When I lived in husband's postdoc town I longed for a social life. I was stuck at home all day, writing and writing (really blogging and watching online tv and eating, oh the eating). My husband would get home from a busy days work and be tired and exhausted, while I'd be so ready to leave the house. We would usually have one social outing on the week-end and that would be enough for him.
Now the tables have turned. My husband is now getting really bored at home. He doesn't even have a dissertation to write. He just searches the web for job ads, applies to some. He has taught himself a new operating system and is reading some textbooks about this and that. He is teaching himself to cook Indian food and make Italian sauces (my favorite hobby!). He goes to the climbing gym twice a week, with his friends, and is taking long bike rides and playing Frisbee golf. In short, he has lots of hobbies and is keeping himself entertained but he needs a job and needs more human interaction. His brain is totally bored.
Thus, to feed this human interaction, our week-ends are jammed back with social activities. And I am tired. I'm away from my house two days a week for my job and feel the time I'm here I'm so damn busy but am getting nothing done.
It's funny how I longed for social interactions and now I wish these people would just leave us alone once and a while. I miss my quite time.
So today I opted out of a day trip to a local national park and stayed at home. Sure I met a friend for a run but that was only 1.5 hours of my day. I did some grocery shopping, watched some online tv, organized my pants (still not happy with the organization), called some friends and was looking forward to making Indian sweet potato soup and corn muffins for dinner. Yes looking forward to. Husband comes home and declares we are meeting friends for dinner and tomorrow there is a bbq.
When will the obligations end!
I feel like skipping out on the bbq tomorrow but don't want to be a party poop. I'll just have to wait and see.
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4 comments:
It's tough to strike that balance.
Maybe you can work out something where you guys have 1 weekend day alone at home and then have the other one packed with social interaction. Would that work?
I definitely understand. It seems that the weeks where I'm working a lot, Dr. Man is working only normal hours... and vice versa. I don't have a solution for you. We just take turns being party poopers :-)
PPD, that is an interesting question. I think it could work for myself, where I tell husband I need one day free of social interaction but I'd hate to make him stay at home if something fun is going on. When we lived on the east coast I would go do fun things without him quite a bit, mostly with my rugby friends whom he wasn't interested in hanging out with. So, I don't think it should be a huge problem if I just start staying 'No' more often.
His best friend's gf gets made fun of a lot (mostly behind her back) for making this friend opt out of social activities a lot. Now I'm beginning to understand why she acts this way! These boys are way too busy!
Hubby and I trade off on our work levels and need for social interaction as well. But we usually opt for something along the lines of Psych Post Doc's suggestion: we need some quiet time to ourselves every now and then.
Hope your husband gets a job soon and you get on a similar level of busyness!
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