Working Men

Let me start by saying that I may ramble some in this post so I will apologize in advance.

Okay, so Frank is back to work.  Praise the LORD!  What I am struggling with is his attitude about it.  His job is a lot of physical labor.  I know this.  I get it.  I know that he is also not as young as he used to be so jobs that at one time were done with speed and ease feel quite different now.  My problem is that he is complaining a LOT.  Almost non-stop.  And while I get it, I cannot be "Susy Sunshine" or the perpetual cheerleader to make him feel better.  I mean, if you physically can NOT do this type of job anymore than get a different job.  

I went to church this morning, stayed for both Sunday school and the service so essentially I was gone from 8:30 - 12:30.  That means that I was up at 7:30.  When I finally got home, all I wanted to do was sit down and have some lunch and relax a little.  I called Frank on my way home because I knew he was at work.  I wanted to make sure he was okay because his partner decided that he did not WANT to work today so that left ALL of the work on poor Frank.  We talked, we said we'd talk later. Bye-bye.  Well, 30 minutes later he's on the phone needing encouragement.  Honestly, I just didn't have it in me.  I was tired.  I was in the middle of lunch, why should I be expected to have all the freakin answers AND do it with a smile all the dang time?  You know what?  Where the heck is MY cheerleader?  Where is someone that I can turn to and DEMAND that they make me feel better?  Oh, I know... NO WHERE!  So he got mad that I wasn't saying what he wanted, he freaked out and hung up.  

I have friends whose husbands struggle at their jobs due to "office politics".  In this economy I know that it's not so easy to just say "The heck with it, I'll get another job" because really, there are NO other jobs readily available.  But their issues are with their bosses or their co-workers, my husband's issues are really due to himself and really, I'm too worn out to care anymore.  I spent the better part of three months trying to cheer him up enough to actually FIND work and I am still expected to give more.

Any job I have had has never been as hard as his, as important as his, as productive as his.  The funny thing about that is that we have always NEEDED my jobs to supplement his because he wasn't making enough.  Did I get on him for that?  No.  So tell me, working men, are you demanding that your wives be perpetually "On" to make you feel better?  What do you give back?  Do you maybe think that besides the jobs your wives have that they also food shop, cook, do laundry, pay the bills, maintain the home, take care of the kids BESIDES being your own personal cheerleader???

A word to the wise, marriage is a give and take.  If you don't like your job, only YOU can change it.  Don't expect someone else - mainly the person who takes care of every other aspect of your life - to have to do that for you too.