Barrybran - [Insert Original Thread Title Here]

[Barrybran]

Journaling:

Just an update here. It's been a pretty big week here. Massive actually. Things had been progressing steadily and my family have been spending most of our time together in the main living area rather than in separate rooms. Still doing our own thing, in particular, me doing my uni work, but together nonetheless. We've still been sleeping in separate rooms and intimacy had been still eluding us.

On Tuesday, my wife and I headed out of town to see our solicitor after more unsavoury behaviour from D4's bio-Dad's wife. What started as talking about babies and popping into a transportable home manufacturer's site before our solicitor appointment turned into a phone call later in the day to find out my wife's company had gone into administration and she'd be out of a job in 8-10 weeks, followed by popping into real estate agents and looking through that town's local paper for jobs in the area.

My wife has worked so hard to get her store to the place that it is and recently she achieved a number 4 ranking in the entire company of sales compared to costs. Not bad for a town of only a few thousand people. Needless to say, she's devastated and her mind has been in a spin. It has galvanised us though and she's been talking in terms of "we" and "us" with regards to the next step and the baby and house talks are still present. Pet names have reappeared in spurts and we've spent a LOT of time talking about where we go from here in terms of jobs, location, etc but not talking about our relationship directly. Twice, she's asked me to join her in her bed and I've joined her once and missed her message the other time. She's also not shied away from me touching her though she hasn't gone out of her way to touch me herself other than when she wanted comforting in bed.

The past few days have been tough on her and I've tried to keep things light and positive and asked questions about what she wants to do, where she wants to go, etc. There may be a major job opportunity in our town which would be a massive bonus for her and us if she were to get it. She's spoken to the store manager already and he's discussed the position with her privately and advised her on the path to follow. Not only would the job keep us in town, it would improve our her/our financial position significantly and take a lot of pressure off, especially since the legal fees as well as making arrangements to go to my brother's wedding next February have hit us hard.

Since her meeting with her potential new boss yesterday, she's been more upbeat and the thoughts she's expressed to me about her plans have been more positive. She's told me she wants to be "up the duff" (pregnant) by the end of next year and we found two boxes of pregnancy tests in the back dock of her store and I jokingly told her to put them on our pile of stuff to buy so she did.

I did inadvertently put my foot in it last night by talking about our options (stay in town living off my wage or move out of town and both of us find new jobs) with family when they visited last night. My wife was concerned about their reaction though I don't recall her explicitly asking me not to talk about anything other than the potential job she has lined up. Moving away has been a touchy subject and I've pulled no punches this time as feeding our family comes first. As it turned out, my wife would have preferred I hadn't mentioned any of it so I'll take that into account moving forward.

On my side of the street, my boss has juggled a family on one income so she understands my predicament (get more hours or find a job out of town). As I've been employed to take over from her, if I leave, my boss will have to stay in town she she has offered me more hours in order to support my family, which I appreciate.

So it's been a fairly stressful week here and it's not about to end anytime soon. My wife has been told her store will be closing in four weeks so she will be working most-to-every day until the store closes so I will be working my own hours, keeping up with my uni study and manning the fort at home with the kids and cleaning until things start to clear up a bit.