Does your partner's job require 100% domestic support (or does yours?) And have you (or they) retaining a grip on sanity??

[Domesticgodless]

Following on from my other thread, I have been thinking about people whose work is not only his life, but ends up being their partner's as well.

In that their hours are long and totally unpredictable, & when at home (or on holiday) they is constantly doing work related stuff, taking calls, etc. Who else apart from me is suffering this? Are you still sane?? Do you still feel you love your dp or has the job sucked the marrow out of your relationship?

I just heard from a female colleague of his who is freaking because she is about to have a baby and wants to keep her career going. Her dh is almost never home (City law firm partner) and she does not see how she is going to get a nanny to work the hours she needs- 7.30-8pm. So she is having to get 2 nannies, and will literally never see her child during the week.

Blueshoes posted about the wife of someone at her work (City law firm I think) saying that her husband's incessant long hours made her want to run screaming down the street.

Why is it now (sort of) routine and acceptable for a person's job to totally take over their life and require the services of a full time wife, housekeeper and (lone) mother, or a whole range of paid domestic workers to do the same job(s)?

And yet these same people are hardly living in luxury- the woman I referred to above cannot afford the live in nanny she really needs to keep her career going, because she can't afford a big enough house in London. She would move further out, but her dh will never get home at all (a common story I think).

On the "why is it routine and acceptable" issue.

Some jobs (City lawyers, strategy consultants, investment bankers) are so competitive and so well-paid that they require them to be 100% the priority in a person's life. If a person in one of those jobs decides to make other things a priority, they lose their edge over the many other people in their profession prepared to give 100% priority.

So - I don't think it is routine and acceptable in a general way, but some professions require that level of loyalty and devotion to their cause. If you don't want that lifestyle, you have to change career - and if you don't want to be the support person, you either have to change partner or be prepared to outsource to paid third parties a great deal of your domestic life (which is not my idea of fun at all).

Dh's job is all consumming (he was up at 5.30am to catch a flight to america and will be back sat monring). He is (surprise surprise) a city lawyer! I am used to the crazy unpridicaability of it all and just deal with it. Mind you I did give up my career so the children at least saw a reasonable amount of one parent (mind you I didn't particularly enjoy it anyway ).

DG, my DH runs/owns an international business. He has offices in London, Sydney, New York, Seattle, Chicago, Singapore and next yr San Francisco.

He is currently in the States somewhere, I lose track. He will be home for 5 days then back to States, home for 7 days and then off to Asia Pac and Aus. When he is home he starts taking calls from 5am which goes on until 10-11pm at night, constantly emailing etc.

I run the home, cars, holidays, children etc. Our DS has quite serious SN and health problems, my DH has been to 4 appointments out of 40 in 3.5 years including GA's and overnight stays in hospital.

I have no family but am blessed with endlessly patient friends who will take DD at a moments notice when DS rushed in.

I have little life of my own and feel exhausted all the time. I feel quite resentful at times and our relationship has suffered enormously.

He is so driven I don't know how to stop him, I think he has phsycological problems from growning up with a father who, quite obviously, preferred his 2 younger sisters and didn't ever think my DH was 'good enough' - he feels the need to prove himself even though his father is dead.

I am lucky that a few good GFs also have DH that work away, so we get together for a good moan every now and again!

I think it's also the case that people who do well in some types of jobs -yes, City lawyers - are the kind of people (control freak tendencies and or highly competitive) who would struggle to do a less-than-perfect job / would feel terrible about failing to meet client expectations. What I'm not clear on, however, is why that doesn't translate into a similar attitude on the home front.

It's also the case that a lot of couples with dual careers are opting not to have children - at least in my circle of friends - making it even harder for those who do to maintain / justify taking time out for family life.

On the why it doesn't translate onto the home front.

In the case of my BIL - and my partner, by his own admission, when he was young and knew no better - , quite a lot of men in (upper-)middle class families here in France (and I suspect in other countries too) were very much brought up on the assumption that they were expected to excel academically and, later, professionally, and perhaps also to excel on the sports field - but that were to be looked after in every other way, and their lifestyles largely determined by their wives.

So they feel they are doing the right thing by working their asses off and putting work first.

My job is like this (currently on ML). DP is quite used to me being out of the house for 14 hours at a time, disappearing for hours on end in the middle of the night, spending alternate weekends on call, legging it during Christmas dinner etc. I love my job though (or else I couldn't do it, not for under £30k!).

Since DS has been born, I know DP will cope with being the 'runner' at home but I have doubts that I'll be able to maintain this level of commitment on my return.

It's a vocational thing though. I wouldn't consider the conditions acceptable if it wasn't a) acceptable within my profession and b) something I am passionate about.

V different when it's the woman with these sorts of jobs, IMO.

legalalien - on the same point - I think lots of women of our generation were brought up expected (tacitly or overtly) both to excel academically/professionally and also to be great cooks/mothers/domestic managers etc.

Unconsciously, we project our own desires to be perfect everywhere on men and are perplexed when they don't feel guilty at being domestic incompetents/absentees.

Anna8888 - yes, I suspect you are right. A similar attitude prevails among some of DH's all-boys' boarding school friends.

The bit I find really perverse, if you accept the theory I put forward below, is that girls are brought up to be good at everything and boys only at some things - and as a result, the girls get the short straw as they are the only ones capable of doing the domestic stuff to the standards to which they have been accustomed.

My Dh's job is a bit like this, but sadly without huge financial recompense. he is a detective in the police, and often stays late, takes calls on his days off, or goes in on days off.

What riles me most is that I work too. We agreed that he would cut down to 4 days/week so that I can be on call every Tuesday. On-call is an essential part of my job, and my wages are an essential part of our mortgage payments .

Since returning to work 3 months ago I estimate I've had to book leave on approx 1/3 of Tuesdays, as his work keep sending him on assignments. I find this lack of respect for my own work really irritating.

"Unconsciously, we project our own desires to be perfect everywhere on men and are perplexed when they don't feel guilty at being domestic incompetents/absentees".

I have a horrible suspicion that this is true in my case: I KNOW there have been moments of irrational "but WHY can't DH feel stressed about x (insert incomplete household administration task of choice). I wish it wasn't true, though.

Don't blame you, Perkin. That would piss me off.

I think we are now seeing some women who fit into Anna's description of typical male behaviour. Some women now work all hours because they believe they are doing the right thing for their family. And some women really don't give a toss about the standards on the homefront.

My DH used to think like this. Slowly and painfully I have been pointing out that my job is just as demanding. Last weekend he was moaning about the nanny's use of the diswasher and said something like: "Look at this glass. It's not clean. Do you think she even used the soap? You know what she didn't. This will just have to be washed again" And I sat there half thinking hmm, looks clean to me. And the other haf biting my cheecks so I didn't start laughing because I couldn't believe what I was hearing... my God, it was like a Martha Stewart moment...

And he is so gonna kick my ass if he reads this...

Yes, and I think quite often women's guilt/discomfort at less-than-perfect domestic arrangements drives them to lower their sights professionally in a completely unconscious way (perhaps just by letting themselves use up a lot of their energies on household tasks that could easily have been subcontracted to a third party) and one day they wake up and they are no longer in the running professionally.

Oh, I don't believe in using up energies on household tasks that can be subcontracted to third parties. No no no... delegation is the key to a happy home.

Eleusis - some women were also brought up to excel only academically/professionally and not to worry about domesticity/lifestyle. There are quite a lot in France, where domestic staff (maids and nannies) were much more common in (upper)-middle class families when my generation was young than in the UK.

I meet plenty of women here who seem very masculine (by English standards) in their outlook to work.

You have masculine women? I suppose that balances out the femininity of French men?

French upper-middle class women? Ce sont des mecs .

Pity the french goes over my heard.

That was probably funny.

= They are guys.

I have a very dear friend who has long since exhausted her husband. She invites us every year to a party for Epiphany (fête des rois). My partner groans before we go as all her friends (women) are exceedingly forceful and are either divorced (never remarried) or have totally wimpish husbands. It's a classic French case of role reversal.

It's fairly easy to lose perspective when everyone in your work environment is working in a semi-maniacal way. It's been quite interesting moving in house after 12 + years of private practice - on the odd occasion when you reminisce about consecutive all nighters, colleagues look at you as if you are clinically insane.... you did what? but WHY? In a lot of cases the answer is not much more than "because that's how it's done..."

DH is a city lawyer and, on having dd, gave up my career (city accountant) because I didn't believe anyone would be happy with us both working unpredictable, long hours. That said, I detested my job so it was an easy decision in some ways.

That said, we delayed having children until the point where I felt in a position to be at home and it kind of works for us most of the time (although the runnign screaming down the street does ring some bells).

To be honest, I think I'm fairly in that DH doesn't expect me to be 100% domestic support - he spent sunday morning cleaning the bathroom and washing the kitchen floor adn we do pay to have certain things done for us.

Its not perfect but then I don't think any situation is - it drives me mad on many ocassions but most of time it mainly works for us.

legalalien, i agree with you that people lose perspective. it is especially noticeable with lawyers - at least on mnet

fwiw - i don't think men challenge established working practices enough(assuming they actually want to which i'm sure a lot don't)and i don't think women challenge enough on the home front. without wishing to sound xenian i think a lot of women (hasty disclaimer - not necessarily anyone here) make a faustian bargain for the money.

also, agree with anna that women are increasingly raised to excel both professionally and on the home front...