flowmom | need to commit to myself

[flowmom]

email from H:

Hi

I'm trying to think about the amount of hours I need to work in the medium term and to do some financial forward projection. That's why knowing your monthly work totals would be helpful

Could you tell me how many billable hours you did in February 2010?

In the interests of full disclosure I did c. 168 billable hours at the fire department* and c. 60 to 80 hours of not-strictly-billable hours of Internet based work

Flowdad

* many of those hours involved sleeping, just to keep things in perspective.

My reply:

Hi Flowdad,

Thank you for working so hard to support our family...I really appreciate it.

In Feb I worked 22 h = $XXXX billable. [project] got backburnered in mid Feb. (limiting the hours that I could work), but my new project is coming online now.

Flowmom

UGH. OOOOOOOOh the things NOT said in these emails:

H: I'm working my A$$ off to pay off our debts. I realize this is an emergency and I'm doing everything I can to deal with it. PLUS I'm taking the kids all the time so that you can work. You better be holding up your end of the deal here.

ME: Yes, you are a working machine...congratulations superman. Sorry I can't be a working machine and rescue us from the financial mess that you created by your foolish lack of business planning. And too bad that you still have NO idea how much your business is earning or how much you make in your business per hour because you refuse to do basic accounting of your time, income, and expenses. At least I'm earning more than the rent on the apartment that YOU decided to rent so that you can have your space and take my children away from me. Have you considered that just maybe going to counselling, grieving a 17 year R/marriage and all my dreams of life as a family, dealing with S6's special needs stuff, and restructuring my entire life might actually use up almost all of my time that you've so "generously" granted me? I hate feeling like a charity case accepting money from you. Before having kids, I didn't realize that our parenting choices would collide with my financial independence, and now I'm trapped in a sitch where my worst fears about being financially dependent are coming true. I'm going to figure out how to earn more money, but it's not necessarily going to be on YOUR timetable.

--

I have a choice here about how I feel about this:

This is a core issue in our M and I am NOT doing the 180 that I need to do to show H that I've changed. I've let me and H and my M down by not being responsible and overcoming my issues with earning money. I'm giving H the ammunition to say that I haven't changed.

OR

Everyone has faults. Earning money has been a weak area for me and I am going to address this as best I can. H has faults too. I can only be in a M where there is some room for both of our faults, not just H's. H's interest in my earning is not about our M, it's about wanting to reduce his financial commitment to me. I need to take care of myself, and that includes spending time on my emotional needs, and being gentle with myself as I gradually increase my income. H's judgements about what I should be doing are irrelevant to my life because he has chosen to NOT share a life with me. I need to earn money because it's right for ME, not because it's convenient for H.