I am jealous of my dh and it is corroding our relationship

[toomanygraves]

I've only just realised that this is what it is. He is wildly successful in the same field as I am, works all the time, and I am not at all/just becoming successful in the same field, but it is very hard when I am the one holding the family - 2 dds - together whilst he swans off to various festivals around the world and basically does whatever he needs to do. I have very little work time, and I am so frustrated at the moment that I am not using what I do have well. I don't want his life - I don't think I have the stamina or resilience to work 100 hours a week - but I would love a tiny tiny amount of it - world! people! creativity! and I resent the fact that I seem to have been cast in this support mould, when that's not at all what I wanted and I am rubbish at it. It's the horrible, medieval, strength of the jealousy I'm worried about - it's really eating into everything. If I were a cartoon, my face would be green and all twisted.

madamez, totally agree.

How do your dds feel about daddy never being there? It's pretty hard on them too.

I think he's persuaded you that you are the problem because he's actually the problem - your enormous jealousy and anger are pointers to that. The difficulty will be you confronting him and trying to get some change. I disagree with the "oh he's a writer therefore he's special and can't change" argument - he's a human being like everybody else and he has responsibilities that he's not meeting - work doesn't trump everything.

Of course the other thing you could do would be to write about it. I bet you could create something very powerful out of your experience.

Thanks,all. I was sort of expecting a codesque roasting of the "ffs get a life" vein. I appreciate the sorority, espeically given the indulgent pansiness of my profession.
A hundred times from my lurking I remember you are a writer. You speak vehemently about green twisty woman as if you know her..... is that what you did then, did you dump your man and exorcise your witch?!
We do buffer it with a cleaner and stuff and occasional childcare - I do swaps with friends - but as I work in the house, which is not very big, I can't do it when the kids are around. (There are no good afterschool clubs round here.) My boundaries aren't strong enough. The kids have - I have felt -also needed a parent because we have had to move house about 5 times with his work and I have felt they have needed some stability. The youngest has also had extensive health issues.

especially.

"Jealous" makes this your fault (you are jealous because you are insecure or not in control of your emotions).

This is more legitimately about anger, I think.

Don't make this all about you and your twisty green woman. Make this about your dh and his commitment to your family and, just as importantly, to you. Part of his commitment to you when he married you was to honour you and that means to support you in the things that are important to you. That means if he's not facilitating your career just as you are facilitating his, he's not properly participating in the marriage.

aaah toomanydaves me old chum

I was thinking about you the other day. You know we were talking about all this...was it a year ago now?

well, miracles of miracles, I am now back at work and dh has really stepped up to the mark. Has taken days off work to look after the kids when ill, I even came back today and he'd cleaned and tidied HOWEVER, it was fortunate that me going back to work coincided with a quiet time at work for him.

BUT I did almost exactly what ahundred suggests - I just got on with it. I think that is all you can do in the end. I KNOW that when dh's job gets busy, he'll be out of here for weeks on end because that is the nature of what he does AND I don't want to stop him doing it.

We have similar issues with the health of one of the children and I think we are going to have to get a part time nanny because then both of us will be able to concentrate on what we need to do. Have you thought about that now (getting a nanny)? It would give you some space to do some work (she could take them out etc.)?

I'm sorry I called your DH a selfish arsehole, toomanydaves, reading back that sounds more aggressive than I intended.

Your situation reminds me of how things used to be with my XP..that's not your problem of course! But everything used to be about him and his important job and it really, really rankled.

I do think that you are entitled to be angry. he is not doing his share and he needs to think about you and your DCs.

Even if he says something like, oh we had a deal, you'd put the kids first while I did the important work, it's vital to remember that you are a person too and that whatever men say about it being 'best for the family' for things to continue as they are, you are a member of the family and if you are unhappy then the situation needs to be changed. Because your needs and wishes matter every bit as much as his do.

Oh no I didn't dump him in terms of 'on your way son'. Certainly not. He is still here, doing his thing. The difference is I have made an effort to do my own thing too, and feel I have re-ordered thing somewhat.

When the dcs were really small, I was stuck at home chewing the carpet and dh was going to award ceremonies. And I had had the most marvellous job and career, and he was just drifting about chewing the end of his pencil, and I got green too.

I thought it'd be mad to tell him to stop because I was green and twisty and wanted to go to my own award ceremonies.

So the only thing to do was to try and do things for myself too. I have no idea whether this will work in the long term, but I do know it feels better to have embraced what I want to do.

Hope this makes sense.

Perfect sense.

Very good advice and something I wish I'd considered before my marriage started going hideously wrong.

If he is a writer, where does he do his writing? Presumably not at the house, if it is too small/unsuitable. Could you spend some time writing at the same place he writes? Could you share the space with him? Go when the dds are in school.

Or could you write at home when the dds are at school? The house would be quiet, and you wouldn't need to worry about distractions/noise. It might not be as much time as you'd like to devote, but will at least get you back doing something you love.

Thanks all; feel v bolstered by all this.
OK Ahundredtimes take me step by step through how I just get on with my stuff - I need a crash course on twisty woman management. I am far too wussy to let there be no shopping in the cupboard.
Janos I don't mind at all that you called him an arsehole.
I do have school hours to work in and I do use them, but as he is out nearly every night, I also have to fit in everything else during that time. And it just isn't enough time. And my focus is shot in many directions. And dds don't go to bed till 9ish so after that there is not a huge amount of time for working before I become a rabid insomniac. I have tried it but after 5 days of not sleeping till 4 because of a brain surge - and then getting up at 630 - no use to anyone, let alone the work.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggh.

I bet you $5m he won't share his space with her, oh no, no, no, no. And it's not because he's an arse really, it's just how these things are.

The steps are only as I've said. You say to yourself 'do I want to write a good play or do I want to have clean towels?' Something has to give toomanydaves and I think it's better that the larder and kitchen floor gives, rather than your play.

It won't be perfect. But you have to snatch your time, and use it for yourself, and fly about in the evening doing everything else, because that is the only way forward.

In time it will right itself, and you will feel more legitimate and able to assert yourself and to tell dh, 'You have to do this because I'm due at the Royal Court at 8.'

You have to bite your lip, accept that it is tough and that everything is up in the air, and things are tougher for you than they are for him, and then DO THE WORK.

If you can afford it, you should get someone in to be You, so you can have the time to do your work.

Well, I think it will always be frustrating that one of you, will not be able to concentrate completely on the writing as there is a house to run and children to be taken care of (and hopefully enjoyed too). If the person who compromises most is you, then use a bit of the money he earns to buy yourself some freedom/space.

Maybe you've just got to become super organised (not that you aren't), and hire a cleaner to keep the house in order (ideally one who will do laundry, change beds etc), decide you can live off ready meals a few days a week and/or cook in bulk/freeze periodically, look into an after school nanny who can perhaps take the children from school into some activities (swimming, ballet, etc) to keep the house 'empty' for longer each day. If/when the children are home with the nanny, you can either go share your dh's writing space, or would it be completely impractical to work in a library? Could you take your laptop with you? Could you rent a room somewhere that could be 'your' writing space?

Are you also a little bit worried that if you try you won't have as much success as him so you'll made all this effort for no gain and you'll have just proved that you are indeed less worthy?

No, not really M and J. In weak moments I do get all self doubting but I can dig out the reviews and big myself up again.
I think I need Modanifil or something so I just need less sleep and can just BE BETTER - I have implemented as many time saving things as I can given the way I want to bring up the kids and their particular needs and our financial constraints - despite the 100 hour weeks we are not minted. I have dug really really deep and been pretty resourceful, I have kicked myself up the arse and told myself to buck up, I spend a lot of time trying to implement these decisions but still green twisty woman takes hold of me. Ahundredtimes, how does just working even harder make the jealousy go away? Forgive me for thickness but I seem to be going round in circles. ALso writerishly embarassed at all this attention.

Hmm - no doubt about it, aspects of being the 'main' parent at home are pure drudgery. It's a fact.

I go back to my question a few posts ago - what specifically is it you'd like your dh to do to support you/improve the situation? It's possible he would respond better to practical proposals instead of seething resentment (not intended as a criticism, btw).

toomanydaves - I don't really understand or empathise with the jealousy thing, so maybe what I am going to say is totally off track.

The way I think about my partner's life versus my life is that we each have 168 hours a week in which to do all we jointly have to do ie a total of 236 hours. We spend one third of those hours asleep, so that leaves 224 hours of waking time for everything else.

Into those 224 hours we have to fit money-earning work, household chores, fun time with our children, work time with our children, time together planning and organising and doing joint projects and time together relaxing, plus each one of us needs some time of our own to do want we want alone or with friends/family. Plus we have to socialise as a family.

My partner is out of the house at work (or travelling to work) for about 60 hours a week. Frankly, that already eats significantly into our time. If I wanted a career that equalled his in status and salary (and I am perfectly well qualified and experienced to have this), I would also need to work 60 hours a week. Even if we organised our lives so that we outsourced everything we could, our relationship and our relationship with our children would suffer dreadfully from a severe lack of time and we would be very stressed.

We could both choose to work 40 hours a week. But I don't believe that our joint 80 hours would earn anything like what my partner's current 60 hours do, because that's the nature of work - big, financially rewarding jobs require a big time commitment. Jobs with a lesser time commitment tend to be far less rewarding.

So I am quite reconciled and happy with the status quo. I shall continue to be primarily at home, and work about 20 hours a week around school and the children. That's the best option for the two of us together.

I think that's exactly the point Anna888 - they've got 224 hours to do everything else. The partner is spending 100 hours on his stuff. Leaving him with 12 hours for family stuff. Wife is probably spending 100 hours on family stuff and 12 hours on her stuff. Balance is all wrong.

As I've said before, noone, man or woman, should be spending 100 hours a week on work if they've got family. And I speak as the main, and only breadwinner in my family so it's not as if I don't have to earn a crust.

Having a family is a sacrifice and if you're not sacrificing some of your own personal or work time to be with your family then you're stealing someone else's personal time to make it work.

M&J - that's not how I see it.

As I said in my post, one partner might be doing more hours money-earning work than the other because they are in an all-or-nothing type job.

My partner cannot work fewer hours in his job. Actually, he's incredibly efficient given the job he has. If he worked 25% fewer hours, he's probably earn 20% of what he earns now. So it's not worth "redressing the balance".

not about money Anna, it's about having your own life, that belongs to you and not the house.. . Yes, staying at home is an efficiant use of time, but I don't want on my gravestone "she was an efficient use of time"

Sometimes I feel like my damned house is handcuffed to me.

colditz - it's a trade-off.

Do I prefer (a) my partner to work 60 hours a week and me to look after the home and work very part-time with a combined income of 100 squillion whatsits, or (b) for each of us to work 40 hours a week each for a combined income of 40 squillion whatsits?

(a), anyday.

Anna has a point. Presumably family income would drop significantly if op's dh was willing/able to 'scale back' his working hours in order to give op a chance to work more. As she is less known/established, it would take her awhile to replace that lost income. A drop in income brings it's own dilemmas, but might be worth short term sacrifice in order to gamble on op's talent being recognised/rewarded.

Another factor to consider, I know lots of very talented creative people who simply haven't had the luck they needed to be successful. It's the sort of career where there are no guarantees of success and/or financial rewards.

I'm not trying to discourage the OP, but would say that there are sacrifices and tradeoffs and all these things must be weighed up.

Anna8888 - I disagree. My DP is a management consultant who works for his own consultancy. He charges himself out to his clients at a rate per day (the day might be 7 hours or 11 hours depending on need). My DP has reduced his working week to 3 days so he can spend more time with me and our young children. As I see it a 40% drop in income for a 100% increase in time off. It also means I can do child unfriendly things when he is off and therefore available to take over the childcare.

There is also the taxation benefit. If one person earns say £100,000 per annum for a five day week and drops down to three days their earnings will still benefit from tax free and lower tax bands and less income will be taxed at the higher marginal rate. If wife goes back to work for those 2 days a week, she will benefit from the tax free personal allowance and the lower marginal tax rate PLUS she will be investing in her future career. The man earns more is too simplistic an answer.