Anyone out there?

Probably not, but here goes nuthin'.

First, a quick update to bring all 3 of you up to speed on the recent happenings in my life. I last left off having started a new job in a new office with a fucked up new boss. Little did I know when I started that job that it would completely consume my life and negatively affect most of my relationships.

60 hours is an average week for me these days. I rarely take a lunch or otherwise leave the building during the day. I work under unreasonable deadlines and my workload could easily be divided between 2 people. The last 2 "vacations" I took ended up being more like a "working from home" pseudo-vacation. The place literally falls apart in my absence, as we are understaffed and growing too quickly to keep up. I spend my days putting out fires and addressing various one-off mini disasters, which leaves me little time to actually do the job that I was hired to do. While my boss is very cool and allows me flexibility and autonomy, the job itself is highly stressful and I'm starting to notice the effects in my health. I've had 2 bad colds in the last 6 weeks, I'm not sleeping well, and I think I actually had a panic attack the other day.

My husband hates it. He hates that my attentions are constantly divided, that I check my email several times after I've come home, that I take phone calls at 7:30pm from programmers at my office. He's annoyed with the long hours. He certainly isn't pleased that my temper is shorter than it normally is because I'm so tired and overextended. He hates that I'm not as available to address household issues as I once was. In short, he hates my job and secretly wishes the place would burn to the ground so he could piss on the ashes.

Unfortunately, it pays, and a family of 5 in this day and age needs 2 strong incomes to maintain itself (especially in Taxachusetts), so he can't really complain as much as he'd like to.

What gets me is that I spent the first 10 years of our relationship dealing with this situation in reverse. He would work 6 or 7 days a week, wouldn't walk in until 8pm or later some nights, and would regularly take calls during dinner (which he actually still does). I didn't like it, but I dealt with it and bit my tongue because I knew he was doing what he had to do.

In recent years, his work load has lightened, almost simultaneously with my work load picking up. All I ask if for the same courtesy I extended him during all of those years, and he's having a very hard time, but I don't think it's because it's more work for him to pitch in more with the kids or the housework. In fact, he's always been very hands on, so it's not anything out of the ordinary for him to clean the kitchen or pick up around the house. I think it's because our roles have changed, and it's made him increasingly uncomfortable as my paycheck has grown.

Sometimes I feel that he thinks I will leave him if I pursue any kind of career or social life outside of our home and relationship. Maybe this is a common male insecurity, but it's certainly taken me off guard. I see pursuing a career as helping the family, and I see having friends outside of the household as maintaining self-fulfillment, balance and sanity. He probably feels I am purposely distancing myself from him, when what I am really trying to do is not to lose my identity.

I need to pursue a career, have friends I can lean on, and interests outside of these walls; otherwise, I will forget who I am. This is what happened during my first 5 years as a mother, leading to struggles with depression and self-esteem, and I don't ever want that to happen again. I wish I could make him understand that.

On the up side, my boss has hired some people to take some of my work on, and it will hopefully start getting easier over the next 6 months. I just hope that we can make it that long.