There Is Much Whining: You Have Been Warned
I don’t know how a marriage withstands two careers. I’d like to know, and I’d desperately like to experience it, but I’m teetering at the edge of real work, and I’m less certain than I’ve ever been.
The deal we made included me being home, raising kids and supporting my husband’s career. I have been mostly satisfied with this choice. I loved being a newlywed wife and decorating our shack modest home. I adored the first years with my daughter and the freedom to watch her blossom. I clung to every moment of our son’s toddlerhood, as I knew he’d be my last baby. During most of this I shared caregiving duties of my Grandmother with my own mother.
I had a thriving eBay store and I went to grad school, all in my spare time. My family was well cared for. I was fulfilled.
Now, I am not. Now I feel suffocated and bored and alone. I can play tennis, but my friends are working. I can blog, but I’d rather be in a room with someone. No one really needs me here any more. It’s just making beds and cleaning windows, dusting furniture that no one ever sits on and making supper.
I know being a housewife has value, but it’s tedious and dull and incredibly isolating. It’s fine to go out a little and network with folks from the LA Tech scene, but let’s face it, those are young men. I don’t have anything to offer them, and they have even less to offer me. Girls in Tech is always great, and it gets me out a little bit, but not nearly enough and it’s not always convenient.
I feel terrible for being ungrateful for what is surely a pampered existence. I love my husband. He is my best friend the only teammate I need. I adore my children, I love them with a force that I cannot possibly describe. I also like who they are. All this just adds to the guilt and shame of the words:
It’s not enough.
My husband is a bit baffled and would support me if I wanted to get a job. I suppose there’s something I’m qualified to do outside the home, but who would pick up the kids? Who would be at school for the presentations and the chapels and the volleyball games? Who would do the grocery shopping and cook dinner? Who would drive them to and from school and get to hear all the best conversations? Who would coach soccer? Who would love them?
I hate that I don’t love being a stay at home mom every day. I hate that I have to make a conscious decision to not resent the life and lifestyle that my husband and I worked so hard to achieve.
I know that this is the life I wanted. I know that these are the same feelings of a housewife fifty years ago, and I sound like a throwback and a wimp and a prisoner of a middle class miracle.
This is where I’m at. I’m 39 years old and I’m not happy even though I have it all.