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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Husband works very very hard - workaholic

3 replies

redblue · 08/07/2010 23:57

DH works extremely hard and recently even more so. He resents it and rants about it when he gets home and I am sympathetic and want him to find another job but in the current climate that seems very unlikely. It is well paid but the rest of the team he works with are slackers and DH is too much of a workaholic and too hard working just to let it slide and he ends up taking on extra.

I am guessing a lot of equivalent situations around and i don't imagine in any way he is or we are unique on this front.

What do you do to show support? I start by making practical suggestions (forwarding him job adverts for alternative jobs etc or trying to talk to him about holidays) but end up just nodding in agreement or saying words which are meant to be supportive but don't seem enough.
On the holiday / day off front he says he does not have time to think about it let alone book it, we are not going on holiday this year, and this does not bother me but his workaholism does.

To confirm I do the same job as he does and we used to do the same long hours before I deliberately downsized (massively) so we could have our family and I could fit around little ones a bit more easily. But i have not forgotten what the long hours are like.

OP posts:
whatname · 09/07/2010 00:18

Blimey, I could have written that word for word! But I listen and listen and make suggestions and give practical help and then get told that I dontsupport him.
We came to a crisis point and I have left him, and now he is blaming work and not working as hard. I think it can be done, but they have to figure out what they are missing. Something has to trigger them in to taking it a bit easier
If he is working this hard and you still don't get to go on hols what is the point? I would say "give me some dates, I am booking the holiday"

cestlavielife · 09/07/2010 12:49

you do the same job, you managed to downsize....

so, why cant he?

send him on some assertiveness/time management course?

AllarmBells · 09/07/2010 14:10

Are the rest of his team really slackers...or just not workaholics, and working reasonable hours?

Agree with cestlavielife, some suggestions on assertiveness courses are a good idea. If his team aren't pulling their weight, he needs to tell them clearly what they should be doing, not "pick up the slack" himself at the expense of his family. Sounds as though how he manages things now isn't working, and it's very hard when you are working at full stretch, but he needs to step back and see if he can improve things ie. work more effiently. One person can't do the work of a whole team, it's not possible.

Even if he doesn't think he needs assertiveness training, it might help him take a different view of things that you think he needs it, IYSWIM. Being at full stretch constantly is not sustainable in the long term, he's at risk of his health collapsing.

I am a FT WOHM, DP is a SAHD, and I find the same as your DH, work is just taking more and more time, business is harder to come by and takes longer to win.... This year I have managed to get into problems with the tax office, the house is a tip - needs decorating/tidying, and we were going to buy a garage next to our house but it's been rented out instead, all because I "don't have time to even think about it". And we are not going on holiday either (All this for a salary that entitles me to WTC...

I am now putting personal things up higher on the priority list....since DP "supported" me by giving me a bollocking when things got silly. He had been saying "I know how hard you work dear" for years and that was nice to hear but didn't change anything. (That's also how I knew he wasn't just whinging, because I knew he appreciated what I do..)Just my experience. Good luck....

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