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).

I have no control over the French teacher - and, in fact, I let her skip school more often than I would just because she doesn't like the teacher much - however, parents do have a reasonable degree of control over whom they employ as a nanny.

he seems to like all of them. It is just the first few days when he seems to get really hyper and cry at the drop of the hat. When he gets to know them he is OK.

He has had a few in his life and I don't feel good about that but at least reassured myself I was there at the end of pretty much every day. That wasn't the case last semester as I was up in Stoke with ds2 (because he was breastfeeding).

Interestingly he was fine every week for the first night I was away, but got upset the second night and on the third night would say to me on the phone 'when are you coming back?' He missed ds2 too...

So now I am p/t, at least it will only be 2 nights, but I've never left ds2 before and I will miss him a lot. He will only be 10mo (snivel). Sorry I know I am being wet & he will be fine.

We have got a house oranges, but it is Dulwich i.e. WRONG side of London for me. I never expected to get a job at all let alone outside London when we bought it 2 years ago.

We also paid a bl**dy fortune for a pretty average house and understandably, dh is not keen to buy more stuff given that he hears property is 40% overvalued atm!

I can believe it. We looked at a property in Bedford on the net and checked the house sale price sites and the price they were asking would be the highest EVER in the whole town by around £150k!! I can't believe it is that unique tbh. I think estate agents have been inflating prices everywhere in the last few years and we don't feel in a very good position to buy anything. I am currently renting an (overpriced) flat in Keele too.

we tried to buy in dulwich and got gazumped twice and gave up. i think property in london is adding to everyone's stress levels, and it's all ludicrous.

it sounds like your ds just need some time to get used to new people and is then fine.

and i had to cancel my massage because i have another deadline i forgot about (sigh). Not sure why I'm giving advice really - i feel quite tired right now too and just want to cuddle my baby, and have people hand me cups of tea.

But i thought I'd be a SAHM mum and remember having the tiny baby and feeling totally bleak about my life. I realised I do need work, and high status work at that even if its part-time.over all, it's the better deal.