When we come home from work, from a long day, stressful and full of challenges before we enter into our home lets take a couple minutes and think about positive things before we bring in all our worries, concerns and tribulations. Its good to prevent to bring negativity into our home, a bad face, a bad mood etc. It will poison our house it will poison the peace. When I enter and sit down and maybe my wife made some food, tea etc. I start with talking about the good things that happened during the day. After I acclimated a bit, lets say after half an hour I might talk about other things, things that bothered me, that I was stressed or concerned about. Now I found a ground an openess a trust to be able to handle and share these things with her.
For the wife its very important to give the husband some room, some space. If he wants to be quiet let him be quiet. If he needs to relax with his newspaper, let him read his newspaper. He came from the outside world and needs to calm down, adjust to the atmosphere in the home and open up with her wife again.
Interesting thought… I would LOVE to get some quite time when I come home, but before I get any quite time I have to take care of the kids, make dinner, take care of the kids (obviously after and during dinner someone has to take care of them), get them to bed and read them a story (if I am alone and hubby has to work late), take care of the household… why do you think it is ok for the husband to get quite time if he comes home after a full day of work? That is actually extremly unfair and one sided. Just by the way, my husband and I work about the same amount of hours… if he doesn’t do overtime, I actually work more hours… and take care of the kids in the morning, incl. dropping them off to gan – all alone on most days… How that works? We live a short distance away from my workplace, while DH has to travel about 45 minutes… and on most days he doesn’t do the driving but gets picked up by a company car… so, he actually gets the quite time he needs there…
What you are saying may be allright for a stay at home mom, but definately not for a full time working mom who comes home for her second and third job. Seeing the man getting some quite time is actually totally demoralizing and unfair. I am not saying if the guy doesn’t want to talk, he has too, but he has to participate in the household and family tasks just like the wife does…
Hi Aviva,
Correct me if I’m wrong: you’re not saying a man doesn’t need his downtime. You’re saying why should a man get a break when a woman doesn’t! I completely agree.
I’m not saying that a woman shouldn’t get her quiet time. My point is, everyone needs quiet time. Let’s face it, kids and housework are WORK, whether you work for pay full-time, part-time, or stay at home. To go from work to work with no break in between is exhausting for anyone. Which is why so many women are so tired, and why I recommend the liberal use of babysitters and housecleaners if you can afford them.
And if you can’t afford them, then the husband needs to do one of three things:
1. Work more/negotiate for a higher salary in order to get this for his wife.
2. Come home and help his wife with kids and housework.
3. Rearrange his priorities if he does have enough money so that the wife gets what she needs.