Me (26F) and my husband (28M) have been together for 7 years, married almost 2. He has a very demanding job, requiring him to work long days and be available at any time. He makes a lot, so it feels silly to even be upset because I know he doesn’t want to have to work like this, and he’s doing it for us, but I’m really struggling with it.
Even when he is done with the work day, at any time he will pick up his phone and be working. We are watching a movie, he’s working. We go out to eat, he’s working. I’m in the middle of talking, he gets a message and all of a sudden he’s working.
It’s begun to make me disconnect from him, because we can’t do anything together without work being a part of it. I don’t want to put time into a date, a movie, a conversation when he isn’t fully present. I think about having kids and that feels impossible because I’ll be raising them alone, and they will get a distant father.
I just feel really disconnected from him and like it’s hard for me to try and do more when this is just how it is. He’s even said that with the workload, it’s just going to get worse and he is accepting that this is how it is, even when I told him I feel I come second to work and I wish we could work on it. Other redditors with long hours/demanding careers, how do you balance work and your relationship?
2 comments
I once had a job that required ridiculous hours and extra days. This was going to interfere with my visitation with my daughter. I put my foot down and said she comes first. No job pays enough to suck your life away. I got a new job and through searching found way better hours, and better pay with less haste and stress plus no weekends so visitation wasn’t disrupted. He’s being economically abused and your relationship is as well. Time for change.
> Other redditors with long hours/demanding careers, how do you balance work and your relationship?
It took a marriage breakdown and then a major health issue (think heart attack but worse) to realise that I was chasing a poisoned chalice.
Since then I maintain a very strict work/life balance.
He doesn’t want to go through what I went through to learn this lesson. No job and no amount of money is worth it if your life is not only subsumed by it, by the lives and happiness of those we love are also affected.
So if you want to put it to him out it too him much as you have set out here.
His work ethic, whilst admirable and rewarding, is coming at a massive cost to your marriage and your feelings for him. You married him to be with him, not to be alone. You married him to love him and live with him, not to see him at a distant or have him at a distance when he is with you.
So push that “disconnection” to him and tell him that this is how you feel and whether he can at least shut off once he leaves the office. Everyone does it, even top CEO’s and money makers have a switch off down time and it’s considered best practice to do so.
Pushing himself to the limit and beyond will just see you as a wealthy widow. And that’s not what you want.