<p>^Boy, that sounds so familiar, MomLive. H said rather wistfully recently that I seem to be closer to S (19) than he is. Of course, S and I are more alike, but we have also bonded more. I have to give H credit though, he was scoutmaster for S’s troop for 4 years, which did provide them some bonding time. </p>
<p>When FIL retired, I asked MIL if he was driving her crazy. She has to find things to keep him busy, like working on the garden, buying groceries, etc. 'Cause he’s just like the sons - work, work, work.</p>
<p>Interesting thread. I have a number of friends with husbands who fit this profile. They love to work and spend SO many hours…many of them are in very high level jobs with much travel. Now, for me, it’s been strange lately. For years I was on my own and did a nice job balancing work and life…and LOVED it. Now I’m in a corporate job as I need benefits (hubby is retired). The job is CRAZY - require a huge number of hours. I sort of like it…the people are great…but I am overwhelmed too…and clearly not in balance. So what do I do? I’m getting up there in age so not easy to walk into something else. I don’t view myself as a workaholic but I certainly work like one. I can’t figure out how to do this job with a normal schedule. And we are SO out of synch now…with my husband in retirement. Life is never easy. Trying still to figure this one out…it’s been two years! Admit that I DO like keeping busy…in fact I get depressed with too much time on my hands. But this is out of control. So…not everyone who works crazy long hours likes it. I miss my twice a week yoga class! Friends tell me life is short and I should quit. Easier said than done!!</p>
<p>As a Human Factors engineer I am well versed in the whole productivity and error rate issue. While it can be done for short periods of time, over a longer period of time the vast majority of people simply pace themselves accordingly and do not produce anything like the expected. It’s that simple. </p>
<p>There are some individuals that for various physiological or mental conditioning issues can work longer hours and be effective. However, the vast majority of people in the workplace simply adapt to the longer hours by taking longer breaks, spreading out tasks, and so on. </p>
<p>Three examples from my work… First, 60 hour weeks without paid overtime ($50 gift cards and ‘comp time’ - time off). Project failed miserably and almost took the company down with it. Second, 60 hours weeks with paid overtime and paid dinners (!!!) People, myself included, did 8 hours of work in the first 8 hours and LOTS and LOTS of testing for the extra paid time - I don’t think anyone did any non-testing work evenings or weekends. The project was an unprecedented success of epic proportions. Third, our German subsidiary seems to be putting out the same output we do working 35 hour weeks. But, in my numerous trips to Germany (they haul us there when they need extra resources) they work 35 hours a week - no phone calls to the day care, kids teacher, or facebook on a smartphone. </p>
<p>Put another way, if it was my company, I would NOT depend on 60 hour weeks, paid or unpaid.</p>
<p>Momlive, I recognize this person too although he’s adopted a slightly different form here. My H travels quite a bit on top of long hours at work. When he travels, it’s usually far, far away, to the other side of the world. Those trips are never short in duration, either. When he works a long day, it’s because he has been up since the wee hours of the morning. That’s so difficult to balance, when I tend to be more of a night owl. He’s almost always home for an early dinner. Tired, but home. He loves his job, and he loves being home. There just aren’t enough hours in the day…When he’s home he can be very relaxed, or he can be busy organizing. Part of the difficulty is knowing which guy will be home. When he’s home in type A frame of mind, he thinks I should be too–no H, I don’t want to clean my closet today! In addition to loving his job, he has a great friendship with his boss and the other people he works and with whom he travels. What’s hard for me is having him come home exhausted, talked out from the day or trip, wined and dined, etc., when I’m ready for a conversation, or to go out to dinner. It was harder when the kids were young, although I’m more aware of it now that I’m not so busy with the kids. I don’t want to share so much of him with the world of work! He claims he’d give it all up if he won the lottery, but I’m not so sure…</p>
<p>Similar situation on the workaholic part. Unless we physically leave town there was no way to get a break. In the past we planned a trip like to visit one of the kids, or a road trip, then asked for time off. This year was totally different. I have been so overwhelmed at work that I announced early last year I was taking every last vacation day off this year I could, and then proceeded to plan the weeks spread out through the year. ( 5 in total). Then it became a fun planning time- one week in March- hmmm where should we go?, one in September, one October, 2 in December. amazingly we found places to get away.All have been very different but fun. One expensive one to Europe, the rest low budget getaways. Frommers website and books we have used for years exclusively for planning. Have never been steered wrong.</p>
<p>Physicain married to a physician here- now both retired. If you love what you do it may not seem like “work”. Also the number of hours at the office/hospital may or may not be busy or slow. A physician may be swamped from morning until evening or have time to shoot the breeze in the doctor’s lounge in between patients. Some days are stressful and others could be more productive but easy. When we were much younger it was easier to handle call nights. Also before kid it didn’t matter if we both spent more time in the hospital- once we had a child H changed from working more to finding time with family. I can likewise see where a college professor can have enough down time in the day to handle more “working” hours than someone constantly being “productive”.</p>
<p>My answer- no, neither H nor I are workaholics although we both spent more time at work than the average professional. It is all relative.</p>
<p>H has spent increasing hours at his workplace but it’s because they cut more & more positions without filling them, so he ended up doing all of it. He loved his work and most of the coworkers, so he was happy. He would leave the house at about 6, get to work by 6:30 and often not leave his workplace until 6:30, M-F, plus often bringing work home on weekends. He was SUPPOSED to be working only 40 hours/week, and has never gotten overtime.</p>
<p>And in careers where it is impossible to compensate by taking longer breaks and spreading out tasks, they start making mistakes. In nursing, it is medication errors and these mistakes have serious implications for the patients. Also burnout becomes a huge problem.</p>
<p>In my family I’m the one with workaholic tendencies. Because my occupation allows me to work remotely from home, I feel like I balance it pretty well. I start very early, work 10 hours, go home and walk/jog with the dog, cook/eat dinner and then back logged in by 8pm most nights. I’m almost to empty nest stage and remaining son at home is very self-reliant!</p>
<p>I love my job. I love solving the technical problems - they are like puzzles to me, but I get paid nicely for doing them!</p>
<p>My H feels no such workaholic urges and spends hours each evening planted in front of the big TV. He doesn’t have much relationship with our kids. He loves them, just isn’t very interested in any “details” of their lives. </p>
<p>My point being that dis-functional parenting isn’t only for workaholics!</p>
<p>Law has had more than its share of burn out as well. The work never ends, especially in litigation firms. It hangs over you and follows you, there’s always more to be done and you are never positive exactly which cases will settle and which ones will go to trial, making scheduling and vacations very, very tough to plan.</p>
<p>I’m finding the public health can follow you everywhere as well, only the pay is generally MUCH lower.</p>
<p>In all fields, mistakes can have pretty large consequences, but often can be contained. It can take more time and effort to fix errors than if the person didn’t continue to work when over-tired/inexperienced and hadn’t made them in the first place. H mentioned this to me–that sometimes he & his firm would have been better served if he had left a little earlier on a particular day and not made a mistake that required a very long time to fix.</p>
<p>It is nice and quiet early and late in the day, so I can definitely identify with the appeal of working hours that use these very productive times of day.</p>
<p>Same as Tango, down to the book (2, actually,) articles, academic-related favors for friends- plus the teaching/grading related work and committees. Knows how to have fun, but depends on old friends or me, to plan for him. It works. I do think my finally realizing I had to be the planner took lots of stress out of the relationship. It’s quality time over quantity.</p>
<p>And, when I was a workaholic, bound to corporate needs-- he was the one who fussed over my not being home and etc.</p>
<p>H has been called back to his workplace out of retirement to go back to work. He will return less than a month after he “retired,” and he and his workplace are VERY happy about it. That’s a pretty short retirement and he didn’t even go job searching!</p>
<p>That’s sad – reminds me of Sunday’s NYT article about Simon and Nathaniel Rich (sons of Frank Rich). They said when they visited him (their parents were divorced) they remember watching him work all day. He’d sit at his computer for 8 hours, writing. </p>
<p>I’m thinking: on one of the few weekends he has to spend with his sons, he’s working? You can’t get those years back.</p>
<p>That IS sad. Happily, H and I and the kids have spent a lot of great time together. He was “retired” for one week of S’s vacation and will remain retired for the rest of D’s vacation as well.</p>
<p>I have a friend whose H was a MUCH better and more attentive dad after the divorce (until he remarried & neglected kids from BOTH marriages). At least the kids from the 1st marriage had a great mom to rely upon–the other family had a somewhat dysfunctional mom, so their road has been much tougher.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call my H a workaholic though he works long hours. He loves time off and has plenty of ways to fill it in a relaxed way. His problem is he has worked in two fields where he never feels like good enough is good enough. When he was a pediatrician, he’d be in the hospital long into the night supervising children’s healthcare; in office visits, he’d truly take time to check everything. he took calls all night when he was on-call, which was often. So his hours were pretty horrifc. </p>
<p>Now that he’s a teacher, obviously he gets summers “off” (though he spends a lot of time on further education and prepping during then), but in the school year, he’s up at 5 most mornings to prepare, stays after school tutoring, setting up labs, cleaning up the classroom till 6 most nights, and then comes home and works a few hours. Puts hours in on the weekend–all because he wants to be the “best possible teacher.” </p>
<p>When he was growing up, his mother always exhorted him to “do your best” and I think he over-internalized it. Always questioning if he could do better (and by all reports and awards, he was a great doc and is a great teacher.)</p>
<p>Luckily i never mind being by myself, but I do wish his hours had been less crazy when the kids where young.</p>
<p>Boy do I feel your pain. My husband works a 9 hour day, then comes home 4 nights a week and is on conference calls from anywhere from 7 to 1am. On the weekend he works, laptop always near or in lap. He’s an engineer for a major chip manufacturer, managing a 34 million or billion dollar project. We’ll be married 25 years this summer. When we first met, he played hard: two softball leagues, one basketball league, one ski racing club, always a runner, then came the triathlons. Kids came, work began to crowd work-outs, but he did spend time with kids, but of course he had to manage and coach their teams. I was lucky because he was spending time with the kids. In retrospect, I think it was all part of the go-go mentality.
Twenty-five years later, the kids are grown and almost done with college. I worked part-time as an elementary art teacher, became burned out at my job, wasn’t making much money so I decided to quit. Paint full time, and teach the elderly to paint, and volunteer teaching immigrants English at our local library. He continues to work like a madman, and I realize now that not only did I leave a career that I could have supported myself independently, but I have given him a trump card in that if I complain about him working, he can ***** about money, and I feel guilty.
Any time we fight about his work now he goes from the threat “I’ll just quit then, okay?” to “I can’t find another job, have you’ve been watching the news?”<br>
I’m losing patience, I’m lonely, and I’m wondering if our relationship is just diminishing day by day. We went away last month someplace warm. It took him two days to finally relax, but as soon as he did, each morning he wanted to immediately what we were doing that day and how soon we could get in the car. When we get in the car, nobody is going fast enough for him, and no one else knows how to drive.<br>
I drank at lunch and dinner just to make myself be calm with him.
Anyone who listens to this or looks at us, thinks I have it made. That I’m whiney, spoiled, and melodramatic. More than anything else, I am lonely and worried that my marriage is being destroyed and I am unable to do anything about it. We are going to a counselor in two weeks.<br>
But who doesn’t have fun with their husband on vacation? Who wouldn’t want my life? I’m just so confused. I have been painting a lot, and trying to build a small painting with seniors business, and exercising. I feel so alone sometimes.</p>
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