For crying out loud, all that woman does is bitch and moan. I love Barbara, but sometimes I don't like her very much. Can't a man have some peace when he gets home from a long day?
It truly is a dog eat dog world out there. I get up at six in the morning, rush around at the last minute trying to find things that have somehow been misplaced from the last time I saw them, gulping down a less than satisfying bowl of cereal and cup of coffee, then hopping into the car to fight the drudgery of traffic from hell. By the time I get to work, I could go back to sleep.
Then there is the constant demands on my time. The boss wants us to keep up with ridiculous quotas no one is ever able to achieve then punishes us with pay cuts when we miss the bar. We are told the customer is always right and to make the customer happy, but the customer is obviously an idiot most of the time who wants us to do things the company forbids us to do. The customer complains to our boss and we get chewed out in front of the client for not giving in when we were given specific instructions from the boss not to do what the boss is doing with that person. It's a no win situation.
I am stuck in a dead end job with no real opportunity for advancement. It eats up so much of my time that I cannot find another job. I feel so trapped. I could scream.
Then after a long 10 hour day, I fight traffic again and come home to a house of screaming, cranky children who are vying for my attention and a wife who greets me with some chore or emergency I must take care of right this second.
When I was growing up, I was always jealous of my friends who had mothers who were mothers and wives. They stayed at home. Their homes were neat and organized. Their kids were well behaved. They had dinner on the table when the husband came home. I never saw those men scrap around outside doing chores. Whenever I stayed at their home I saw the man of the house plop himself down in an easy chair to kick back with a newspaper for a few minutes while in front of the television. Then in a few minutes I was ushered out the door while the wife was putting food on a nicely set table. To me, that was the life I wanted. It is not what I got.
My parents both worked. Our place was a dump. I survived on ordering pizza and Chinese food as well as easy to fix items such as cereal and peanut butter sandwiches. As an adult, I find myself in the same boat on some nights. Yes, I know Barbara is working 2 jobs inside the home, but she is self employed, that should imply her hours are more flexible than mine. She seems to put all the family and house needs on the back burner until I get home and then it becomes urgent to do them all at once. Then after all this frenzy is over, she goes right back to work leaving me to go to be alone.
Is it too much to ask that she gives me some peace when I get home? I work hard enough. Just because she decides to push herself to such limits does not mean I must do the same. I don't like to cook, iron, vacuum, or do dishes. That's woman's work! I don't mind doing odd jobs of painting, repairing things, or even cutting the lawn or doing some of the gardening work, but I don't have the patience for all the other stuff.
We would not even be in this situation if Barbara had not had children until we were ready. Maybe I could have made time to take some night courses and get a better job. With all the new scientific breakthroughs, she could have had a child when she was up to 45 years old. What's the rush? I love the children, but I really think we all would have been better off waiting until I had a better job, better income, and more savings. Now we are struggling paycheck to paycheck. I don't know how we would have made it without Barbara's extra income. Every little bit helps.
I know she gets on me all the time because some months she makes more than I do. She gets it in her head that she should be more in a position to have a say in how things are supposed to be run around the house, even if it includes me working extra hard to do chores which she no longer has time to do. I still don't see why she just doesn't organize her time better to fit it all in.
My life would be empty without her and the kids, but sometimes I want to escape this madhouse.
