CaliforniaGirl Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 Oh God. I'm a now work-from-home mom (worked outside the home for 20 years; from the home for the past 4) of a sweet autistic 5-year-old and an active 2-year-old. My husband is gone from 9AM-8PM every...single...day. (Commuter.) God help me but I jump for joy when I see his car headlights in the driveway not because it's him, specifically, but because it's ANYBODY to take the kids' focus off me for eleven seconds so I can go pee uninterrupted. I do 100% of the housework. (And to my own detriment, I'm a neat freak.) I bring in...not tons of money each month, but not a pittance, either. I take my sons back and forth, to and from therapies and schools. Our five-year-old also now has in-home therapy. I don't have a single free day, ever, because on Saturdays and Sundays, I catch up with the grocery shopping and laundry that fell behind during the week. I told my husband that we need a wife. I asked him to buy us one somewhere. I need SOMEBODY to pick up SOME of this slack. Somewhere. Anywhere! One frickin load of dishes a day, for the love of mike. I even offered to find a very young and cute wife. A giggly sort of 18-year-old who, like, has never, like, SEEN one like THAT before, giggle! No dice. He just doesn't want to deal with two women. Ah well. Sometimes I think: Why do women get married? What exactly do we get out of it? Not sex, anyway...or, sometimes...although courtship v. marriage sex is pretty much "Your eyes are limpid pools...let me take you out to dinner and then a romantic carriage ride and THEN schtoop you" v. "The kids are in the other room for two minutes. I know I didn't shower yet today, but...let me schtoop you." ("Why do women turn off from sex once they're married?" Uh...) I do not like being married... My husband is a nice dude, but...I still don't like it. Sometimes I daydream about when the kids are grown and how I'm going to get a little apartment in San Francisco, in one of those huge three-story skinny homes, on the top floor where I can open the curtains and watch neighbors' kids play outside in the summertime. I can't wait to be the crazy cat lady. Any other wives out there feel like I do? I picture heaven not with pearly gates and music, but completely devoid of piss on a single toilet. (Does heaven have toilets?)
carhill Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 Hire a wife. I think there's a cleaning company called "Rent a Wife" Another option, if you and you husband agree, is for him to scale back his career and become more domestic. If he was willing, would you be willing to make the lifestyle adjustment? BTW, I could make the same comment about the trail of shoes leading from the living room to the bedroom but now my wife his her own house to keep just how she likes it, nice and messy Although many times I felt like the wife in our M, I still prefer to be married (in general). Hope you change your mind
Enema Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 Doesn't sound like you're struggling for money. Hire a maid or a nanny a few days a week and take them off for just you. Move closer to work so your husband can do "something". Make him take them full time on the weekends to give you a break. Don't shoulder the whole load. Kids are a mistake, but they don't have to be the end of you
Storyrider Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 Yes, I felt a lot like you're describing when I was staying home with the kids. Even now that I'm working, I entertain similar fantasies of coming home to a tidy, peaceful apartment where no one asks me for anything, and I can pick up a book if I want to, or take a shower, or, as you mentioned, go to the bathroom without anyone barging in, or eat a frozen dinner or a bowl of cereal if I don't feel like cooking. I have felt much better since returning to work. I now get plenty of quiet time since much of my day is in front of the computer, and I can use my mind in the way it focuses best. The weekends are still hard for me. I've also started writing fiction again, and it helps tremendously to feel I'm making progress on what I consider to be my area of strength and (at the risk of sounding cheesy) doing what I'm meant to do. Of course I adore my funny, loveable kids, but they do suck me dry at times, and leave me feeling like a husk. I have to be creative and find ways to relate to them that are positive for both them and me, rather than doing things that make me feel resentful. Part of this is trying not to withdraw into a book or into my head out of frustration, but to be proactive about taking the lead to make things better. It is hard.
Author CaliforniaGirl Posted March 18, 2009 Author Posted March 18, 2009 Carhill: thanks. (Your shoe comment made me laugh!) I constantly beg him to move closer to work. But the closer we get to L.A., the more expensive homes are. He doesn't want to take the risk. Which leads me to... Enema: Money actually is tight, which is why we both work. I hired a housecleaner once, just once. It was just before Christmas of '07 because we were having his whole family over and I was just tired as shoot and God...I couldn't face the extreme cleaning I knew I wanted to see on Christmas Day. He rode my back about this for DAYS. First he tried to argue me out of it because it was $80. Then, oh boy, once she got here it turned into $120 because she had to stay an hour longer than she'd intended...I thought hubby would have a stroke. He tried to be "nice" about it but his continuous anxious commentary for literally days taught me to NEVER ask to hire on help for cleaning again. Storyrider: Thank you so much for your input. It helped so much to hear someone say she understands. I love my kids so much...they're my dears. But yeah, they are demanding (as kids are), and it is energy-sapping. I do love them so very much...but particularly having special needs (ETA: I mean them having special needs, and therefore requiring more care)...I do sometimes just wish for an hour to myself here or there. I should add that my husband watches the kids whenever I want to nap on weekends...he's perfectly willing to do that. I shouldn't be mean and say he does nothing at all. They adore him. I hold to my stance that I really just don't like being married. Perhaps I'm unnatural. I don't know...I have a very romantic nature so it's not that I'm unfeeling...I just don't dig it...it is SO much work, just work, work, work...I'm not a lazy person, far from it, but Godssakes I just want to be able to think about myself first at least once a...month. Year. You know? Okay. Enough whining! I guess this was my intro, sort of. And it's not all gloom and doom over here...just some complaints I wanted to toss out there and see if anyone else felt the same way. So...nice to meet you all and thanks for listening to me gripe!
carhill Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 OP, you know, it's not about the work, it's how you feel about it. When you have passion, you have energy, time expands and things just flow. I call it the "zone". I remember talking about it with some musicians the last time I was in Oz. I get that way in the shop. It's like an out of body experience. You can be that way in a relationship, if you are truly elemental with each other and are compatible. It's like you become a single mind. The work is still there but it becomes superfluous. I hope you find your zone.
Author CaliforniaGirl Posted March 18, 2009 Author Posted March 18, 2009 Carhill, thank you so much. That's a wonderful thing to wish on someone! Thank you for your kind words and good advice.
lovestruck818 Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 Oh God. I'm a now work-from-home mom (worked outside the home for 20 years; from the home for the past 4) of a sweet autistic 5-year-old and an active 2-year-old. My husband is gone from 9AM-8PM every...single...day. (Commuter.) God help me but I jump for joy when I see his car headlights in the driveway not because it's him, specifically, but because it's ANYBODY to take the kids' focus off me for eleven seconds so I can go pee uninterrupted. I do 100% of the housework. (And to my own detriment, I'm a neat freak.) I bring in...not tons of money each month, but not a pittance, either. I take my sons back and forth, to and from therapies and schools. Our five-year-old also now has in-home therapy. I don't have a single free day, ever, because on Saturdays and Sundays, I catch up with the grocery shopping and laundry that fell behind during the week. I told my husband that we need a wife. I asked him to buy us one somewhere. I need SOMEBODY to pick up SOME of this slack. Somewhere. Anywhere! One frickin load of dishes a day, for the love of mike. I even offered to find a very young and cute wife. A giggly sort of 18-year-old who, like, has never, like, SEEN one like THAT before, giggle! No dice. He just doesn't want to deal with two women. Ah well. Sometimes I think: Why do women get married? What exactly do we get out of it? Not sex, anyway...or, sometimes...although courtship v. marriage sex is pretty much "Your eyes are limpid pools...let me take you out to dinner and then a romantic carriage ride and THEN schtoop you" v. "The kids are in the other room for two minutes. I know I didn't shower yet today, but...let me schtoop you." ("Why do women turn off from sex once they're married?" Uh...) I do not like being married... My husband is a nice dude, but...I still don't like it. Sometimes I daydream about when the kids are grown and how I'm going to get a little apartment in San Francisco, in one of those huge three-story skinny homes, on the top floor where I can open the curtains and watch neighbors' kids play outside in the summertime. I can't wait to be the crazy cat lady. Any other wives out there feel like I do? I picture heaven not with pearly gates and music, but completely devoid of piss on a single toilet. (Does heaven have toilets?) fck if you don't want to be married and you don't appreciate it, well jeez i'll take it. I can't find anyone who would ever considering marrying me. Why not, instead of bitching about being married sucks, be lucky you found that b/c some of us never will.?
carhill Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 She's venting. Pretty normal, even healthy. Getting the stuff out and talking about it can be an impetus to clarity and from there the work with one's spouse can flow. FWIW, I thought the same way as you in my 20's and 30's. At 50, I'll tell you marriage is no panacea. It's another part of living. Sometimes really satisfying; sometimes really unsatisfying. Kinda like life .
pyroguy Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 And, it's much easier to be in the "zone" when your SO appreciates you and fully validates what you are doing. On a side note OP, would you consider a male maid? I'm looking for a side job . I can cook, clean, do laundry, AND handle kids. I can also dress revealing, as I have no problem being a sex object
carhill Posted March 18, 2009 Posted March 18, 2009 Yes, both give implicit meaning to the word "vacuum" In the former, the lack of the zone; in the latter, a job well done
Author CaliforniaGirl Posted March 18, 2009 Author Posted March 18, 2009 And, it's much easier to be in the "zone" when your SO appreciates you and fully validates what you are doing. On a side note OP, would you consider a male maid? I'm looking for a side job . I can cook, clean, do laundry, AND handle kids. I can also dress revealing, as I have no problem being a sex object No WAY. I have finally found the perfect man. When can you start? On a serious note...yes, it's so true...it's very hard to be gung-ho when one feels underappreciated. I guess ever since I stopped working outside the home, I've felt much less "equal" to him. I am hoping to go back to work outside the home--where you actually have to get dressed and talk to grown-ups and all that--in two years, when our youngest enters kindergarten. I worked full-time for so long and I guess it's just a part of me. But like you say, pyroguy--the validation here, too, is a big part of it. Carhill, hah, very clever! I like your wit! Thanks, guys. Just checking in between a parent-teacher conference, my freelance work and the dentist today. Will the fun never end??? Yar har. Thanks again.
Heroic Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 Caligirl, you need to find a good baby sitter. If you don't you will turn from a sexy woman into a mom.
Mr. Lucky Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 I hold to my stance that I really just don't like being married. Perhaps I'm unnatural. I don't know...I have a very romantic nature so it's not that I'm unfeeling...I just don't dig it...it is SO much work, just work, work, work...I'm not a lazy person, far from it, but Godssakes I just want to be able to think about myself first at least once a...month. Year. You know? How would your situation be different if you weren't married? You'd still have two children and your (ex)H would still be working long and hard to support the four of you. I just wonder how your marriage in general and your H in particular become the focus for your unhappiness ??? Mr. Lucky
Author CaliforniaGirl Posted March 19, 2009 Author Posted March 19, 2009 How would your situation be different if you weren't married? You'd still have two children and your (ex)H would still be working long and hard to support the four of you. Oh goodness, not hardly, I shouldn't think! (Sorry for the bad grammar.) Study after study shows a divorced woman's quality of life goes significantly down and a divorced man's goes significantly up, financially; I don't know what woman is living this fantasy life of being a happy divorcee who's entirely supported by her husband, but if she exists, I don't know her, anyway. If you haven't seen such studies (about divorce and how much/how little the woman is "supported" and how many divorced women do in fact work), let me know and I'll Google the subject again...I looked into this once before (because my sister mentioned it to me when she was getting a divorce). My ex isn't the only one working long and hard to support the four of us. For the first six months of our marriage, I worked long and hard...my husband was looking for work (he moved to be with me) and had no kids to take care of at that point. I continued to work; he found work. I got pregnant; I continued to work. (Seeing a pattern here?) We moved here...we both found jobs (me first)...his paid more...at the same time, it was finally confirmed that our son was (is) autistic and we knew one of us would have to stay home to take him to all his therapies. Although I found a job first (just two weeks after moving all the way across the country to an area I'd never lived in before), his job paid more. So even though I'd thought he would stay home with our son, it turned out that I did it. I immediately began on a campaign to market myself so I could freelance from home and whatever it took, I did it (and still do). And currently, I take in the same as what I took in less daycare before I ever made this move (IOW, when I worked outside the home). Regardless, I do have plans to go back to work outside the home as I described above. I just need to get the littlest to kindergarten, which has an after-school program, and off I go. So, how would things be different in that regard? Well, I guess I'd work...harder. Eh. Big shmeel. As I said, I've worked for more than 20 years. Not too terribly afraid of hard work. So...he'd work to support all of us? That's not quite the way it is or the way it's ever been. I just wonder how your marriage in general and your H in particular become the focus for your unhappiness ??? Mr. Lucky Well, my marriage isn't "the" focus and I don't have unhappiness as in my life is all gray-and-white before-Oz-Dorothy-in-Kansas-esque. But this is a marriage forum. And I had a gripe. So I griped. (shrug) Now. How would anything be different? 1. Less laundry. Less dishes. One-third less piss on the toilet seat. 2. Less sex, maybe. (Since divorced people are allowed to have sex.) 3. Less child care (since presumably, we'd each have our kids half the time). 4. Me actually having some say in where I live (I don't like where we live at all and have offered nine billion alternatives, all of which my husband has vetoed...and he's allowed to have majority say because he makes more money...GOD this hurts, God this galls me, a person who has worked her entire life from the age of 17 onward...it kills me...it hurts). 5. Somebody might love me again. Somebody might touch me again. Somebody might look into my eyes and say they're beautiful. Somebody might say he's glad I'm in his life. That I feel good. Smell good. That I am good. Not definitely...but the possibility would be there. Hence the "apartment in San Francisco" fantasy and my post here. But this isn't my whole life or whole focus or anything. I was just venting...spilling...thought I would share and give a clue as to what I'm doing here and why I'm interested in reading other people's experiences and recommendations on marriage.
Mr. Lucky Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 My ex isn't the only one working long and hard to support the four of us. For the first six months of our marriage, I worked long and hard...my husband was looking for work (he moved to be with me) and had no kids to take care of at that point. I continued to work; he found work. I got pregnant; I continued to work. (Seeing a pattern here?) We moved here...we both found jobs (me first)...his paid more...at the same time, it was finally confirmed that our son was (is) autistic and we knew one of us would have to stay home to take him to all his therapies. CGirl, I didn't mean to imply that it was ONLY him working to support the family. I simply meant that his role wouldn't change. 5. Somebody might love me again. Somebody might touch me again. Somebody might look into my eyes and say they're beautiful. Somebody might say he's glad I'm in his life. That I feel good. Smell good. That I am good. Not definitely...but the possibility would be there. To me, this should have been the lead to your original post. If you're missing this now, you don't need a wife, you need a connected husband. That's a whole different problem, and one you probably can't solve for $80 (or $120 if they stay longer ). Why do you feel this way? Mr. Lucky
carhill Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 The guy shows his love by working hard and bringing home a paycheck, kinda like my dad did. It's a simple (but not easily solved) miscommunication/love language thing. OP, anywhere close?
LakesideDream Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 California Girl. I'm sorry your post count is so low. I'd call your husband and talk some "truth" to him. I am a "now" batchlor.. kinda like your San Francisco Row house senerio... 'cept my house is out in the desert. I am not famous for my house keeping skills.... so I hire someone to help! I like to live in a semi neat and sanitary home. My skill set and heath problems make this difficult for me without some assistance. It took awhile for me overcome the "reality" and the "frugality" of the situation. Until I tried it. Wow! What a difference. My home is cleaner by far than "bachlor" clean.. my tile (floors/counters) are always nice. Bedroom carpets not funky. Easier to keep up between cleaning people visits. No fear of inviting anyone over anytime or of being suprised by guests.. I wish I would have known how easy it was 20 years ago. ... and, the people that do it (about the same as you paid $75x2 a month) cost me about four hours of my own labor value. And.. consider it would take me 25 hours a month to do it myself. It's a deal. Appeal to your husbands practical side. Point out all the neat things you could do with all that extra time...
Author CaliforniaGirl Posted March 19, 2009 Author Posted March 19, 2009 Hi again. Mr. Lucky: My husband started off very romantic but I very quickly learned that he liked (likes) to spend a majority of his free time online. In fact, I started really going online out of loneliness that he was always online. How ironic. Anyway...he just doesn't really show me affection, unless he "wants some," which isn't often. He started turning off of sex when I became pregnant...and after a while of that, I just no longer was turned on by him. I just don't feel "it" if a person doesn't feel "it" for me, and now...it's way past the point where I could have gotten "it" back. We do still have sex occasionally. Right before, he pays a bit more attention to me (in the hours leading up to it; he'll come sit next to me on the couch or whatever). Sometimes I'll put him off subtly so I can hang on to the affection a wee bit more before we "do it" and then the attention is all over for another month. Ugh. This sure sounds grim, doesn't it? carhill said (hey again, carhill) that maybe he's following his father's lead of showing love through work. Maybe. He resents his father horribly for always working and never being around. He felt his father was actually avoiding the family. So do I. It sucks because now I really no longer love him. It's horrible...I have tried everything to get it back but it is not happening. And he refuses counseling, so.... I can't walk with the kids. He has money, I don't (through his family); he has living parents who are willing to spot him as much money as he needs for lawyers, I don't. He has let met know that he'll use whatever resources he has to keep my kids from me if I leave, so.......... Wow. Sounds even...more grim. I hate it here. I wish I were back home on the east coast... I wish I still had a "real" job... I wish, I wish. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. So now I guess I'm just looking for company. So I found this site. I probably won't whine and moan a whole lot on here--hence, my obligatory "waaaaaah" post to just get it all out and gone. I'm here more, I think, to just talk to other people and not be alone. And to help out if I can. At the very least, I do have experience! LakesideDream, can I move into your nice clean house??? Heh! Thanks, everybody. Time to shake this off and stop being so morose...enough whining for one day!
LakesideDream Posted March 19, 2009 Posted March 19, 2009 Nothing wrong with a pity party, 'specially if you know that's what it is. Move in... ah..... Spring Break is starting... this town is a destination. I could probably rent the spare bedrooms for $150.00 a night each, I'm way to paranoid though. Plus I'm way to old to deal with those young teeny bodies around. My idea of fun now is watching MonsterQuest on Wednesday nights.
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