Over-worked, exhausted School Teacher DH and lack of empathy/love

[Slambam]

My DH is a school teacher with extra responsibilities. I met him at work myself where I was also teaching at the time.

We had 2 children and I left teaching entirely to set up my own craft business. I am so much happier now.

DH however used to be a gentle giant. Sweet, sensitive and loving. In recent years, he has become very bogged down with work (possibly since DCs) and makes very little time for me in the evenings "because it's so busy, I need to work."

The expectations on school teachers are immense and I think inhumane. They have to be very robotic, non-emotional, straight-headed all the time and this had a massive impact on me when I was teaching. I felt completely out of touch with myself.

Over time DH has become cold, unsympathetic, non-caring. I was upset last night about something (tried my best not to cry but ultimately ended up sobbing). This doesn't happen regularly. DH looked at me coldly and said "what do you need me to do?" I told him that I didn't need him to DO anything and he said "well, I'd better go upstairs then, I've got work to do."

I'm devastated that he has treated me like this. He has no time for affection, love, talking. Nothing. Any spare time he does have, he uses it to play golf or go out on his motorbike.

He can be affectionate with DCs- hugs them and tells them he loves them, but if they need him at an inconvenient time, he can be very cold. My daughter recently accused him of being so.

I know he has a very demanding job, but this is a miserable way to live.

Are there other partners of teachers here in a similar boat?

You quitting teaching because something had to give and to reduce stress sounds like it only helped you, but not him. Or did he get some relief from stress having you home?
I mean it just seems like you all made a big change to reduce demands and yet, he is suffering (and grumpy).
Can you switch roles and you go back to teaching and he stay home for a bit?

@VYTH

So you gave up your job to craft. Now he' probably feels stuck in a job he hates because you jumped first and halved your salary. If he's stressed out his head I'm not surprised he can't be arsed with your crying

What a spiteful comment

One of my best friends is a teacher, head of department. At a large and busy school in a major city. She's not like this. It's not part of the job.

I think unfortunately for him the gloss has gone. You can try talking but I doubt it will help. He's unlikely to be honest if, for example, he's met someone else at work and is feeling trapped with you as he won't want the financial and family disruption of being truthful. He's not happy in this relationship. And he's unlikely to admit it.

@OldWomanSaysThis

You quitting teaching because something had to give and to reduce stress sounds like it only helped you, but not him. Or did he get some relief from stress having you home? I mean it just seems like you all made a big change to reduce demands and yet, he is suffering (and grumpy). Can you switch roles and you go back to teaching and he stay home for a bit?

Exactly. The OP talks about wanting empathy (when what she actually means is sympathy) but where's her own empathy for him?

An empathetic person can comprehend that stress can affect people in very different ways so what she might be able to do during high stress periods, he may simply not have anything left to give to anybody else when he's already struggling to cope with himself emotionally and mentally. Plus her own husband's job situation sounds even more stressful than hers ever was. On top of that she's gone off to half her salary and is still going around telling him she's discontented with him. No wonder the poor man is at breaking point. Sounds like she made the right decision for her/the family (children benefit much more from a parent being at home) but she has appreciate the natural consequences on him.

He's at serious risk of depression (could be developing it already as irritability is one sign) and mental breakdown yet the OP's mainly fixated on getting her husband to respond the way she wants when he's in this terrible state. If her husband had always been this way then it would be a completely different story but it's clear that work is the issue.
@Slambam could he go on sick leave or career break/sabbatical? Realistically he would need longer but even just 2 weeks sick leave could be enough to help clear his head and set him on the right path again to make better decisions. Sounds like he currently can't see wood for the trees due to his pressure cooker situation.

A lot of underlying misogyny in some these replies - the casual devaluing of SAHP , whilst upholding the mighty breadwinner as the most valuable contributor to the family.

Did you all miss the OPs part of her posts where she says she had to quit teaching because she was doing the lions share of the child care and looking after the home as well as working full time and (understandably) couldn’t give her all to them both.

OP hasn’t stopped work to ‘indulge’ in crafting she is raising her and her DHs children, running the home and working pt!

OP you are perfectly entitled to have bad days and be struggling and to expect your DH to have time for you and treat you with kindness.

You need to make time to sit him down and tell him that you are feeling lonely and disconnected from him, agree on ways you can spend more time together and do nice things for each other.

Could you both teach part-time? Just wondering if that would ease the load on your DH? But of course it would only then be fair to share childcare/housework etc too?
I've been a teacher for almost 20 years so I totally understand the pressures of it as a career.

I think you should offer for him to go to part time teaching hours & say you step up with work & earn the difference.

It does sound a bit charmed for the OP to be crafting & at home being SAHP while he is stressed out in what's arguably the most stressful role outside healthcare right now with Covid.

Also we don't know why you were crying (sobbing) that day & you say it was nothing he could fix - if you're already strung out then your ability to provide comfort & caring sounds is reduced, as you've nothing left in the tank.

It would help to know what had caused you to be sobbing in your OP.

I tried to return to teaching recently (before covid) and I couldn't do it. I'm an acedemic high flyer but couldnt cope with not being able to switch off in the evenings and be present with my family.

I know some teachers have made it work but there are an awful lot who are burnt out or struggling. There's no point in pointing to those who aren't and say "be like them!"

I loved teaching before I had kids. It was all consuming but I could ride the waves and seenpeople less in term time and do a lot in the holidays.

It really sounds like he's struggling. Its a weird trap as a teacher as it's hard to jump ship (easier socially as a woman to leave to focus on the children/gain a lower paid job - very hard for a man.)

I think its a really difficult situation.

Just seen the other suggestions - and agree. Would 2 part time teachers work?

@Mintychococolate your school might not be difficult mist some are. Its good you don't find teaching difficult at the moment but many do.

Oh I see your not a teacher @Mintychococolate. Just an 'expert' who knows nothing. Bet your fun in real life.

OP, he sounds at burnout. Would he consider some time off?

He keeps saying that he "can't work part-time because that would be weird" he has set ideas about the roles that men and women do. He used to manage because would "wing it" as he puts it, but now they all have to create lessons for the whole department which are used by all teachers (I'm told many schools are now doing this) so feels pressure to create all singing all dancing lessons in the evenings as he's creating them for the whole department to use.

My worry about us both going part-time is that unfortunately, he wouldn't take on half the load at home. He gets hugely resentful if I request that his free time is taken up with cleaning etc.

I think he's depressed but he just laughs when I suggest so. He also keeps saying "work will get easier" but he's been saying this for the last 2 years and still waiting.

I'd pay a cleaner if I worked more, but DH says he doesn't like the idea of that as its a "waste of money."

@Loveagoodbuffet no I'm not. I run a company and I am quite stressed currently. Working long hours with no colleagues (everyone works for me) and complex problems I need to solve with no easy answers snd plenty of risk - all on me.

Everyone has different appetites for work though - mine is high. I don't judge those who prefer an easier path and I would hope I'm not judged for preferring something more full on. If I didn't like it I'd change it, as the OP has done (note I am not attacking her choices like many here).

I have several teacher friends and while it's not fun a lot of the time the holidays are great. I get three weeks all year tops. And staff contact me while I'm on them. Personally I couldn't do it because i don't like the way teachers are treated (like shit) but a pressure cooker? Let's just say having a week off followed by 2 weeks followed by 8 weeks and having 2/3 months doing classes by zoom (muting the difficult classes!) isn't my idea of an incredibly difficult career that is causing the ops husband to desperately need time out! He doesn't need a sabbatical he needs a wake up call. His life is pretty easy with his golf and his motorbikes.

But he hates teaching and he hates his life currently. So he has to change it - but I've seen these men on here before. They invariably want to spend years training for some even more low pressure, low paid career and want the wife to step up and make loads of money while they doss around train for several years. Their answer to I hate my job is never 'I will do what I have to' it is 'I will do what I want to'. A luxury the rest of us don't have.

Well from your update he sounds quite difficult.

If he has traditional views of parenting then it sounds like the children are your responsibility & don’t expect him to lift his game in this regard.

Really weird attitude to have from a teacher! Would have foolishly assumed a male teacher would hold progressive values

If he won’t go down to part time, won’t gets cleaner etc I would tell him to stop whinging at you & offloading his bad moods onto you, creating an atmosphere in the home.

It sounds like you have already offered suggestions to help & he won’t take you up on it, so he should keep his bad moods to himself.

Tell him to buy in the lessons. My school actively encouraged us to do that.

We have found some great ones which would have cost countless hours to do ourselves.

I agree with the posters who say this is him. You are giving him other options and he is refusing them all and not coming up with his own solutions. He is happy with how this going. You at home, him at work. It’s working for him, so why change?

@Slambam Cross post! So I think he sounds not well suited for teaching. It's too constrained. He needs to go more business/corporate. The rules arent half as strict and staff have a lot more autonomy. My mate is micromanaged and then there's the parents. Jesus, the parents. She has good boundaries but if you didn't you could easily end up very stressed.

He needs to look at things like sales or other careers. No idea what teachers can do once they are finished teaching and I guess he won't want to lose his pension or holidays. He could go to a private school? Though many see that as selling out 🙄😁. It's usually a better environment with more respect for teachers.

And if he's not going to help he needs to pay for a cleaner and you need equal time off. Foot down time I think. He's either being a twat or is depressed. Both need fixing.

Let's just say having a week off followed by 2 weeks followed by 8 weeks and having 2/3 months doing classes by zoom (muting the difficult classes!) isn't my idea of an incredibly difficult career that is causing the ops husband to desperately need time out!

Then you've clearly never been a teacher. Read the threads on here about teacher workload and try and understand. At the moment it's horrendous in secondary because of the grading process this year. Loads of extra work and literally no extra time or pay. If you have your own business you could choose to take more time off.

OP teaching is stressful but it sounds like DH needs to try somewhere new and see if it is his current school or teaching overall. He also needs to reassess his priorities.

Creating lessons every evening does sound like a nightmare. But is it because he isn't efficient about using his time wisely or is his school management entirely unreasonable? If it's a required task, his line manager should make sure he has time within the school day to do it. Yes, it may take longer than the time allocated but that's a far cry from every evening. Presumably he is the type NOT to raise such issues with his manager? Big mistake in my book. Managers don't always realise what they're asking for if no one tells them. OTOH maybe the school management is uncaring and pushy. Again the answer is to look elsewhere for a job. He won't listen to you, but might there be someone else he could talk to?

A cleaner won't make your DH feel less stressed because he's not involved in the cleaning.

He needs to change schools. I've worked in a few different schools & one in particular had a very controlling, bullying head. He led a lot of teachers to believe that his school a paragon of loveliness & working anywhere else would be awful. He was talking shite, but I only knew that because I'd worked at other schools, but so many of the teachers there believed every word he said, they were so ground down. The work loads at that school were really high as well, because we were micro-managed within an inch of our lives, but a lot of the stuff they forced us to do was pointless, but then there was other stuff that really did need doing to ensure good quality learning, this meant that a lot of the time I was planning 2 lessons for every lesson - one to show the management & one that I actually taught.

If he's used to winging and now been told to write lesson plans, this will be extremely stressful for him. It's pointless extra work if his lessons were good by winging it - I prefer a pre-planned lesson, but it's personality type, & some teachers work much better by winging it.

He's being a pain though refusing to move schools, get help for stress/depression.

He would be if I was to increase my hours to decrease his @Onelifeonly

Disconcerting how many posters here are willing to defend his behaviour. (Not the ones saying they can totally understand why he’s on the brink of nervous collapse, but the ones who say it’s unreasonable for OP to ‘craft and parent’ all day and then expect a bit of emotional interest from her spouse.)

OP, I’m not a teacher and I don’t have a partner (although I do have a number of teachers in my family). I do have a stressful job and two children. On the occasions when I have been so stressed by work that I am an arsehole to my children, that has been a major wake up call for me that something has to change, because I love them and prioritise them. I am sad for you that your husband hasn’t had the same realisation.

Gosh this sounds familiar. My exh was a hod at a large secondary. Core subject.
He was always late home. We'd have chats. Please try not to leave later then 6.30. Please at least call so i know when to put babies bath on.

We'd have dinner once kids were in bed. I always wanted to eat with them but he said he couldnt leave on time. And i'd try to chat and he'd just be absent/vacant/in another place or staring at the wall behind my head. Always thinking about how quickly he could get back to the laptop to re-start.

He'd get up in the morning and get himself ready for work and go-and id get two kids and myself ready. School hols were marginally better but he was exhausted and 'deserved his time off'. That he'd sleep and play video games for hours whilst i did everything around him. I'd take the kids out on my own. If we went abroad it sometimes helped.

I was so lonely and miserable and resentful. I didn't believe it was the job, but the way he chose to do it. And he didn't want to learn to handle stress and pressure better. I begged.

In end i left.

It probably doesn't help that he doesn't go to bed until around 1am, because of school work eating into his evenings. He says it's because he needs downtime after doing work (which I completely get) but it's a vicious circle as he's so exhausted.