To feel a bit hurt that Dh didn't come home from work on my birthday until 10.00pm?

[YellowPrimula]

I know I am a grown up in fact I am middle aged with three almost adult dc and I also know he has a very full on job ( never home before 8.00pm on a good day) . He would just say it's his job , I don't understand his job( I do I've lived it for thirty years and work in a not completely unrelated field myself), he literally can't leave , others work even longer hours, can't let clients down etc etc .Can you tell we have had these arguments before ?

I want to be cool and laid back about it , after all it's just a birthday ,but I feel so hurt .He was away all last weekend,which involved a day off, admittedly a rare occurrence and I didn't mind at all but it feels like he can leave if he really wants to.I 'm not wanting bells and whistles just home in time to have dinner as a family , maybe a present that doesn't come in the post because he can't find an hour to go shopping ( it was a voucher from somewhere only 10 mins from home ) but he couldn't even find the time to pick it up so it came addressed to me in a brown envelope! Apparently that was from the DC as well but as it wan't signed or in a card even how would I know ?

[BarbaraofSeville]

But people don't go into law not knowing about the hours do they? It's common knowledge surely?

It would be the same as someone giving birth for the first time and then saying 'I had no idea it would be painful'.

[NameChange30]

You said he went away last weekend - not for work but not with you either? Where did he go and who was he with?

[mummymeister]

He has no work/life balance. if he even considered you and your worth to him, then he would have organised a present weeks ago. this excuse from men is pathetic. they have 364 days to buy something for gods sake.

what do these people who work these ridiculous hours think would happen to the world, their clients, their job if they dropped down dead tomorrow. do they think everything would come to a crashing halt? no of course it wouldn't. this is about people doing jobs to excess because in their minds it is better than the alternative - that is spending time with their families. and that imo stinks. It is also incredibly selfish. I would be absolutely reading him the riot act over this. I would be raging. I don't care how many other lawyers do it and just because they do it doesn't make it right. I really feel for you OP.

[TeamSteady]

No, mummymeister you're wrong. If your DH doesn't do it, he will be out of a job, because there are plenty more people queuing up behind them to take their place. You CANNOT do a job like this and insist you work "normal" hours. Of course the world won't come crashing down, but the client will be fucked off, he will complain to senior partners, you will cost the firm a lot of money and ultimately will be asked to leave. Now that's fine if you've decided you want out.... but if you have a mortgage/family to pay/provide for, I think it's pretty selfish to try and test it out.

[NameChange30]

And this is why I never sold my soul like this.

No money or lifestyle is worth sacrificing a life outside work.

There are other jobs, Team.

[mummymeister]

teamsteady and one day these people wake up and realise that their kids have grown up and gone and their partner has grown away from them.

so, he will be out of a job. do a different job then. there are other jobs out that pay well and will pay the mortgage.

I just seriously cannot understand this attitude where people for years and years put their job before their families. because it is actually a choice.

whats selfish is not buying your partner a birthday present and not getting home for 8pm for a family meal that he would have known was important to the OP. that is incredibly selfish.

why do people let their jobs define who they are to such an extent that everything else is just ignored?

[NameChange30]

Hear hear mummy

[Dozer]

Whatever his motivation and fears or his perception that he has "no choice" the fact os that he has, over many years, chosen his job over his wife and DC. And is not apologetic about it.

He has become a parent and has not changed his working life to be a good one. Bet OP's working life has changed hugely (if you have a paid job at all) in order to parent the DC and try cover for his absence. And probably to more than your fair share of domestic work.

I know lawyers of both sexes who made various work changes after DC to enable them to be there more for their families. It can be done.

I don't have much respect for men who opt out of family life like he is.

[peggyundercrackers]

people go into Law because they get 6 or 7 figure salaries and the power to go with them. I know life isn't all about money but its easy to get sucked in and before you know it many years have passed and its too late to go back.

[YellowPrimula]

Teamsteady has it nailed I am afraid , it is a pact with the devil, but when you are in your twenties I don't think you truly get the implications of that for 30 years .I was also the pregnant lawyers wife, DC1 was Ok although we did spend the run up praying I wouldn't go into labour before the deal he was working on was completed, dc2 was born with various difficulties , I was waddling to the cardiac unit on my own complete with catheter because Dh had a work issue, dc3 he was there for the birth but then disappeared to a three day completion meeting .

He would say that he is there as much as he can be , but that's my point , we get what's left over , He is not city now but large regional which is growing fast , the pressure is still there , he is very senior , despite moaning he does get a huge kick out of his job , it's very intellectually challenging I can't imagine him doing any thing else .

I do work but it's not my ideal job, it's one that enables me to do the bulk of the parenting and the two oldest have definitely suffered from being under fathered , even if he's here in body when he's busy he is not here in mind .I do love him , we met when I was 19 but I am tired of coming bottom of the list .But he just can't see it at all

[NameChange30]

Ugh

[JessieMcJessie]

Yellow I am not surprised that you have confirmed my suspicion that he is a corporate lawyer. I trained in that world myself but got out at a relatively early level to a more sensibly-paced area of law (still very much in the City though). You will know this already but just to answer others' questions, corporate lawyers' working days are very much dictated by having to get a deal completed within a certain timescale and there are huge multidisciplinary teams who all have to contribute their parts so all sorts of unpredictable stuff happens and you inevitably go right up to the wire. However the more senior a person is the more control they have over managing the whole project and, crucially, making sure it is properly staffed. Given what you say about your DH's 30 years experience and seniority he must be a Partner of very senior ranking and he should therefore be able to delegate the real long all nighter stuff to his team - he'll still be doing some seriously long hours on each deal with periods of crazy hours but not every single night to 10pm without fail. And he should know in advance on a deal cycle when he will have to put in the long hours so if that unfortunately falls on your birthday he should be able to warn you well in advance and make plans on a quieter day instead. Clients actually do not want very senior people doing the really long hours as they are so expensive, and if it's a fixed fee the firm loses out by him not recovering anything close to his hourly rate on the time he puts in.

Unfortunately good lawyers are often terrible managers but if they have worked in the same way for a very long time they may not even realise this. It sounds to me as if his personal, people and project management skills may need some brushing up. Difficult one though because he's not going to take that advice from you I imagine. On the other hand, he must be mid fifties now so he could actually retire pretty soon or go in house and be a GC who gives out instructions to lawyers like him. Tell him from me that going from being the lawyer to being the client is bloody fantastic.

A lot of workaholic lawyers I have worked with seem to get greedy- they are so used to measuring their worth against their partners' fee incomes that they forget that they already have more than enough money to live very happily and can't see a way out.

As an aside, given the ages your DC must be are you not a bit pissed off with them for not making any effort for your birthday?

Finally, some words from the Senior Partner of my last firm, who saw the light as he approached retirement "I made my choice but I would not wish this job on anyone I love".

[MintJulip]

Client is King, Yes, but Client isn't superman, Client cant see into your Diary, and know you have cleared one day for your wife, Client thinks your busy, because your Good and client thinks your with another equally important client. Clients come and go, wives do not.

[YellowPrimula]

Mint julep I have made that point to him before but....

It's not all client work to be fair , he is senior enough to be spending quite a lot of time managing the business etc , marketing etc , but also still doing client work although not as much.I do know that due to factors beyond his control they are having to roll their sleeves up a bit, but also I think he does struggle sometimes to let go etc .He rarely does the all nighters anymore but feels bad leaving the office if others are working.

I won't stop him working like this and it's a done deal but I do way it were different sometimes .

[NameChange30]

"given the ages your DC must be are you not a bit pissed off with them for not making any effort for your birthday?"

Good point

[NameChange30]

I suppose they have learned from their father that the OP isn't important

[YellowPrimula]

No no my dc did make a fuss of me , I did get cards but we live rurally so certainly the younger two would need him to give them a lift into town etc . He had obviously told them he had got a joint present so that he didn't have to bother .

They were upset that Dad didn't get home to do cake etc .
But anyway this post is about my dh not about my dc

[JessieMcJessie]

Feeling bad about leaving the office is nonsense in this day and age of smartphones and remote working. He can easily be off the premises and still contactable, especially as the senior lawyers tend to work orally, giving instructions to the team, being a sounding board for problems and keeping the client updated - he won't be doing the actual coalface drafing and document management which sometimes can't be done remotely.

Of course, him working from home/taking calls at all hours doesn't solve your problem completely because it's a far cry from him actually being at home and engaged in family life, but it's a start.

And more to the point, if "feeling bad" is what motivates him to stay, why does he never "feel bad" about the way he is treating you and the children? It's pretty insulting. You shoudl make that point to him.

One other thing worth mentioning - it's a widely-known phenomenon that milennials are not prepared to make the same sacrifices for their careers that Generations X and Y did. They are demanding flexible working and work-life balance to such an extent that firms are having to revise their working practices or risk losing out on talent. The fact is that the juniors that your husband has a resonsibility to develop do not respect or admire his way of working and have no ambitions to emulate it. Does he really want to be seen in that way?

[YellowPrimula]

He is very good to the junior lawyers actually , fair and well respected . When I say he feels bad I mean he feels that he should support them and shouldn't ask them to do something he wouldn't do himself.

Definitely true that younger lawyers are not prepared to live the same way,especially outside London and recruitment is very tight.On the flip side clients are more demanding than ever.

[TeamSteady]

I don't know what the answer is OP, I'm afraid.

Have you ever spoken about him doing something else?

My DH and I are younger, so he's only been doing it 5 or 6 years now... so he's the one that gets the work dumped on him when the senior partner needs to go home We've spoken about it, and he doesn't enjoy it, and will hopefully get out in a few years when we have paid off a chunk of the mortgage. I suppose I would be more resentful if i felt he was there because he was trying to prove something to himself/others, as people are commenting. However, having been surrounded by family friends who are in the business my whole life, I only know a few who are like this, the rest do it because it brings in good money, and a good lifestyle for their families.

By the way, to those people saying that their children are missing out, and will have grown up and gone without their fathers etc. I think that surely depends on the quality of the time they do spend with the working parent when they are home? I knew damn well from a very young age that my father LOVED spending time with us as children. We went out and did all sorts with him over weekends, and on holidays (thankfully there were no blackberrys etc then). He would work late-ish most nights 8/9pm if he didn't have a deal on, and would travel away a lot, but when he was there he was completely 100% focussed on family.

Anyway, i just think you/your DH are getting a real bashing on here OP, and from my experience it probably isn't justified. I know it's really shitty sometimes and I truly do sympathise. I suppose the only consolation is that, considering you said he's been doing it 30 odd years, he'll be coming up for retirement soon and so hopefully you will be able to enjoy the time together and actually be able to fund the lifestyle you would like.

[JessieMcJessie]

"shouldn't ask them to do something he wouldn't do himself".

If you mean he's actually doing the junior work alongside them that is the antithesis of good law firm management. It's all about trickling the work down to the junior fee-earners and freeing up the seniors for relationship management and thought leadership. One thing these demanding clients will insist upon is that the work is done at the right level and they are not overcharged.

On the other hand if what you mean is that he won't ask them to do things that he would not have done when he was at that level then that's fine - but he has done his time and his hard graft/presenteeism and doesn't need to be doing it now. He is doing other difficult stuff now such as having to be strategic, develop inventive solutions to complex problems and take the blame when things go wong, but those don't always equate to long hours in the office. I don't think many juniors have too much of a conceptual difficulty with that idea.

I think one can be seen as fair, and liked, without necessarily being someone that the juniors want to emulate. Also bear in mind that they will not communicate any negative perceptions of his workstyle to his face.

[BitOutOfPractice]

I absolutely refuse to believe that leaving on time one day a year wipes out all the thousands and thousands of extra hours a person has worked up till then. That is utter utter rot. And it's an excuse that people in these jobs use to justify their poor and selfish behaviour.

And I say again, that I work a lot of hours (finished at 1:45am on Wednesday morning. Back at my desk at 6am) so I'm not talking out of my arse. It's purely because the person cannot or will not say "I have to be away promptly tonight. Full stop" because they can't let go, love the thrill of the deal, prefer work to home life, don't give a shit about someone else's feelings or they are simply too much of a wimp to say it. Whatever. Either way, one prompt finish a year is not the end of a career

[JessieMcJessie]

You're sort of right BOOP, but if the OP's birthday falls on the day a deal completes and her DH's presence is vital to that completion then he can't just walk out at the critical moment; in that circumstance jeapordising the conclusion of the deal and losing the client could indeed spell the end of a career.

However he should know reasonably well in advance when those absolutely critical days will be, and we don't know if OP's birthday was such a day.

[BitOutOfPractice]

Jessie, in my experience of people like this there is always a reason. Except it's not a reason, it's an excuse. Because they like closing the deal more than their wife and family

[YellowPrimula]

I don't want to belittle my dh , he really is very good at his job, enjoys the intellectual challenge , he isn't sitting there doing stuff juniors should be doing , he doesn't have time FGS etc etc.

But he is tunnel visioned about work , he will always put a work commitment over home, hates to let colleagues down as well as clients, and he does take it for granted that I will always be there.

I didn't intend this to be about bashing him , suppose I was just having a moan .