Career moms staying home

[Batya33]

What I do with my son is teach him to respect boundaries when it comes to talking - I love that he talks and how he talks (he's 5) but if it's too much or I need to do something I tell him that he has to wait. Waiting is a great skill for him to learn. Sometimes he will say "just one more thing" and often I will allow that but then cut it off after the one thing. The vast majority of the time we talk together and I answer his neverending questions as best I can but I also need to teach him that he can't always be listened to 24/7 -that's not real life.

[petite]

Bekka I'm a little confused as per what the counselor said. While I think embracing your life is awesome, I don't believe you created your life alone. Your husband plays a major part in your marriage and life, and it is very clear that he is extremely manipulative and controlling. These traits don't just go out the window in a few days, weeks, months sometimes not even years (or ever). Have you told your counselor how he has treated you? You'd probably need a couple sessions to really get to the deep stuff. Did you perhaps tel her that divorce is not an option,and that is perhaps why she said you need to embrace this life because you're unwilling to make a change in terms of leaving your husband. There is no point fighting something if you're not willing to go through until the end and maybe throw in the towel if it doesn't end up being fair for both people.

 

I'm a little surprised that she said your relationship is lovely? How is it lovely if he doesn't even give you the option of making your own decisions? Just reading back on this thread I can't point to what might be so lovely. Maybe when he pays attention to your girls or cooks, but hey that's what every father should do so it doesn't make him anymore special than any other man. I'm sorry, but that just makes no sense.

 

I never thought you wanted to quit your job, you just wanted to option of making your own decisions or at least having an input. Your latest post just backtracks again and you make it seem like everything is peachy, when in reality your husband most likely isn't going to change without REALLY WORKING at it. And going by what you're written he isn't the type to want to make a change if he's losing power and the upper hand.

 

Great news about the summer nanny. Would your husband be willing to hire a full time nanny if his mother is around? I mean he doesn't want you hiring a cleaning person, I don't understand how he'd be okay with hiring a nanny if that's his mother's job in the house?

 

Will you be looking for a regular counselor? I think you mentioned this one was just temporary. Maybe a relationship counselor would be more equipped to deal with the problems you're experiencing.

[petite]

I made the above post and had to go but I wanted to add a few more things.

 

The thing that worries me for you (honestly, when he was dismissing what you were saying I wished I could just given you a big hug because sometimes one just need to know there are people willing to listen, and help) is that he's being supportive now just as a way to trick you into believing he's supportive. What makes me think that is because he knew you were starting a new job and all of a sudden he went from completely dismissing what you were saying to Mr. supportive. Obviously you know him so only you know if that's something he'd do because he knows it isn't likely that you'd give up such a great opportunity.

I just worry that he will be all nice for a little while until he sees you've cooled down, and the next time you have a difference of opinion he goes back to being manipulative. It's really too bad he doesn't want to see a counselor, but maybe, just maybe, if he sees how helpful it is for you he might change his mind.

 

Out of curiosity (nothing to do with husband or anything else) what made you decide on a nanny instead of daycare? I mainly ask because it's one of those things I've thought about (and my husband and I discussed the pros and cons in great depth) so much as parent that will be going back to work. I always like to hear why parents decide on one option versus the other.

[tiredofvampires]

Count me as a little skeptical, too. Something's a little off here.

 

You said you gave her an honest accounting of the relationship dynamics (though it takes many visits with a therapist to give a good idea of all the nuances of relationship dynamics), and told her what you told us here, and her response was that your relationship with your husband is "lovely" and "rare"? First of all, that's a strange thing for a therapist to say, because you've only been in counseling less than a month (?) and so she CAN'T know enough about your relationship to describe it that way and sum it up, as though describing a painting that's hanging on the wall. Therapists are there to help you figure out how YOU see your relationship, not give you their own take of how it looks, especially after such a short period of assessment time. If it were "lovely", it wouldn't have been one of the main reasons you sought counseling (and much of what he's done as you've described here is anything but lovely), and unfortunately if it were "rare", she wouldn't have as much business as she does.

 

It sounds like that was very comforting for you to hear...and perhaps, unconsciously you went in with that desire. To elicit something that would be comforting, as you said it's been hard for you to take in difficult truths (which is borne out in this thread.) So perhaps you censored things more than you think?

 

It's also not for a therapist to tell you what is supposed to be your life, what you should accept and not accept, what it is you really wanted, etc. This therapist sounds like she's putting too many of her own opinions out there rather than asking questions about what YOU think your life should look like, what YOU believe your marriage to be. She's there to guide you to your answers, not to judge your marriage as lovely or your life as properly-chosen.

 

I have a strong sense that because you derive great satisfaction and sense of self-identity from your work, you may have not really wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, and your own comments suggest this strongly. It seems that the problem is that your husband and your lives together have not fostered in you a sense of being able to express what you might want or choose, and you are not at peace with the ultimate knowledge that you were not allowed that chance. And while the financial stability may have relied on your staying at work and you can accept that, what you really can't accept deep down is that he has emotionally set up a dynamic where you could not hope to feel heard. So it was a practical issue/choice on one hand that made sense and might have turned out as it did anyway, but being controlled and disrespected by your husband made it feel as though you were deprived of evaluating your options in a way that was true to yourself.

 

So if any of this is true for you, it won't be enough just to tell yourself "I chose this life and I wanted this after all, so it's all good now", because the way your husband has made you feel and will continue to make you feel in other situations will be an ongoing part of your life and feeling of being honored. This is probably your intuitive side, not your logical brain, that has driven you to explore the way your husband has made you feel you don't own your life...and so practical, logical solutions may not be barking up the right tree.

 

It's good you feel helped by counseling, but unless you're airing out the worst stuff and not sanitizing it for the sake of how it looks either to her or to you, what helps is going to be very surfacey. You can't stay "safe" in therapy and hope to accomplish what you need to there. I get the sense that you're filtering things out in order to have this be a tidy affair and not tackle the tougher issues, out of fear. You've done that here, so chances are you've done that there as well.

 

One thing that WOULD be rare is for a man with the personality of your husband to change practically overnight to turn disrespect into respect, unsupportive attitude into support. Even with hard work of his OWN, with HIM being actively in therapy, it takes time for people to change in fundamental ways. Fear is a good motivator for demonstrating changes, but it's not lasting.