The biggest challenge for me is to balance my personal and professional life. I have a young family and I am a very hands-on mother. I have to make sure that I am there for my children when they need me.
Gladys' letter
About 70 hours (2x35 hours) are worked by my husband each week. and it causes me a lot of pain. Our family has three kids, ages 15, 12, and 8. Thankfully, I don't have a job outside the home; otherwise, what would happen to our family, including our kids, and our relationship? My husband is dedicated to his work (I am sincerely happy for him because I believe that the fulfillment part of the job is very balancing for a man). I attempted to return to work for three months, and I'll let you infer what that meant for our small family.
This situation has been going on for 16 years, and my husband has just taken on new responsibilities which of course makes him more irritated and less available at home. He takes all his vacations, which allows us to breathe and find ourselves again. He remains attentive to everything I can tell him about our children. He also knows how to listen to me when he really needs to. I shouldn't complain too much, but regularly I can't take it anymore. I feel like I'm raising our children alone (two teenagers, that's tough) and that I'm only getting the crumbs of time that his work leaves for me, for all four of us.
I'm thinking of going back to work part-time, I'm in the process of doing that and I'm also doing therapy with a psychologist, which of course helps me a lot. In our children, it is our second child who manifests by pains that she cannot tell us with words (day and night enuresis in an episodic way). She will soon start therapeutic work which I hope will be more helpful than the previous attempts.
It is very difficult in this day and age to say the word family in the workplace, especially for a man. This subject is very difficult to approach with my husband and, the aggressiveness comes very quickly. How to talk to each other?
The opinion of Jacques Salome
I tell you in all simplicity, I feel as helpless as you do.
1) The system of "always more of the same
For reasons that belong to your husband, he seems to need to invest a lot in his work. If I can count 70 hours over 6 days, that's more than 11 hours a day. If I add transportation, there is not much left for the "rest", i.e. family life, personal life, marital life... My grandmother used to say "If you hunt wild rabbits with a marine gun...there is not much of the rabbit left to eat! "
And you are, apparently, in a system called "more of the same". Always more work and external commitments for him, always more understanding, availability, tolerance for you.... Your attitude of tolerance and understanding towards your partner must require you to take a lot on yourself! Your attempt to resume activity is a good indication of your degree of dissatisfaction and your desire for change.
2) What is your daughter trying to say?
And maybe your daughter is also trying to alert you (daytime and nighttime enuresis) that appearances are deceiving, that things don't happen as we think they do.
I invite you to confirm to her that I find her very courageous, because it takes a lot of tenacity, courage to wet the bed and on oneself, to try to say (you underline it very well) with evils what it is not possible to say with words. What is going on for her, what is she trying to tell you, her father, who is not available? In what area is she trying to alert you? To tell you perhaps "Mom, it is time to wake up! "
3) A justified therapy
You are getting help through the mediation of therapy, which seems justified to me but should not make you forget that it is not the word family that is difficult to pronounce in the working world, but the exact nature of the commitments!
There are training sessions for couples that allow them to "work" on the myth of the good person on the priority commitments of each of the protagonists and on their ability to reconcile personal and professional life.
Best wishes on this journey of life, Cheating Buster.
No comments yet