Always Family Adventures

Patrick's Job

Well, for as happy as I am with my situation, my Dh seems to be in quite the opposite space. Of course, I think part of it is that he's just not feeling well... And working outside in this weather on top of working VERY LATE every night and therefore not getting enough sleep is certainly not helping.

But actually, the main issue is that he just can't seem to say "no" when it comes to his job. This is not a new thing, which only makes it worse. I had told him when he took the job (when it turned out that this was not going to be a 5 day a week, normal hours kind of job) that I would deal with it, and try not to complain to him, as long as he didn't work Sundays. I wanted the van to be able to take the kids to church... As that was one of our main reasons for staying in one place this year.

He balked at having to ask them for Sundays off... He was sure they wouldn't hire him if he asked for ONE day a week off. This is just to show what a big issue this kind of thing is for him. He did finally tell them he had to have Sundays off through December, and then asked to have them off after that as well... After I insisted that I would not let him use the van on Sundays. I had to take a stand somewhere, after already giving in on the only working five days a week thing... And this was way too important to me.

At any rate, yesterday was Sunday, his first since working there... And he worked. Now, to give him credit, he turned down assignments for Sunday, and this was just a "leftover" from Saturday night that it got too late to finish. BUT he rescheduled it for Sunday rather than Monday because it would fall on this week's pay period on Sunday ~ and he did schedule it for the afternoon. All of this would have been tolerable and was understandable...

EXCEPT this particular Sunday was Sprite's COG class Christmas Program. He has known about it since he took the job, and the kids had been practicing for over a month. Sprite had put her heart into it ~ and it was to be our Christmas surprise. When Sprite and I came home from church, he was already in a hurry... And made some comment to her that we needed to hurry and do the play or he'd just have to leave for work.

She was in tears, totally crushed that he'd agreed to work on a Sunday, especially the Sunday of her play. He did tell her he would come, but not until a time of tears and a talk with me... So she still thought he was only staying because of me. She cheered up and they did a great job on their play...

But when I went to tuck her in last night, I could tell she was upset. She had been crying because first of all she thought Patrick hadn't wanted to come... And the boys had complained about the "prizes" or gift bags she'd bought them (with her own money) ~ so she wasn't having a very good time. I told her how proud I was of her... And how awesome they all did and we talked for a while. I also told her she couldn't let other people issues and problems taint her own happiness over what an awesome thing she'd done. Of course that's a pretty difficult thing to learn, but if you're going to be happy, sometimes you have to separate yourself a bit... If only to not let others destroy your happiness over things. This issue with Patrick and his work "habits" or whatever you'd call it has been a strain on our marriage numerous times before... And this time I was determined I wasn't going to stress about it because its for a short time. I hadn't planned on the kids all reacting so strongly to it though.

Keep in mind that he hasn't seen the children except for a couple of hours ALL WEEK. They are used to seeing him almost all the time... So this is a REALLY big deal to them. And they are getting old enough to see it as at least partly a choice on his part to work instead of being home with them, and its a hurtful thing.

Top it off with the fact that the job he did last night took farrrr longer than expected. Once he finished the difficult job, had to exchange a disfunctional part, etc. people went to sign the contract and the price/quote was higher than they'd been told on the phone, so they had to call someone. THEN they hemmed and hawed for a half an hour... THEN decided they just wanted to take it out. So, Patrick would have had to rip out everything, and it was already close to (if not after) midnight. He talked them into signing the contract and using the right of refusal before their three days was up if they decided they still wanted it out, and he'd come and take it out then. So he came home miserable and exhausted (He's been looking horrible the past few days too... not well.) really late again and just upset that his job is taking over everything again. He's totally regretting taking this job ~ although as I said to him, if he'd taken the $9/hr job there would have been the opportunity for these long hours as well... And he would have felt even more pressured to work longer hours because of the lower pay.

I'm sure it will smooth out with time and lots of prayers... but boy, is it a bumpy road at the moment!

Say some prayers for our family's health if you would, and for my Dh to find satisfaction in his job without having to give up everything to do it.

I woke up late today ~ gotta go get started on school...

And I still haven't found time to do portraits ~ I'm REALLY in the mood to do them!!