindset. Or, you can choose to be bitter and angry, but that helps no one.

NP here. Did you decide to work or SAH? This is something I am struggling with.

On one hand, working gives me something outside of my family life to focus on. On the other hand, I would have more flexibility to build friendships and hobbies if I were to SAH. It’s also kind of a struggle sometimes to work and care for my children without a lot of emotional, physical, or just logistical support from my husband.

I operated as a single parent when my children were growing up. The key to happiness is to rely on yourself and make your own life with your children. You have a lot of flexibility and money to orchestrate wonderful activities and trips without having to consider his schedule because he isn’t available. If he can show up, great, but don’t count on it. In the beginning,I found the situation overwhelming. But over time I grew to love the freedom it gave me.

My kids are now in college and my husband has retired. We have ample resources to do whatever we want which is great. We enjoy each other’s company and are having a great time. Our kids are both on their own journeys and doing very well. It’s not the way I was raised or would have chosen, but you can make it work with a grateful mindset. Or, you can choose to be bitter and angry, but that helps no one.

Op, you operate as a single parent. You do not add stress to your children's lives by complaining. You take charge. You have the power, including the budget for day to day. He's absent. Feel empowered. No reason you can't be.

95% of the time, imagine that you are just a single mom with your own life and live it how you wish. Banish all other expectations.

Spend the other 5% figuring out the highest priority ways in which to spend with your husband and schedule it into your respective calendars. For some it might be a brief daily check-in or an early morning coffee in the morning. For others it might be one morning physical activity on the weekend. For others it might be a family hike.

I’d try to get to the why he is a working all the time. Is it he truly loves his job? Feels pressure to support the family? Doesn’t want to really be home with the chaos that young kids can create? Once you figure out the why you can go from there. For example, assure him you’d be fine with downsizing and the family can live off your salary if he lost his job and he’d find another one

Anonymous wrote:Get hobbies and create a rich life for yourself and your kids, that DH can dip into when he's available.

Make sure he's not the one bringing all the fun or excitement into the family.

Have a schedule so when he comes home, he can see where everyone is up to in the routine and jump in.

I think this is important. I spent a long time trying to get DH to want to be home more by giving him all of the fun jobs, like taking kids out for ice cream, family movie night, trips to sky zone, etc. Sometimes I would go too. Sometimes I would just use that time to clean or take a break. Then DH and I would also have date nights where we would do something fun on our own or with another couple. But I would never take the kids to do something fun on my own. A lot of my time with them was homework, cleaning up, music practice, etc.

I realized that I wasn’t enjoying my family and my children. I started watching movies with them and going out to get ice cream. And sometimes when DH is home, there are chores or homework that need to be done, and he needs to participate. We go on less frequent date nights on our own (maybe 8-10 times a year) and do more frequent family nights where we all go do something fun together.

I can’t say that it’s improved my marriage a ton, but it has definitely increased my enjoyment in life and improved my relationships with my kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to come to peace with it.
For me and the kids, we just function on our own/do our own thing and I consider DH a "weekend dad" as he isnt around during the kids' waking hours during the week. I liken it to dh being on a business trip - totally solo parenting.
Having said that, it can be exhausting and resentment can snowball (especially when dh sleeps in on the weekend for exams. Gerrrr). So make sure you have built in respites for yourself and can recharge routinely. Easier said than done, I know.

Have you talked to dh? What is his perspective?

This is pathetic...divorce already.

Um, op asked for tips to deal with a workaholic husband and explicitly stated don't reply with the ubiquitous reply of "divorce already". Try to keep up.

PP and others are being helpful.

If he’s truly a workaholic, don’t count on his wanting 50/50 custody. My spouse (STBX) decided right off the bat that due to the demands of their job, spouse couldn’t handle more than every other weekend visitation. As our marriage counselor told me, even if spouse was given 50/50, there’s no reason to think spouse would actually take the kids 50% of the time because if it was important to spouse to spend time with them, spouse would already be doing that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to come to peace with it.
For me and the kids, we just function on our own/do our own thing and I consider DH a "weekend dad" as he isnt around during the kids' waking hours during the week. I liken it to dh being on a business trip - totally solo parenting.
Having said that, it can be exhausting and resentment can snowball (especially when dh sleeps in on the weekend for exams. Gerrrr). So make sure you have built in respites for yourself and can recharge routinely. Easier said than done, I know.

Have you talked to dh? What is his perspective?

This is pathetic...divorce already.

Not the PP, but I don’t find anything pathetic about it. She is choosing happiness and to make the best of the situation she is in. No one has everything just as they want it. We all make sacrifices and learn to work around non-ideal circumstances. Divorce would mean she still had to solo parent, but now would have to also work full time, and have the same or more house work to do, and probably less money- oh and get to only see her kids half the time. That doesn’t sound like the better deal.

Anonymous wrote:How involved a parent is he? Would you anticipate on divorce? My never had any interest in the kids is given 50% custody between his girl friend (OW), his mother and sisters ...despite for the last 5 years he might have spent 10% of waking hours with the kids.

I’m sorry.
At least he lives near his mother and sister. Are they good people?

I’m not the OP, but my fear in divorce is that my kids will end up spending 50% of their time with me and 50% of their time with a rotation of babysitters and whatever woman DH was with in the moment.

How involved a parent is he? Would you anticipate on divorce? My never had any interest in the kids is given 50% custody between his girl friend (OW), his mother and sisters ...despite for the last 5 years he might have spent 10% of waking hours with the kids.