Right now, my wife is finishing up her last day of work at her current job. Her boss has been on again/off again toxic and she had enough. She’s got another job lined up right away on Monday.
The past two weeks since she put her notice in, it’s been nothing but a torrent of praise of all of her contributions. Every day she’s been emotional about someone telling her how much they value her and are going to miss her. Taking her out to lunches, numerous emails and texts of positive affirmation.
Her new job comes with a HUGE sacrifice on my end. Not only do I have to do school pickups for our four kids, I had to forgo my remote days (2x a week), so I can depart an hour or so earlier to be the one to pick them up every day. Now I also have the sole responsibility to bring them to appointments.
Now, here’s what falls on my plate:
- Morning school prep (Make Breakfast, Lunches)
- Pickups
- if children are sick, I have to be the one to work from home/PTO
- Dinner, given she will just be getting done at work
- Homework supervision
- Bedtime routines
- Cleaning
On top of this, she wants more things off of her plate, like playdate organization and activity planning.
I’m super hurt by this. And she thinks I’m not supportive of the job change for her. What she doesn’t realize is that my anxiety is through the roof of managing even more things while being the primary breadwinner.
It’s so unfair.
She gets complimented for everything she does. No one ever thanked me for my time at work, usually just a brief “see ya”.
She gets less and less on her plate, pretty much by brute force. “About time, husbands don’t realize how good they have it.”
She gets everything she wants. Time, space, possessions. She’s the gatekeeper of our intimacy and doesn’t desire me.
I’m always concerned for her, and compliment and reassure her of any insecurities. She will not even flinch if I have an anxiety attack.
I just want to scream.
It really seems like your job is a huge part of this problem. She has exciting new role energy for her job which has coordinate with her old job giving her praise. You on the other hand seem to be in a job that you either hate or don’t like very much. You are jealous of what she has with her new role.
I am going through the exact same thing with my job and my spouses job. She has an emotionally demanding helping profession job which is draining emotionally but she is great at it, loves her coworkers, has autonomy and does something useful for the world everyday. My job while much higher paying is a high stress and yet boring corporate job in which I get little praise and high complaints. I have been so jealous of her when she talks about work even when she is complaining. We have talked this through and I am going to find something better for myself but I understand the jealousy. I am both proud of what she does and jealous that it isn’t me. Relationships are complicated like that and you need to understand each portion of it.
You seem frustrated about the additional emotional labor and reasonability you are getting from her new job. This is highlighting how much emotional labor you have to put with at your job which you can’t give to your home life and family. It is exhausting putting on fake and false face for your job. This need to hide everything at work and its getting you in the habit to hide at home. Look for a new job and talk with your wife about how her new job is bringing up these complicated feelings about your role. You got this but need to talk it out
I actually like my job.
I just have never had a place/coworkers that actually went out of their way to tell me that they appreciate me. My wife doesn’t compliment me ever, and now I have an extreme imbalance of responsibility and tasks.
It seems like you have a lack of appreciation both at work and at home. Asking for compliments from your wife would help this with your new transition. I would suggest you start with thanking her for taking these responsibilities beforehand and ask if you can get it back in return. Gratitude goes both ways and is infectious. Start with thanking her and see if she does it back if you are feeling like you can’t ask.
See if you can get some appreciate at work by asking for it from your manager or anyone else. This is more difficult since people are pretty thankless in their jobs as well. Similar tactics of thanks others might get you thanks at work.
Dealing with the lack of thanks and gratitude is a complicated emotion to deal with. You will need to talk about it with the people who matter in your life. Some thanklessness is part of any job as well as being a parent and partner. But you should be able to ask for it and be appreciate it. I know I need lot more appreciation from my personal life if I am not getting it from my job.