The grumpy spouse movement

Why do I always charge to answer the negativish comments and often colour in silence at the nice ones? It really is a facet of my personality I should look at sometime. But while it’s firmly entrenched…

btw comments:
and carl? do you have any clue how he feels? surely i hope you talk to him about these things. i’d say any man who has to work that hard deserves more than a grumpy wife

To be reassuring: I have some clue how Carl feels because of course I talk to him about them. He also reads this blog from time to time, and we have a long-standing agreement that he doesn’t get blindsided by reading something on the Internet for the first time.

However, as to what Carl “deserves”…

I read the pertinent part of that entry along with your comment to Carl just now. It’s Saturday, by the way, at 2 pm, and he’s been working here at home since 8:30 am. His answer was this: Oh god. Because Carl and I are the same page, and because I could hear his tone of voice, I’ll interpret that for you here: our relationship allows each of us to be grumpy, if that’s what we really are that day.

And wanting more time as a family and with each other - and being stressed when that isn’t happening - is actually not a burden on the other person but an invitation. Maybe Carl’s can’t change things easily right now, but he sure needs to know how they actually are to make an informed decision.

Sometimes that kind of information is a necessity, which is the broader part of this post.

We need more grumpy spouses.

Because, you see the thing is that Carl works for a large corporation that will cheerfully chew him up and spit him out and then hire the next guy. His industry, in fact, tends to operate that way. Everyone bids on a contract and whoever can provide a thinggummy faster/cheaper wins, and then all the people behind the sales deal kill themselves to get it done.

Not for the greater good; for the greater profit. And that’s all right: that’s what corporations do.

The bad thing in Carl’s industry is it’s white collar. People are paid reasonably well (in the mid to high 5 figures, for 10+ yrs experience) for real expertise right now, although that’s changing. But there’s no union. There’s no competing interest protecting the worker. There are a lot of fields like that: law in particular comes to mind, although that’s not Carl’s area.

And Carl is the kind of guy you want on your team - the guy that cares whether the thinggummy actually works and whether the customer is actually happy, both to make money and because he just is that kind of guy. He also was drawn to this kind of job because he likes to fix things. He likes to be the superhero that pulls the project out of the dirt at the 11th hour and saves the day!

And no one understands that better than me, because I have the same tendencies. I too have loved the drama & excitement of a work crisis saved by none other than Yours Truly. And because of that understanding I, more or less alone, fluffed and sold my house and packed up everything, travelled to Ottawa to support him on this particular project. And I have also taken over the household chores, and taken on all the holiday shopping and cards and the work of keeping in touch with family, etc.

And companies depend on people like Carl and I to make their priorities our priorities. For money, yes. But paying someone doesn’t mean you own them.

(Even if he were saving Africa from AIDS his schedule would be crazy. But I might, in that case, feel a little differently about it. I might not. It would depend. When we were both being insane workers in a good cause it was kind of worse, because it was never enough, there were always more needy people.)

The thing is though, and I’ll bold it here for you: I’m Carl’s wife. I support him in his career goals as a part of loving him as a person, but I’m not a career coach: I’m a life partner. And life, my commenting friend, is not only about the gold stars that one receives in the corporate world, but it’s also about family and friends and recreation and creative stuff that one does on one’s own time. And sitting on the grass breathing in the fresh air. Or the snow, as today would have it.

It serves the corporate interest to define my role as a life partner as someone who “sees the necessity” for insane work hours, mostly uncompensated. Let’s define insane. Here is Carl’s work week this week:

Sunday, while his dad was here: got up at 7 am to work until 10 am. Worked Sunday night 8 pm ish to midnight.
Monday: started work at 5 am, due to not working more hours on Sunday. Took two ten minute breaks; ate lunch at his desk. Took a half hour break for dinner at 7:30 pm. Worked until sometime after 11 pm.
Tuesday: started work at the late hour of 8:30 am. Took an hour break at 4 pm to renew car license and get coffee at Tim Horton’s. Worked until 6:30 pm. Worked again at 8 pm until 11:30 pm.
Wednesday: started with a call at 8 am. Worked through ’til 7:30. Ate dinner in front of movie with me, while checking on work things at his computer every 20 minutes or so (is this work or a break? We don’t know anymore). Came to bed around 11 pm, but may have been playing World of Warcraft for all I know, as it was quiet.
Thursday: paged at 4:30 am with a problem. Worked until 6:30 am. Break for shower & breakfast. Took an hour and a half lunch to sit with Noah while I went to the doctor; however he was on his cell phone - again is this work or not? Worked until 7 pm - bathed Noah, ate dinner in front of computer so about 7:45 pm went back to work until 12:30 am Fri.
Friday: checked on things at 5 am. Took an hour’s break before 8 am to clean cat boxes and put out garbage ’cause I hadn’t done those things being on the mastitis bedrest thing. Worked through until 12:30 am (ate dinner at desk).
Today: as I said, started working at 8:30 am and he’s still going.

(It’s now 4:45, as I have been typing this on and off between Noah play sessions and dishes and things.)

I’m not kidding or exaggerating. That was his week. It’s slightly worse than many, but not completely atypical - and it’s been that way since a month after Emily died.

So now that you have specifics, here’s the thing. It may serve the corporate interests for me to be a quiet helpful career-supporting spouse no matter how insane things get. But it doesn’t help Carl. And that’s whose partner I am.

The Corporation does not give a shit about how that kind of schedule impacts on Carl or his health. It does not care that the impact on our family may currently be that I’m sick and Noah and I are on nystatin again and that he has an in-pain mum. It would not care if this led to divorce in ten years, or our son on drugs in 15 years.

That is why other workers at other times in history have fought - bitterly - for things like the 6 day, and then 5 day, and then 40-hr workweek. Because unchallenged - either directly or by social pressure like “attrition rates” etc. - The Corporation really does not give a fuck.

The counterbalance often is grumpy spouses and upset children: people who say hey, there is more to life than work and are you aware you haven’t been home for dinner for 2 weeks?

So yeah. I’m not a big fan of nagging or whinging on a daily basis. But to say: hey, I’m stressed. I think I’m so stressed that my body is having problems. And this is part of it. What can we do? Is a good thing.

I sort of feel sorry for any partnership that doesn’t work that way.

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