Ok, after our DD was born my relationship with DH went way, way downhill. We got sucked into the competitive tiredness thing, he was distant, I was angry. We moved and hoped that things would be better. They weren't. He now commutes 1 1/2 hrs each way to work which makes things long and tiring for him and long and tiring for me. Our families are not involved with us or our kids on a day to day basis and are not local. It's hard. This said, we were keen to have another baby and did 2 yrs ago. Wonderful but difficult. At about the same time our DS was born, my DH got 'remote dial-in' for his work which basically means that he can work on his laptop as though he was in his office and this is were most of our recent problems have come from (don't mean to patronise- thought I should explain).
He was keen to get promoted and this meant that he was prepared to take on the role unpaid until he got made official (MUG I hear you scream and I did warn him...) and he did. But it also meant that he was doing 2 jobs and for that to actually be possible, he started to work at home EVERY night.
For the past 2 yrs I have run our home, raised our children and put up with a tired, crabbit and at times totally unpleasant man. He is stressed out of his head and totally exhausted most of the time.
About 16 mths ago, my Dad died after a long and horrible illness (he was an alcoholic so it was not pretty). I was extremely close to my Dad and was devastated by his death. My Mum fell apart and I got no support from my younger siblings. I had no-one to lean on as my DH was working all of the time and honestly, I felt really betrayed. I needed him and he wasn't there. That sucked rather a lot and so last Sept we nearly split up as all of my anger and frustration at the emotional abandonment I felt I had suffered came to a head (God that sounds a bit dramatic but it was how I felt).
On this holiday (we were away trying to get things sorted out one way or the other), I managed to get him to see my point of view (previously one of our biggest problems had been that he refused to acknowledge that he was doing ANYTHING wrong). He asked me to stick things out with him as workwise things were due to mprove after Christmas. So I have, despite being totally exhausted myself and pretty stressed, I backed off and tried to support him. The more observant among you will have noticed that Christmas has been and gone and unfortunately, nothing has changed. He works til 11pm everynight and tries to get as much time to work at the weekends as possible (subject to me deciding how 'vital' it is as everything seems to be 'vital'). He works for a Bank so just now is not the best of times and I have tried to be patient but it's just really pissing me off.
What brought it all to a head (and prompted this I think) is that he was complaining of not feeling very well and went to the Doc. He's not on death's door but his blood pressure is really high (160/95) and his BMI is 29 (not ridiculous in itself but he has piled a great deal of weight on in the past yr). She asked him to come back in a month as she wants to medicate him if his BP is still as high. DH is 37. DC are nealy 5 and 2. He worked 'til 12am last night and will work like that tonight, tomorrow etc, etc, etc.
I don't know how to help him. I have offered to go back to work in Aug when our DD goes to school so that he can get a less stressful/ busy job with less money but I honestly don't think it will make a difference. He seems to not be able to stop himself (he has shown signs of htis before in other jobs). I am so worried about him and don't know what to do.
Sorry I just needed to get it all out. I don't know if there is an answer here but my life and DH's life are pretty shit just now.