Quality of Life versus Career?
Asked by SugarB
My husband has been a restaurant manager for nearly 16 years. About 3 years ago after receiving a promotion to GM he was downsized. For the past 3 years he has had 4 jobs. None of them have worked out. He finds fault with each one. Usually he feels superior to his boss/owner and that no one works as hard as he does. He feels that no one can be trusted to do the job. This may or may not be true, but why not delegate and see how they perform, eh? He argues that this is his career and mistakes will make him look bad. He will get fired for not following directives and doing things "his way=better." He works 70-90 hours a week. He is never home often coming in around 2am. He sleeps on his day off or goes into work. He had an interview with the largest assisted living care company in the South and they were very interested in him. They offered him a better work schedule, home at 7pm and weekends off. The pay was slightly lower about $5K. He would be the director of food service. He told me that he found the place depressing and didn't want to have to get in at 6am to work. He then told me he was applying to a job that required training for 4-5 months in California! He did something similar last year and was gone for 3 months...and he was fired. We have a 3 yr old son he never sees as it is. I don't see him. We don't have a relationship more than him asking for clean laundry, etc. He claims that his family is his #1 priority...but I don't think he really gets it. He's not going to have a "family" to come home to if he keeps chasing after something that may or may not exisit. I am a receptionist w/ good health benfits...but do you think this is my "dream" job? No, i do it so my son can go to the doctor and I can be home for him at night/weekends. Why can't my husband see how important this is? I tell him how I feel but he gets mad at me and says that I don't understand the pressure he is under to "provide" for us. Provide? Yes he pays the mortgage and utilities, but I also pay $700/ins and $400/carpymt and groceries, dr copays, etc. I even told him we could move in with my parents and he could go back to school and finish college. His mother offered to pay for it. He said no. Sometimes I feel like calling a divorce attorney....argh!!!! How can I make him see that quality of life is so much more important than working yourself to death over a so-called "career?"

Best Answer:
I do not think you can make him see that - he needs to discover that for himself. Rude awakenings happen at the most inopportune times (death in the family, for instance). It's with a life altering event like that when people will see the importance of family time. What was his childhood like? Was his father home or gone a lot? If it is the latter, chances are he thinks this is the way things should be. If he and his mother are close, maybe she can talk to him about how she wishes she had her hubby around more - something like that. It's tough, workaholics are tough to crack - and I say that as a reformed one. I worked sixteen hour days as my norm - all for the mighty promotion/dollar. I was never laid off and the fact that he has been probably contributes to his issue even more. My awakening happened when I was pregnant...I was walking around work, feeling miserable, not respecting who I was working for...and it just started eating at me - is THIS worth time away from my kid? The answer for me was easy when this happened (and it did not hurt that when I was to return to work the expectation was that I would pick up the sixteen hour days again.) It was hard to let go - but then I did and the sky opened up...funny how that works. Now I will never go back to that grind again. My husband and I take our little guy whenever we go (limiting sitters),and we searched for jobs with schedules that we wanted so we could have time together, money was tight at first but things worked out... good luck with this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!