Hi all,
So despite my greatest fears, our new baby has got to 8 weeks old without my dbpdw splitting on me, which has come as a surprise following the year long split after number 3 was born
. The other good news is that my wife is extremely serious about following the Dave Ramsey debt advice, and has actually urged me to seek out more work (which I have always wanted to do). I am self employed and at the moment with the young family and limitations on working hours, plus the fact much of my work is term time only, not forgetting the controlling wife historically trying to stop me working… it has been a struggle. Adding to this that our wonderful four babies were ivf conceived to us as lesbian parents and this has cost us lots of money (mostly borrowed, to add to our other debts from my wife’s overspending).
I have been offered a new job as deputy manager of a child care centre. This is 40 hours over 4 days, plus I will still be teaching piano one day a week in school, plus my after school students will have to move to weekends which will mean around 10 hours visiting students in their homes and teaching online, on Saturdays and Sundays. I do feel this plan is a bit crazy. But if I can pull it off, and my wife stays on board… we will get out of debt.
Problems. My wife actively encouraged me to apply for and take this job. Since I have been offered it, no congratulations, and she shuts down every time I mention it. I know she will have more childcare and will have to do many school pick ups and drop offs with four small kids. We knew this. But it would be nice if she could be happy for me for one moment and know I’m doing this for her and our family. I became very jaded with early childhood work which I haven’t held a permanent position in since 2009.(problems with other staff mostly). I struggled to drum up enthusiasm leading up to my interview. The moment I stepped in the door I was selling myself with excellence. My wife heard me say on the phone to the boss in response to, “Well if you’re sure you want to return to this crazy world of early childhood education..” and I’m like, “You know what, I’ve really missed it!!” (Like a hole in the head
). So now my wife thinks I’m really excited about the job which is a bit true but also a bad thing. Also the person I’m going to be working with most closely has bright pink hair. I had foolishly forgotten this was the colour of my wife’s hair when we met (her hair changes colour every five minutes). So now she thinks I’m going to have an affair with this girl. Also, I have made it clear that my role means I have to engage fully with the team and that means chatting at break times etc not following my wife’s orders to slink off to the car to ring her every break time to talk to her (and listen to her complain about how I’m having such fun with my new friends and want to have sex with them and don’t care about her blah blah). Also, I am going to be very tired. Sex has been off the menu completely with new baby being the type you can’t put down… but when he grows a bit then my wife will be disappointed that we don’t have time for sex and that I’m so tired (and I will be). I also imagine she will be starting text arguments late at night and not letting me go to sleep (this is a hard boundary to enforce because, as I’ve mentioned before, if I turn phone off and ignore her she will start shouting at me with no regard for waking the kids. So my only option would be to leave the house and then a good nights sleep in my car would also be out of the question).
Thoughts and advice always appreciated kind people. I don’t plan on doing this job forever, though if I did I may eventually become a manager which would be good financial security for the family. I just need to get through this very challenging transition period and hope my wife can remain relatively sane. It’s going to be tiring and hard work. But honestly I do get a lot out of all of my work. This gives me the energy to continue and get through the day. Energy which my wife can completely destroy when she wants to.
