Do married women appreciate how hard their husband works?
Dear Ms. HeartBeat:
Why does it seem that married women don’t appreciate how hard their husband works to provide for her and the family? It seems like the working man is always under-appreciated by his wife.
Signed,
Hard Working Man
Dear Working Man:
I can understand your frustration, as you believe that you are getting up and going to work every day to take care of your wife and children. But that isn’t really what you are doing. Any responsible, mature adult male would have a job and work hard at his job whether he was married and had children or not.
You would be going to work every day to pay for your apartment or house, your car, your credit cards, your clothes, your food and entertainment, your cable and other household bills. You’d waste a lot of money in bars and nightclubs and on dates – the same money that you spend now on Little League fees and ballet lessons. And if you had children that you didn’t live with, you’d be paying child support and spending more money on them on the weekends that you had visitation. If you had an ex-wife that you didn’t live with, you’d be paying alimony as well.
In comparison, a WOMAN’S life turns into thankless drudgery when she is married. Few men appreciate the work that their wives do to make sure their home is clean and well-managed, and their families are tended to. Men don’t consider that fact that they wake up and get themselves ready to go to work, then they leave. When a wife wakes up, she knows her entire day will be filled with worry and caretaking of OTHER PEOPLE.
When married women open their eyes in the morning, their entire existence is about meeting someone else’s needs, rarely her own. She makes sure the family gets breakfast, has lunches, has their homework and projects, and gets to school on time. She changes sheets from the bed wetter, makes sure he is clean and makes sure he doesn’t feel ashamed and does a load of laundry or two before leaving for work. She takes the kids to school, meets with teachers, participates in parent/teacher conferences that Dad’s rarely go to because they are at work.
When men get off work, they might go have a beer with the guys before wandering home looking for a hot plate of dinner. Instead, Mom leaves work and begins her second shift which may last another 8 hours.
Flying down the highway in a desperate rush, she is worrying about making it to day care by 6:00 p.m. to avoid late fees. She also shuttles children to and from practice and games, music or dance lessons, and play dates. She figures out what to make for dinner, then goes to the store to buy it, brings it home and cooks it, and cleans up the mess after the family scarfs it down in 12 minutes flat without even so much as a “thank you Mom!”
Mom helps with homework, supervises research projects, gives baths, reads stories and soothes nightmares and fears of bullies. She is there at every game to root the child on, she takes off from work to take care of the sick, and she buys cards and gifts and bakes cakes or cookies for everyone to make sure they feel loved. She keeps up with her demanding full-time job which sometimes requires her to bring work home, her children’s needs, and her husband’s demands for attention and sex. Mom falls into bed exhausted at midnight, looking forward to waking up at 6:00 a.m. to start the same routine all over again.
But if she should dare to worry about her own needs, she is condemned as being a selfish bitch, a horrible mother, someone that doesn’t care about her family.
That is why it may seem that a married woman is not appreciating her man working. But the reality from her perspective is that a husband rarely does anything to make his wife’s life more pleasant, less stressful or more relaxing. Few men think of ways to alleviate some of the burden on their wives, and even fewer put those thoughts into action. Men don’t tend to think about their wives or do anything special or particular for HER… you all do what you do for yourselves. Your wife just happens to be there to get a few benefits from it.
MsHeartBeat
Dating expert and advice columnist since 1993, writing as Ms. HeartBeat. Author of the hilarious street smart dating guide "Sucka Free Love - How to Avoid Dating The Dumb, The Deceitful, The Dastardly, The Dysfunctional & The Deranged."
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Category: Dating Advice
Under-appreciated husband
I work in the military. I get up every day around 0530 go do pt come home change cloths and get ready to go again. I stay and work or do whatever has to be done at work. I get off of work around 1700 or whatever time we are done at work. I come home and my wife is upset with the kids and claim its stress , but yet take it out on me. Telling me that she is sick of me and don’t want to talk to me and this and that. Yet I look at her and say if your upset with me for going to work , put food on the table cloths on the kids back, and a roof over your head. My wife doesn’t work so I tried to get her into college but didn’t won’t to do it. I had told her that it would help us out because it would take the load off on paying everything. I’m suppose to get out this year and my wife said to me that you have to find a job that pay for the house, the car insurance, light , water, gas and etc. I had asked her well would you help me, and she got upset. I remember when I was deployed to Afghanistan I had a allotment set up for her. She would get $1000 every month and I would get 0 to $400 dollars. She made like that wasn’t enough and kept asking for money. I come back from deployment to find my account was -$500 dollars , and on top of that I had nothing to show for my time in Afghanistan. My wife make me feel unappreciated all the time because its never good enough for her and I’m tried of that.