I posted more about what my male friends complain about. Lately I have been hanging around with my female friends - so here is the other side.
You are a stay at home mom - which IMHO is more than a full time job. You don't get to stop when the work day ends. You are also such a brilliant woman - many of my friends that are stay at home moms crave the same type of mental stimulation you do. You have every right to want to use your brain.
I don't have any answers for you. I can just share what I talk about and circle about with my friends...
Two of my neighbors were stay at home moms until their kids went into school full time. Now they are both working full time. And while they need to work - it is impacting their kids. Their days are longer and well a stay at home mom just has more time and attention to give to their kids.
The H's - well some of them just don't seem to get that a stay at home mom works overtime. And the ones with working W's - they just don't seem to get that working moms can't continue to give them the same level of attention as they did when they were at home - so they end up doing double duty.
It often seems like whether we work or not, many of the H's have a hard time realizing that they are expected to help around the house when they come home.
My female friends and I complain about this. The X and I fought about this.
At one point during our M, before The X flipped out completely - we decided maybe we needed to adjust our budget to include a maid to clean the house every two weeks and hire someone to do the lawn mowing. We even talked about getting freshly cooked meals delivered two or three times a week. It would mean giving up some of the luxuries and vacations - but we were both so tired of being tired all the time. And being tired usually led to fights about the other not doing enough - well mostly me complaining he wasn't doing enough around the house.
If you figure out any answers Jackie, let me know... Part of me feels like I don't want to even think about getting M again until I can afford to hire a maid! Cleaning up after The X took enough energy, I can't imagine what it would have been like if we had had kids.
There are times, I wish there was someone special in my life. Other times, I am relieved that I am alone. For me, it was exhausting being M to The X. He expected cooked from scratch meals every evening, created loads of laundry and for some reason the bathroom needed to be cleaned so much more often. And on top of that he needed to talk about his work and had no energy to hear about my work stuff.
I am venting again. I am confused myself Jackie - I am not sure if I can do the M thing myself again. It was so very exhausting for me and nothing I did seemed to be good enough for The X...
Sorry, I probably haven't helped much... I have no idea what the answers are... I am probably going to end up a spinster cat lady anyway! LOL!
