A "regular" job...

[Vanquisher]

So dh starts defending his noble profession and choice last night after a bit of an argument which stemmed from the fact that I am freezing, we have no heat, and I expect him to at least be a little concerned with this. His reponse is that I need to deal with it for a while. Umm, he is not here in the frozen house, so what does he know. I'm cold, dammit, and I have a headache. My fingers are frozen, and my job is not going well because I cannot type very well with frozen fingers.

So, anyway, there is the background. I told him that if he had a regular job he could maybe, just maybe, help me deal with crap like this. His response: "I wouldn't be able to leave a regular job either to help you." This led to a whole discussion about how everything is dropped on me, and I leave my obligations and responsibilities all the time. I pick up sick kids from school. I pick up HIS parents at the airport. I get a gas can and put gas in his car when he runs out at the hospital. He has the nerve to tell me that ALL jobs would be like this. He wouldn't be able to help me anyway. So, that got me all pissed off. Just because his father was a workaholic and did not help his mom out in anyway, doesn't give him the right to justify that. Furthermore, his mother had her mother and sisters and a whole slew of people at her back and call just waiting to help her out. I HAVE NO ONE! If I am home with 104 fever with sick kids and he is on call, tough crap for me. In other professions you can take sick days. How is this just like any other regular job, exactly?

So, am I right? Or him?

Have I placed the thought of a regular job so high on a pedestal, that I clearly have no idea what regular jobs entail? Or, is he so jaded with everyone around him and growing up with a workaholic father?

Let me have it.

[rainbabies]

[Sheherezade]

Medicine and residency training are not "regular jobs". That said, you can be a workaholic in a lot of different professions. It sounds like he would do this no matter what the demands of his job - although residency makes it easier. I learned this about DH when our research year turned out as crappy as all the others (in terms of hours). He just couldn't *not* work all the time.

I get what you're saying about everything falling on you. It is twice as hard when you are a SAHP, because somehow (for me at least) it feels like it is part of the job description to support the paycheck person. However, there have to be limits. I had to fill up an empty gas tank for DH once, too. He thought the car was broken down, so I sat for 2 hours waiting for AAA to show up. Two little kids on a city street in downtown Baltimore. Turns out he was out of gas. (But *he* made it to work on time on foot! ) At least now that we are out of the throws of training, he recognizes this as bad - even embarassing- behavior. He cringes when I tell that story.

You two should sit down and hammer out what is your responsibility and what will be his. If he doesn't do his limited bit, then let it slide. (If you can --like his car and his parents.) There is no reason the division of labor should be him:medical training/you:everything else. That is not what happens in a normal marriage. At least not the one I signed on to!

Keep warm!! (Can I send you a heat dish with a fan?) If your computer is portable, can you go do your work at the library or an indoor playspace?) (still thinking of solutions........ )

[Vanquisher]

Thanks, mom2three, I knew I was right.

I called and had someone take a look at the problem with the heat yesterday. $75. It will be $500 more to fix the problem. We need a new flu cap. It has been damaged and rain water is getting into the system causing it to shut off. Dh and I could acutally do that, but we need to get on the roof to do it. The part is inexpensive, or so I am told. The pipe also needs to be cleaned out. I cannot get on the roof by myself with a toddler to watch. We don't have a ladder, but I am sure we can borrow one. If we pay to have the heating guys fix it, they will charge $500. They guy told me it was pretty much for labor because the part is cheap. ??? We have to get on the roof to make sure what exact part we need, so I can't actually look until then. So, until he is here to actually help me (on call tomight of course, with interviews on Saturday for new residents and mandatory meet and greet the night before), I can't really do anything. Ugh. I cannot even put $500 on anything. At least I know the problem now.

My parents have helped us out already with car repairs, and they can't/won't help anymore right now. I refuse to ask dh's parents for money. He won't do it unless it is our last hope. I feel like we are there. He apparently doesn't. I'm at my wit's end.

We got approved for a refinance with HORRIBLE terms. Just horrible. It wouldn't help us out at all. In fact, it would make our financial situation so much worse, and put us in jeopardy of losing our house. 8% interest on a main loan (2 year ARM) and then 12% on a second mortgage. Yuck! No way. Our current mortgage has 5.35%. The interest alone on this loan would kill us, and it takes away the good loan we have, and our minimal equity.

Sun Trust raised the cap on student loan allowance to 250K (which we still are over, but are hoping they will make an exception), so we have reapplied for their crappy interest rate loan. We should know more soon.

Anyway, so that's more info than you asked for, but...

[PrincessFiona]

Heidi...go to home depot or a similar store...and get a few space heaters.

Our downstairs finshed basement is absolutely freezing...I couldn't even go down there...we got some small and relatively inexpensive space heaters and it's like magic.

You can get some really good ones for ~30.

Maybe you guys could buy a few of those to get you through until you find out about the loan?

kris

[spotty_dog]

Heidi...go to home depot or a similar store...and get a few space heaters.

Agreed, DH insists on turning the heat OFF when he works out, so it'll be 50 degrees in the house but he's happy because he's sweating and has a fan turned on himself. So I hole up in the computer room (with all the pets) and blast a space heater just for me. It's warmer, and more energy efficient, than keeping the whole apartment at 63!

Dh is only in his first year and I can say that REGULAR jobs are most certainly NOT like this, at least in the 15 years DH had them.

There was NEVER a time that if I called DH couldn't reschedule or just drop the ball into someone else's hands.

I called him in the middle of a meeting with the Sr. VP of the whole bank when my mom had a heart attack and he was home within 20 minutes.

He has skipped conferences because I got sick.

He has used vacation days to stay home with Tim when I had to fly home for other family emergencies, or been able to take the boy in for a half day.

In a regular job someone from work would have driven your DH to the nearest gas station and borrowed a container so you wouldn't have to come in.

In a regular job, he would have taken half a comp day to pick up his parents from the airport.

In a regular job, he would be able to call around to get quotes on repairs etc on his break.

No, VERY FEW jobs are actually like this.

[Vishenka69]

Going back to the original question (since I've been living in rental apt's my whole life, I have no advice to offer for your heating problem). The only two other fields that I can think of being as bad as residency/medice are Investment Banking and law. But I find that workaholics usually find themselves in these fields vs other normal people who look for jobs that offer quality of life.

Regular jobs do accomodate when you need a sick or personal day or need to leave early/come in late for whatever reason. You're not responsible for finding your own replacement and you can take care of stuff while at work (via phone/fax/internet/lunch hour). Hence, I'm stuck taking care of everything on top of a full-time job, because it's a regular job (which can't possibly be as tiring, important, busy, etc. as being a doctor)

[DCJenn]

My regular jobs always had worse hours with more on-call crap than my husband has ever had- at 1/3 the rate of pay. Yay for social services! But I still had to do everything else!

I swear, handing in my pager was a glorious feeling. I just laugh at the teenagers with their cellphones and pagers- I sooooo don't ever need that feeling of only being "off" if I left the state I lived in.

Jenn

PS- space heaters can be great- just watch small people and small animals. Kelly and I, each having dated fire fighters (I was actually married to one, once), can tell you that the paranoia they exude is actually contagious. I can't stay in a hotel to this day without figuring how likely it is that I'll be able to be rescued and figuring out where the stand pipes are...

What is a stand pipe? What do I need to know about hotels?

[Flynn]

You are right, he is wrong. It's THAT simple.

Now the one area where he might have a leg to stand on is if he's a workaholic no matter what, like previous posters have mentioned. In that regard, maybe a "regular" job for him would really be as busy as residency but I kind of doubt it.

He's off in "surgery la la land" where his job really "isn't that bad" and his wife is "just having a hard time coping with staying at home." Sound familiar???

Been there done that and I'm glad we are BEYOND that phase.
Being gone all the time and having things fall on you is one thing...having the same scenario play out over and over and NOT ACKNOWLEDGING IT for what it is...that's marital suicide in my book.

Your DH needs to call a spade a spade and not look for other ways "his job might not suck as much as you say it does."

It's a HORRIBLE job in every way for the spouse. He needs to have some balls and admit that to you -- to your face -- and mean it. When he starts doing this and you feel like he isn't in surgery "la la land" then maybe the suck factor will disapate a bit. Being on the same team with your spouse does wonders with this lifestyle!

I agree about the workaholic jobs -- there are other fields where someone can let work consume them.

But, when I have worked "regular" full-time jobs, I always found the time to take care of all that stuff and had the flexibility to work from home or take conference calls from home, adjust my schedule, etc.

Many, many other professions allow for more flexibility. The husband of a friend here is up for partner at his law firm and he is pretty much at their beck and call. Despite this, he was able to go in an hour or two late yesterday to help her out (but then had to stay later....which didn't help...).