What’s the biggest thing that you and your spouse fight about? I’ll tell you what mine is:
Time.
Sure, we squabble about money once in a while and we definitely are stressed a lot about childrearing, but hands down, our biggest fights center over our most limited resource: our time.
Lately, I have been feeling so frustrated about this and I just don’t know how to make it better.
Source:
The truth is, especially now that I have three kids at home and am back in the breastfeeding game, I really want to pursue freelance writing more as a job and not just something I do once in a while during nap time, but as a legitimate, professional source of income.
The problem is, of course, that getting a freelance writing career off the ground takes time. Time that I don’t have. I could have more time if I had some childcare. But childcare, of course, costs money. Money that I don’t have. It’s kind of a vicious cycle. And therein lies the dilemma.
A good solution would be for Ben to take over the kids once in a while. But by the time he gets home and we talk and we settle on dinner and I feed Jacob and break up fights and start dinner and clean up….the night is gone. I could stay up and work, but my brain turns to mush somewhere around 10 p.m. and anything I write is just trash anyways. I could get up earlier and work, but it’s inevitable that if I get up early, the kids will too.
And then there’s the weekends. Which, of course, are my husband’s days off and are filled with a hundred other things–there’s always lawns to be mowed and woodworking projects to work on and things that are broken and family stuff going on.
Sometimes, yes.
I don’t know how to make it better. Every time we try to “talk,” we end up fighting. He feels I just want to keep him home just for the heck of it and I feel like he can’t understand that I really want him to see my writing as a job, and not just as a fun-for-me-time. I hate that I have to claw and beg for time to do the work that I want to do, let alone anything fun for myself. It doesn’t feel good, you know? It’s not like he has to consult with me before he heads off to work in the morning…And then throw in the fact that I have to find time to, you know, actually go back to the job that makes me money at the hospital and I want to just give up.
Sigh.
The worst part about all of this is that I feel like it’s just me. I never hear other people struggle with this. It seems like all of my other mom friends are just fine with having their husbands gone 24/7, so what’s wrong with me?
I don’t know, maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m crazy, maybe I’m not. But whatever it is, I sure hope it gets a little bit better this week. It’s a good thing I have such a handsome little man at home that will give me all the kisses I want.
Although sometimes he gives me weird looks if I kiss him too much.
You’re not the only one! I struggle with feeling like I don’t have enough time to do the things that I want to do, or even just the housework that needs to be done. I also feel like I value and look forward to “family time” more, and that turns into arguments sometimes. After my husband gets off of work, he spends 2 1/2 hours at his shop working on his hobby/small business. I’m jealous that he gets to do things for himself everyday, but I am thankful for the hard work that he puts into providing for us, andthat I get to stay home with the kids. I just have to remind myself that when the kids aren’t so young (3 and 1 right now), it will be easier for me to do things for myself during the day!
What you feel is completely understandable. And you needed that good cry to just let it out. You are right, trying to turn your writing into a business for income takes time. I am a single mom with a full time job. A bank job. My dream job is to be a nurse… which requires nursing school. I’ve been trying college on and off for a couple years to no avail. I just can’t seem to make it work. Maybe it’s from lack of support from my parents or the kids’ father but I’ve decided that instead of trying to do the school thing RIGHT now, I’ll just continue bringing home the bacon with what I do now and when the kids get older to where they’re more tolerable for babysitters, I’ll try and go back to school then. Maybe with you having a little infant at home and two other kids and trying to juggle breastfeeding and house cleaning, blah blah, it may not be the right time for you now to fully commit to your business. You could try part time (seems a lot more feasible than full time, huh?) and when the kids get a tad older you can try tackling it with all your renewed energy. Good luck!
I had the same argument with my husband, repeatedly, for the first four years or so of our marriage. Because he would see me exhausted, worn out, stressed to the limit, but his only response would be “tell me what you need.” And I felt like that was just one MORE thing I had to do and I just didn’t feel like it!
But it all started changing when I started acting more like my husband did. My husband plays basketball EVERY Saturday morning from 9-noon. I used to fight it but no matter what I said or did, my husband would leave every Saturday because it was his “thing.” It was what he did to relax after working all week. He didn’t ask permission or check with me to see if I’d be okay with the kids by myself all morning – he just went.
So I started doing stuff for me. Not waiting around for someone to suggest it to me. I would go upstairs and put my running clothes on. When I came downstairs, my husband would say, “Oh, you’re going for a run?” “Yup,” I’d reply, and then I would just go. No further discussion about it.
I told my husband that he needed to be in charge of the dishes and laundry. Now, I don’t touch the dishes and I don’t wash clothes (unless I really need something washed or it has a stain or something). It feels so much better!
I’d say that if you want to be a freelance writer (hello, you already have a book deal!) YOU have to first believe that it’s worth taking the time to do. Otherwise (and I speak from experience) no one else will respect it either! You do have what it takes and it takes more than just naptime to make a fledgling career work! Make yourself a priority! 🙂
Didn’t your hubby have the children (including a brand new breast-fed baby) while you went to New York? Some men wouldn’t even entertain the thought – I admire and respect him!
As do I. Don’t be too harsh on me though–I was in NY for a writing conference that I won a scholarship to and the grandmas had the kids most of the time I was gone. 😉