Hi, new here to posting on the forums but long time reader. I'm here to present an issue I didn't quite see a specific category for. I am a RN, graduated December, 2010. News to me was, I conceived and got pregnant about the time of graduation. I had pregnancy brain and waited a few months before I took the NCLEX, but passed after 75 questions, got licensed and looked for work. I interviewed for a few positions, but was visibly pregnant at the time and didn't get hired. At a point, I stopped looking. Fast forward to 6 weeks postpartum, I interviewed and was hired for a position in home health care, which I was thankful for at the time because of the flexible scheduling. I have been doing that ever since.
My husband worked at an environmental testing lab at the time, but got laid off when our daughter was just over a year old...leaving me with the entire burden to provide for my son (from a previous marriage) and the rest of our family. I felt a tremendous amount of stress in this role, having to quit my home care job (which was per diem paid and did not offer any health insurance benefits) to find full time employment with benefits. I found new home health employment at a TERRIBLE company, run so poorly I am suprised that CHAP even gave them the accreditation. After 6 months I left for another position with another company that worked out fairly well for a few years, but still required SO MUCH more work than a hospital staff nurse. M-F 8-5 plus on call shifts including every other weekend and rotating weeknight shifts from 5pm-8am, meaning some days, I may have to work for 24 hours, then go to work for a full 8hr shift on top of that. In the mean time, my husband promised to get a job to help make ends meet. --- 3 years later, he never followed through with that promise, never even applied or interviewed for any positions.
During that time, he decided to go to nursing school. I admit, I was dead against it when he mentioned it. He is not the "caring" type and I didn't think it would suit him (plus he is VERY much the "career de jour" type of person) and on top of that, I wanted my own identity in our relationship. I wanted to say, "go get your OWN career" but I didn't. I supported him, because that's what we do in relationships. Now, it has been nearly 6 years that I have been a nurse...dead ended in home care, tried to transition to hospice care for a change of pace, but was passed over by my company because my home care territory was too hard to staff and because "there are big shoes to fill"...I was promised a hospice position in my company but was passed over to give the position to a nurse in another geographic area because my DON threw such a fit about finding a good nurse for my area and hospice needs had to be met. I am left feeling frustrated and trapped in my situation, not wanting to take a leap of faith on another aspect of nursing because I am the sole provider, we have 2 school-age (or almost) children, and I have joint custody of my son with a weird parenting time schedule to accommodate, plus, we (I) just bought a house. I am regretfully unhappy doing the same thing over and over for the past 6 years.
I need something new! I need a challenge. I need new education to spice up my passion for nursing. Meanwhile, he has just graduated nursing school. He was offered a position in the ED before he even completed nursing school, has a badge that says RN before he has even gotten the OK to sit for the NCLEX. He started orientation is already learning and planning to learn so many things that I haven't even heard of...I feel like I have had to sacrifice my opportunity to be able to learn these things and had to accept these types of positions because I was left with the "provider" role. I was enticed with promises of him getting a job during nursing school; he never even made an attempt to get a job. On top of that, I feel resentment that I worked nearly full time, while we were dating, supporting my young son independently, all throughout my full time nursing school...and now I am left to support our 2 children and him through HIS nursing school. And because of the situation, I feel like I missed out on opportunities to learn and advance as much as he is getting right now. I have a bit of jealously and resentment with his success and my lack thereof.
I enjoy my job, but I do not feel challenged anymore...and I am finding a dissatisfaction with what I do, what I have had to do, not having the freedom and opportunity to be able to do what he is doing, and a feeling that I am somehow "less" of a nurse doing home care instead of mastering tele and getting my acls and being able to do/learn all of the things that nurses who are trained in areas such as the ED can do. Am I bat **** crazy and just need to get a grip; that I have nothing to feel this way about? Do I need to just put my big girl panties on and "man up!" ...or do I have some slight validation in how I'm feeling?
omg I have a question, aren't you scared of the housekeeper looking through all your personal information? Like stealing your money? I don't know I am wary of hiring a stranger to come into my house, even though 99.9% of the time, I know they are hard working and minding their own business.
All my personal information is in my office or my DH's office, in locked drawers. I stay in my office on the computer while they are here. I don't keep money around the house, and I do have a hidden safe for what little jewelry I have.
It's something you have to consider, for sure, but I don't leave my house while they are here. I used to have a trusted housekeeper who had a key, and I'd go do whatever while she was there, but these are cleaning crews and I don't know them. So I put away all valuables and stay home in my office while they are here.
I think let the past be in the past. Have hubs work nights and weekends and get some good differentials and benefits and ride his coattails for a while now :)
omg I have a question, aren't you scared of the housekeeper looking through all your personal information? Like stealing your money? I don't know I am wary of hiring a stranger to come into my house, even though 99.9% of the time, I know they are hard working and minding their own business.
I only hire people I know. My current cleaning lady is a local pastor's wife I know through our homeschooling group. I also keep my stuff locked up- not because of her, just because.
The OP's wife promised to get a job to help make ends meet, and 3 years later, she never even applied or interviewed for any positions! I'd be upset, too. She could have tried to find a job delivering newspapers or pizzas, anything to contribute to her family's income and take some of the burden off of her husband. Yes, I would be resentful, too.
So I altered your post and I wonder how many people would be upset about this.
So I altered your post and I wonder how many people would be upset about this.
Nice try but I doubt anyone is going to take the bait. Marriage is a team effort and everyone should pull their weight. If the wife needed to get a job to help support the family and then didn't make an effort to do so she would have been just as guilty. Sexist much?
So I altered your post and I wonder how many people would be upset about this.
Are you kidding, few would look at the different perspective and have an ahha moment.
If OP took 4 years to stay home with kids and finish nursing school with a good job at the end after being laid off during the recession and her husband came on to say how resentful he was that she didn't work the whole time and then went and got the "better" job, there would be congratulatory responses towards her and a lot of ***** describing him. But don't expect anyone to admit the gender bias.
A lot of families come to the agreement that one parent stays home to take care of young kids. Key word being agreement. It does not sound like that was the case here. If he was truly the stay at home parent, saving the family daycare expenses, AND they were both comfortable with that arrangement, then yes, no one would be resentful.
Are you kidding, few would look at the different perspective and have an ahha moment.
If OP took 4 years to stay home with kids and finish nursing school with a good job at the end after being laid off during the recession and her husband came on to say how resentful he was that she didn't work the whole time and then went and got the "better" job, there would be congratulatory responses towards her and a lot of ***** describing him. But don't expect anyone to admit the gender bias.
if she had promised to find a job but never even tried, he would have every right to feel resentment. That's totally different than having a mutual agreement that one parent would be a stay at at home parent.
I understand why you have done all the things you've done - work a job you dislike and which is stressful and has long hours, take care of your children, probably run the household (cleaning, cooking paying bills, taking the trash out, shopping, doing whatever is needed for the kids, and much more, too much to mention).
You have essentially been raising 3 kids and you are tired of carrying the whole load.
The question is - can you stop doing some of the work of the household, and more or less gently, more or less covertly teach your mate to stand on his own two feet without you mothering him?
I don't know if you just find it easier to do stuff than wait for him to do it, or you don't like the way he does it, or what, but if you could stand down somewhat, it could get him to be more of a mate and you might become less jealous and resentful.
I understand why you have done all the things you've done - work a job you dislike and which is stressful and has long hours, take care of your children, probably run the household (cleaning, cooking paying bills, taking the trash out, shopping, doing whatever is needed for the kids, and much more, too much to mention).
Probably? Are we just assuming that based on gender?
It would be great for the OP to clarify the timeline here for us: graduate RN school/got pregnant in 12/2010. Then waited a few months (while presumably hubby was supporting the family financially) to test then had baby 8/2011 and started work a month and a half later, say 10/2011.
Hubby got laid off when baby was a little more than a year old, so say 10/2012.
Then he "did nothing" for 3 years (did he get unemployment/severance?, was he home with the kids?).
In 9/2016 he's graduated nursing school. So in four years he has graduated so assuming he had to take no pre-reqs (which would be strange) and did and accelerated program for non-nursing BAs that is at least 18 months. That would mean he started school, conservatively, in 3/2015. So it would have been a bit less than "3 years" by 6 months or so. I guess it depends on what happened in those 2.5 years. Pre-reqs? Unemployment? Severance? Assuming the stay-at-home role?
You have essentially been raising 3 kids and you are tired of carrying the whole load.
Than shouldn't the OP be happy she no longer has to?
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
So I altered your post and I wonder how many people would be upset about this.
I'll bite.
If the OP's wife promised to get a job, and three years later she never even applied for a position, that's a problem. I wouldn't blame the OP for being upset.
When the partners AGREE that one of them is going to stay home and be a homemaker -- caring for the children and the home -- that's one thing. But if one of the parties agreed to get a job and then doesn't do so, that's something else again.
The OP didn't say whether her husband actually performed the role of a homemaker, or whether he just stayed home. In my experience -- which, admittedly, does not rise the the level of an actual statistic, women who stay home from work actually take care of the children and the home and their partner. Men who stay home just stay home and leave the bulk of the housework, cooking, shopping and arranging for child care to their wives. But perhaps I just know an usual number of women with deadbeat husbands.
I have a question, aren't you scared of the housekeeper looking through all your personal information? Like stealing your money? I don't know I am wary of hiring a stranger to come into my house, even though 99.9% of the time, I know they are hard working and minding their own business.
Horseshoe, BSN, RN
5,879 Posts
All my personal information is in my office or my DH's office, in locked drawers. I stay in my office on the computer while they are here. I don't keep money around the house, and I do have a hidden safe for what little jewelry I have.
It's something you have to consider, for sure, but I don't leave my house while they are here. I used to have a trusted housekeeper who had a key, and I'd go do whatever while she was there, but these are cleaning crews and I don't know them. So I put away all valuables and stay home in my office while they are here.