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Relationships

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Original poster

When your DH/DP works a lot...

3 replies

msrisotto · 25/03/2015 20:44

How much or how long does it take before you feel affected in some way? Like, relationship wise? I feel unreasonable because he's not away for months and months but it's been pretty consistent that he's been away for 3-5 days a week since Christmas.

OP posts:

Joysmum · 25/03/2015 20:51

This will differ in different relationships.

Mine was never away for extended periods but does long unpredictable hours and did pretty much every weekend.

That would have been fine had we needed the money and was short term but we didn't and it dragged on. We had little quality family time together and his only 'role' was to earn money, so much so our daughter would be sat next to him but ask me questions regarding him and his plans. Not good.

Happypiglet · 25/03/2015 21:00

This has been the story of my marriage post kids (pre kids we both worked stupid hours).
over the years (11) it has eroded our marriage. We are now two people running along parallel tracks him working and going to the gym and me looking after the kids, home and everything else.
The time we do have together as a family is too short and he is not always even 'present' then.
To be honest the other weekend we had the talk about what on earth we were going to do to try to get back to anything like how we were.
He is never selfish at work as in he could say no to more things but he doesn't. He doesn't need to work this much he chooses to.
To be honest I have given up competing with it which actually worries me more than when I fought against it and felt hurt and upset.
Sorry that is probably not what you want to hear. Better to tackle it now than leave it like we have.

Ragwort · 25/03/2015 21:06

It doesn't affect me at all, my DH has always worked away since before we married (27 years ago ) - I like it that way and would find it quite claustrophobic to have a husband who came home from work every night at 6pm. In fact I am somewhat dreading retirement .

My DH is self employed and I admire his work ethic (and no, he doesn't earn a fortune!) - he always makes time for our DS and they do a lot of fun things together.

I guess it totally depends on how you see your relationship and whether you like being a 'cosy couple' or are happy 'doing your own thing'.

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