Note: If you don't like to hear guys bitch about stuff, then you need read no further. Go find something a little more interesting to read.
I work hard every day. I go to a "normal" job five days a week which typically consists of eight hours of work. Then when I come home I usually retire to my office where I work a minimum of four to six hours every night. I put in a minimum sixteen hours on the weekend.
Why do I work so much? Necessity, see the wife stays at home, drive kids around amongst various and other sundry things and this rant of mine is not intended to minimize anything she may do.
What is it that I do? Nothing so glamorous as trading stocks on line of which multiple movies have been made. I work in technology, more specifically network technology, where I am kind of a jack of all trades there. I do everything from managing budgets, attending meetings to represent our IT interests to setting up computers and servers, websites, backups, email, etc... you get the idea.
Yes, as much as I hate to admit it, I am a computer GEEK (because I know this shit), though I prefer to think of myself as computer GURU (because I'm good at it). At any rate, that's what I do at during the day.
At night I have a small company (you can read into that, I am the company), but saying "I have a small company" sounds better, I started where I develop websites, and specifically I develop backend systems for websites.
I have very few requests, and on top of all I do, I try to make life for those around me as comfortable as possible. I am not a very demanding person in terms of my needs and requests but from time to time, I would like to be treated like I actually do something to take care of those around me. Hell I am the one that keeps the roof over their heads, the water flowing in their toilet, and food in their little tummies.
Yes, it's my choice to do that, but it is no small feat and with it comes a great deal of responsibility and from time to time I suppose I just don't want the responsibility, but then again I suppose everyone feels that way sometimes.
No, I don't know what the answers are, and maybe it's just the mood for today... resentment, not so much for the work , but for this feeling of underappreciation.
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5 years ago
15 comments:
This is the second time today I'm leaving a comment saying I wish I had written this post. I'm in a similar situation and have similar feelings.
I sometimes enjoy the responsibility and maybe need that feeling to motivate me to continue to succeed and advance professionally. But some overt appreciation would be nice. I have to be thoughtful to people all day at work, and them I'm expected to be thoughtful at home because the house is clean and dinner is made.
Combined with a lack of desire or willingness to have sex from the wife, it's hard not to be resentful sometimes.
Over at Melted Candy, Ms. I made a comment on a recent post (I paraphrase)that said that many men get wrapped up in being the rock/provider and feel taken advantage of, particularly if there is a lack of sex. I think this is true.
I have actually been on both sides of this dynamic; I've been both the breadwinner and the stay at home spouse at different points.
One thing I can say is that I really hated being a stay-at-home spouse -- and I probably didn't do a lot to talk about my husband's contributions because thinking about being dependent made me feel angry and ashamed.
I've also been on both sides of the "not interested in sex" quandary, and come to think of it, my lack of interest definitely correlated with staying home. Perhaps for some people dependency and a healthy sexuality don't mix?
Andy: Your take on the situation is interesting. I too enjoy what I do, it would be nice sometimes if it would come full circle.
Helen I love your insight, and there is more to you and we are slowly learning about you. Thank you for sharing.
The thing about the "not interested in sex" quandary is that the longer you go without, the less interested one is in it.
I've always told my spouse, that I'd be glad to be the stay-at-home person. She hasn't taken me up on it yet.
BTW, what are you doing for HNT this time?
I think under-appreciation and being taken are some of the worst feelings. I've been both.
And yes, of course you like to be the provider, but I know what you mean when you say that once in a while you wouldn't mind not having the responsibility.
Sometimes it's just nice for people to realize what you do, and them take care of you for a change.
Funny, my husband made the same offer. But who was the breadwinner and who was the caretaker was always determined by outside factors -- someone got a job in a new place, other offers, etc. I'm not sure we have as much control over our economic lives as we like to think we do. So I'm not sure asking your wife if she'd like to trade places will be all that productive for either of you; in fact, I think it will probably make her feel worse.
I have to do HNT *again* !! What have I gotten myself into?!
I have a funny history with amateur self-photography.
I actually really dislike turning the camera on myself; your read of the picture -- that I was debating with myself whether or not to do it -- was right on. The first pictures I ever took of myself I took with the intention of sending them to my husband.
I was hesitant to send them to him, and I walked around for a few days with the camera in my bag. During that time I was interviewed by a couple of journalists.
The next day, I was looking in my bag and I discovered, to my horror, that the camera was not there. I had left it behind -- with the memory card!
In a building full of journalists!
It happened to be a Saturday when I made the discovery. I drove to the building, and it turned out that the building in question was being used to host a professional gathering of some sort, so I walked in like I owned the place, went back to the room where I had been interviewed, and...
...there was the camera, lying casually on the floor behind the chair I had been sitting in.
I picked it up and left. As I stood on the sidewalk, I thought, Husband, I am going to divorce your ass. Why is it so infuriatingly difficult to get your attention? And why should I work so hard, when I get that attention from plenty of men and not a small number of women for doing nothing at all?
I decided to go to the gym before I went home to avoid taking my wrath out on anything with more feelings than the heavy bag and the elliptical machine.
It was a very. Long. Workout.
Eventually I did send him the photos, and he did appreciate them. I have this theory that men are the more visual species, sexually speaking. I don't know if that's bullshit or not, though.
Thank you Kate, that about sums it up. A pat on the back every now and then, or maybe even some sex instigated by her.
Helen: Because her working would make her feel worse, what you are saying is we must play out the roles defined for us by society? Actually, I don’t know that I REALLY would fit the stereotype of the “stay at home” dad, if there is such a thing, I suppose it would be nice if she fit the stereotype of the “stay at home” mom a little better then. I suppose that’s all I’m saying.
Kind of like the mom on Leave it to Beaver, guys want and need to be taken care of on so many levels, and I suppose I could go down the list but, I don’t think that would accomplish anything. I think what I am really saying, is I’ve taken on this role as provider, but she has not taken on the role of caretaker, and our forward thinking society says it’s wrong for me to expect anything else. It really does put me in a catch-22. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
That is a good story about the camera and the photos, does make me wonder how risqué they may have been, and cursing the fact that they didn’t make it to the Internet. I bet that would have gotten hubby’s attention.
Generally speaking, guys have problems with romance. I don’t know why that is, it just is. The romance is fun while they are perusing someone, but once that someone, you in this instance, has been acquired, conquered, or married, the thought is “mission accomplished”. Men are generally speaking hunter/gathers.
Guys, especially after they have been in a relationship for a while, make the fatal mistake of assuming. Assuming you know how they feel and assuming you are the same way with it. They also assume that if there is a problem you (women) will let them know about it.
Some guys, of which I happen to be on, and not for purely altruistic reasons, enjoy the romance and its not just to get laid. The reason I enjoy the romance, may very well be for reasons of self affirmation, along with truly enjoying affirming someone else as well.
Men are visually oriented, I think that has been proven time and time again, and it goes to reason that this trait lends itself to the hunter/gather roles evolution and/or society has placed upon them. But you “sent” him the photos. What you should have done is “shown” him the photos, and had your camera nearby, and let him take some pictures of you. This would allow him to do some hunting and gathering. Hell, I’d like to do some of that kind of hunting and gathering.
I’m just saying.
I don't think that *doing* it would make her feel worse -- I think that asking (or offering) when she has no job offers on the table is unlikely to make her feel better about herself.
My sense is that many women give up on nurturing behaviors in or out of the bedroom because there's no mileage in them. We end up feeling the same way you do about being a breadwinner: we do them, and everybody's mad at us anyway, so why bother?
I remember reading an entry on another blog. One partner wants sex; the other doesn't. They finally have sex, but the next day, the pursuing partner approaches again and is turned away. Pursuing partner is angry, says to the pursued partner, see, it's true, you don't really like me.
From the pursued partner's point of view, I can't help but think that the lesson they took from this is: even if I DO give them what they want, I can't win.
That dynamic certainly discouraged me from nurturing behaviors in or out of the bedroom. For a long time it didn't seem to matter what I did; he was unhappy anyway.
Things changed around the time our jobs changed; our children got older, and I worked outside the house and traveled more (even when I was at home, I still worked). He quit the job he didn't like and got one where there were fewer assholes. Suddenly we liked each other better. Coincidence? Probably not.
I can't help but notice that many of the male partners who are dissatisfied with their sex life at home are also, by their own admission, working very hard, traveling a lot, or taking on more work than at their day job.
Romance takes time and it's going to feel like a burden if you come home beat every day. If, as Andy points out, it's so difficult to be thoughtful at work that it's a burden to do it when you come home, then...your employer is embezzling from your marital account.
I'm not sure I agree 100% with your estimation about my employer embezzling from my marital account.
50 years ago, when most women stayed at home, and the men went out and supported their families, it seems they were both doing it for a common purpose and goal.
Our goals and ambitions seemed to center around the family. We worked so we could have time off, the two week vacation, we spent with our families.
Our families defined who we were.
Today, it seems we are a society obsessed with self, we are bombarded with it in TV, movies, even commercials.
We are told that we are more important than the commitments we have made and we should pursue what makes us happy.
Now it seems our work, as opposed to our families defines who we are.
Yeah I know me making those statements is like the pot calling the kettle black but, I am still willing to call a spade a spade.
Now I'm not proposing in the least that we should go back to the days of yore, but what I am suggesting is that maybe we should evaluate the criteria by which we derive our sense of worth.
Of course friend mentioned to me not too long ago "sometimes I just want to be fucked." I'm not quite sure how all that fits into my little diatribe but, it seems like it belongs in there somewhere.
You have made me think Helen. Thank You.
Oh, wait a minute. Didn't this whole thing get started because of the whole "love bank" idea?
So, okay, an economic analogy for you. Let's say, something in a nicely tailored Chicago School of Economics fit, yes yes?
Okay, the high priests of the Chicago School say unto ye: people be rational actors, pursueth they their rewards within the system alloted to them.
So, back in the fifties, women didn't decide to be 24/7 caregivers in exchange for free room and board out of altruism: they did it because it was the best deal they could get.
These days, if women do stay home, unlike their sisters in the good old days, they're aware they're sacrificing real-world opportunities. They are, in real terms, MORE altruistic than women in the fifties, because they actually have something to give up. But what they get in exchange is pretty much the same: ungrateful children and a grumpy overworked husband, who as you so astutely point out, is not that interested in her now that he's got her. If the feedback at home is harsh enough often enough, she concludes that no matter what she does, or what she sacrifices, she cannot please anyone, so she gives up on the effort.
So, the woman of today has two responses to this:
1. Become depressed.
2. Seek -- ahem -- other sources of fulfillment for what is, after all, her one and only life.
Swap out "thankless job" for "24/7 caregiving" and you'll see that in the end, men and women aren't that different. We're all just rational actors with a limited resource: our life.
(I think it was Bill Clinton's campaign manager, James Carville, who uttered the now-famous words "it's the economy, stupid!" And maybe that's why American marriages are so sexless. The French seem to get plenty, in and out of marriage. If we had a 35 hour workweek, maybe we'd get laid more too :->).
Again I agree with you in part.
First of all (this is me buttering you up, trying to get on your good side), kudos for being able recall some of the things I have written in the past.
Secondly, you seemed to have inferred from what I had written, that I was suggesting that women should be subservient to men in some way, and that was not my intent.
I was trying to point out, that the things we within a society work for today are different. The things we work for today are well, simply that, THINGS, a bigger house, car, TV, etc... and it is these things we use to define us.
In the past we worked with at common purpose and goal, that being the building up of the family.
You are absolutely correct, it is the economy and all the little things that drive the economy, that have dictated to us, what our values should be. The message is not so direct, but subtle, that we should work more to have more stuff. If you do that, then you are a good provider.
Oh, and for the record, I'm not a grumpy person. I'm a very nice person, full of laughter and praise.
Yes, more sex is and would be a good thing but I don't want to move to France. Does solo sex count?
I hear you. And yes, we all feel like that sometimes. I've been on both sides.
My work has always defined me. My husband's work has always defined him. I don't know when the paradigm shift from the 50s mindset happened, but the importance of work always seemed to be ephasized more than that of the family. At least in mine.
I also absolutely agree that sex is like a muscle. It will atrophy if not used. Fortunately, it can also get back in shape fairly quickly.
As for the rest of the thinking around male-female roles and how it affects sexual behaviors, I blame feminism to some degree. But that's another ranty blog post in itself.
Oh, and egads, Shack, Helen? Would you both just get a virtual room, already? Though I do enjoy watching. Ahem.
Helen?
L, do you happen to know where we could borrow room with a whiteboard and/or an overhead projector for transparencies? Hey, you can come and we can all discuss Bakunin's theory of creative destruction! Such fun! I'll bring a little nosh, thinking is hungry work...
Oh, you meant THAT kind of room. Silly me, so geeky!
Sigh. It makes me sad to think that certain bloggers we both know wouldn't be able to make it, whiteboard or no.
We can discuss anything, I do love a good discussion, just in case you haven't figured it out yet.
Helen, or anyone for that matter, my email is on my profile, I will be glad to discuss anything.
Politics, starving childern, or world peace.
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