Hi Everyone,

I am going to do my best not to LB or to seem whiney in this post. As many of you who've been keeping up with TD's and my recovery know, I started a new job 3 weeks ago. I'm an IT Recruiter for a small firm near my home.

I have to say that I don't think I've felt this good about myself in a long, LONG time. Not only do I LOVE my job, but I really like the people with whom I'm working, AND it seems that I'm actually really good at what I'm doing. After having been a SAH Mom for 10 years and suffering from depression, I'd convinced myself that I COULDN'T work outside the home. I had applied to more than 3 dozen jobs over the course of a few months, with not so much as a single response. Well, I did have two companies interview me, and BOTH wanted to hire me, but, back then, TD and I were still planning to move to TX, and I'd been upfront with the two companies, but then they changed their minds at the last minute about having someone for a limited time. No big deal. At that time I was really SCARED TO DEATH to take a job anyway. Even when I got this job, I was afraid to take it. I had ZERO confidence in my abilities to do the job, and I was afraid of having to interract with people everyday because I'm such an introvert, AND I was afraid I wouldn't have the energy to do the job because for the past several months I've been doing A LOT of sleeping...no doubt effects of depression.

It turns out that I'm GREAT at my job and the group of people I work with are really cool. If you're not familiar with the recruiting business, I can tell you that it is very often an EXTREMELY competitive and back-stabbing business. Very often recruiters in the same firm compete against each other to fill positions, steal each others' candidates, etc. It is NOT a pretty picture, and it's one of those job sectors that sees a very high turnover rate. Most people just can't handle the stress. My firm isn't like that at all. We actually help each other. In fact, if I'm doing a Monster search for my job order and I come across a good candidate for another job order about which I know very little, rather than gearing myself up on a new skill set, I forward the potential candidate to the person who's more familiar with the job requirements. And others in the office do the same. I spend my days meeting applicants for coffee or having them in my office to interview them. We're not one of those Internet-only recruiting firms. We actually meet each and every applicant we submit to a client...unless, of course, they live in another state.

All of that being said, I sometimes feel guilty for loving my job so much. I can see that the happiness it's brought to me is bringing TD down. I just can't go back to my former life for his sake. I'm so much happier than I've been in a long time. I'll admit that because my job is so new, I'm pretty much in the workaholic stage...only because I believe in giving everything I do 110% effort. I'm also giving my marriage the most effort possible. It's very hard to act one way when I feel the exact opposite.

I'm trying to meet TD's needs. On Friday, since TD has taken off work without pay to study for the bar exam and was at home, I called him around 10 am and asked him if he'd like to meet me in my office for lunch, or go out to lunch with me. Normally I would just work through lunch. I was trying to make up for the day that he popped in out of the blue to have lunch with me...which made me mad because I had an interview for which to leave and had planned to eat lunch afterwards. The one thing about my job is that it's time critical. I know that sounds really dumb, because it's not a life or death situation if we don't fill the job. However, it is a race for us to submit our applicants, because we're not only competing against other recruiting firms, but we're also competing with the company's internal recruiters. We work on a contingency basis and only get paid when a client hires our applicant. (I do get a salary from my company, however.)

I've also tried to meet TD's EN of "admiration." That's really a tough one to meet, because oftentimes I don't "see" what he's done. He's been working really hard around the house to meet my need for domestic support, but i feel like he goes overboard a lot of the time. I feel guilty when he does all the stuff he does, oftentimes not leaving until 10 am to go to work, because he's busy throwing in a load of laundry, cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming, etc. I can't seem to get him to tone it down a notch. We're not all going to fall apart if the house isn't clean. It hasn't killed us so far.... LOL I guess my main concern is that he's focussing so much on meeting my needs that I feel he may be neglecting his studying for the TX bar exam. It's CRUCIAL that he do well on it so that he can waive in to D.C., giving all of us some options as to where we're going to live, whether or not we stay together.

This may sound like a disrespectful judgement, and it's really not meant to be. I'm concerned that there's some reason why TD is focussing on me more than the bar exam. I feel like if he does poorly on it, he'll be able to blame that on me and our marital troubles rather than himself. I'm not saying that's what he's doing...I'm just saying that I'm worried it MIGHT be what he's doing...allowing himself a scapegoat if all doesn't go well.

How do I get him to understand that a week of him NOT meeting my ENs at this point isn't going to make or break our marriage???? I want so much for TD to be successful in life. I know he's worked darn hard the last 3 1/2 years while in law school, and I'd hate for the finality of all his hard work to go right down the tubes. Does that make any sense??? It's one of the reasons I had been dishonest with him about how I felt towards him. If he hadn't dragged it out of me on our vacation in December, I STILL wouldn't have told him. I was waiting until after the bar, so that he could focus his attention on it. Now I feel guilty that he's focussing on me and our marriage instead of it. Yes, I know that the family should come first. However, we didn't seem to be a priority for all of these years, because TD didn't really know HOW to make us a priority. Now that he's done a 180 in his attitude towards the family, I feel like he may have gone a bit too far...at least until after the bar exam.

I don't want my new job to seem like a threat to our marriage. At the same time, I don't want our marriage to become a threat to TDs future career. If something happens and he can't become an attorney for a while, I feel like things between us will eventually go downhill again. He's not satisfied in his current job, and I fear he'll start bringing that dissatisfaction home again. I'm quite happy in my current job, and it's really what's helping me stay to work on my marriage. I guess my job is meeting many ENs for me. I don't want TD to feel as though he needs to compete with my job. I also don't want him to feel like the people with whom I meet are a "threat." Yes, probably 98% of the candidates I talk to are male, because that's pretty much the nature of the area of IT for which I recruit. And yes, I do meet strange men for coffee in order to conduct interviews. But it's all strictly professional. I'd mentioned to TD that I may conduct a lunch interview with 2 applicants because they're friends...you know, kill two birds with one stone. But TD got a bit antsy about that one. AND, I may start going on client calls with my Account Manager (married male) because my boss wants me to eventually grow the company into the S/W engineering side of IT...which would mean my needing to get clients AND applicants. How do I convince TD that "nothing" is going on??? That all of this is strictly professional?? I can't give up my job because of his insecurities, but, at the same time, I don't want my job to appear to be a threat to him. I try to keep my life as an open book to him, telling him about the candidates, the people I work with, what goes on in my day, conversations I have, etc. But, part of me thinks that sometimes it might be a bit TOO MUCH information, because it seems to make him sad or worry about our marriage. How do I balance all of this???

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Crystal

Crystal - I hope you can relax and enjoy your job without feeling guilty about it.

There are so many "what ifs" in your post, I don't know where to start.

Believer,

Yes. My life is nothing BUT one big "what if" right now. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> And, no doubt, TD feels the same way.

Crystal

Take time to enjoy your job, and stop worrying about everything. I know how you feel. I always worked and took time off when my boys were young - 6 years. I had a TERRIBLE time getting back into the labor market. But I've been working ever since.

TD needs to study hard to pass the bar. I think I would just try to relax a little and have a good life. All of this stuff is exremely difficult and stressful.

You are doing just fine. Keep doing what you are doing.
You seem to have a bad habit of feeling guilt no matter what the circumstances. It is a habit many women are addicted to. Stop it <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

It is obvious that TD could help this situation even more by becoming a "big boy" and showing some good ole fashion male maturity by doing some or all of the following...

Telling you he is proud of you for doing a good job and he is glad you like it so much.

Telling you to go ahead and focus on your job for the time being and not to worry about him because he is a big boy and he will take care of BOTH studying for his exam and for helping you around the house. He should have been doing it all along to help out. He should tell you thank you for being concerned about him and noticing his effort. He should tell you the effort is no big deal and should have been what he should have been doing a long time ago.

He should tell you thank you for your honesty and concern about his feelings regarding you meeting and working with other men, but he is a "big boy" and will do his very best to support and encourage you in your new job and he will continue to work on doing the best he can to learn to trust in you so that you can continue to be the best you can be at your work.

He should "take" your advice and concentrate on his exam and thank you for allowing him to follow his heart's desire and dream. A good woman is happy when her man is following the things that make him happy. (within reason of course <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />)


Keep up the good work. You are chugging along like the "little engine that could". Hopefully TD will get on board and stop feeling sorry for himself and "get the drift" of how important it is to a woman when she is under stress, that her man show her and tell her.."Don't you worry your little heart honey, I'll handle it"

Take care...

Crystal,
Stop feeling guilty about being validated as a person at your new job. I sincerely doubt that TD wants anything less for you.
You should come to grips with the fact, that, if you want to present yourself to TD as a whole person(and you should) then you need to have a life that you can relate to. When you do that, so also, will he.
Remember, you guys are sharing your lives together, not competing with each others lives.
I think this is good. I think TD will see this this way also.
All Blessings,
Jerry

Have you guys considered hiring a housekeeper? It might cut down on what TD would have to do to help meet your EN for DS and it might free up some time for him to study.

Thanks for the comments everyone! TD is TRYING to be supportive of my new job...but what he says and how he acts are two different things. It's probably just because all of this is just SUCH new territory for us...and he's under so much stress with the bar exam looming. He leaves in a week to take the bar in TX.

As far as the housework goes...our house was a WRECK long before I went back to work. We have 3 slobs for children, and I've been too tired or too indifferent for a long time to really get them off their butts and share in the housework. TD has been really good with getting them motivated to do chores, and I'm greatful for that. Of course, I'm still concerned that it's taking time away from his studies. I'd much rather, at least for this week, for him to stop doing the housework stuff he's doing and use all of that time to study. After the bar exam, he'll be free as a bird for the first time in well over 3 years. I don't think he'll know what to do with himself not having to go to school or to study. That, in itself, will be yet another transition for all of us. It seems like so much is happening all at once.

I'm going to try not to feel the guilt. My job is good for me...although I'm probably a bit too dedicated to it right now. It does help me take my mind off of how bad my marriage is...it keeps me from dwelling in the past too, which I think is a good thing. However, because I'm working so hard, I'm already in line for a promotion. Not too shabby for someone who was scared to death that she couldn't do the job in the first place.

Thanks again. I'm doing my best to hang in there. TD was a little upset with keepmovn4wrd's post about how TD should be a "big boy." I can't say something like that because it would be a LB for me to do so. I sometimes feel responsible for how he feels...I feel leaned on a bit too much. And the more he leans on me in my current WAY-in-the-red love bank state, the more I feel like withdrawing. Does that make any sense? I oftentimes feel smothered by him. That may not be what he's doing at all. I know that he wants to spend time with me, but I think he wants to spend MUCH more time with me than I do with him. I feel like he's trying to make up for all of the lost time all at once, but all of this is a process that we need to go through and it really can't be rushed, IMHO.

If any of that sounds like a DJ, please help me re-word it so that it's not. TD has seemed very "needy" lately, and he's even said that in a recent thread of his. I know that I'm responsible for meeting his needs, or at least as many of them as I can. But what if I'm already giving all the effort I can give right now to meet his needs, yet it's still not enough? I feel like my trying to meet any more of his needs is only going to start making withdrawls from my love bank. And his efforts to meet my ENs are probably wearing on him as well, because I can't reciprocate as much. It's a viscious cycle.

In many ways I feel like he's the lucky one in this because he FEELS love for me. I certainly care about him MUCH MORE than I do my neighbors or people I work with, etc...but I still don't have those feelings of love...the feelings of actually looking forward to spending time with him or being happy when he comes home from work, etc. And, in his time of need, he's suggested that he needs to connect physically with me, which I just can't do. If I so much as let him kiss me, he tries to take that farther. So, that makes me not even want to kiss him to begin with. I guess it winds up being "learned behavior." The more I don't "respond" when he initiates a kiss, the more hurt he seems. It's a catch-22 where no matter WHAT I do, it seems to be the wrong thing.

I would LOVE to just put all of the relationship stuff on hold right now...until after the bar exam. We have a counseling session tonight with Jennifer, but I don't know what there is to discuss. I don't want to spend my time constantly complaining to her about things he does that don't hit the mark or that withdrawl love units because I don't want to whine all the time about the negative stuff...and I should probably just suck it up and be a "big girl." That wouldn't be so difficult if I FELT love for him. It's hard for me to come here for support either, because I feel like my coming here is a LB in and of itself. TD often gets upset by what people post to me, and I don't want him to be angry or hurt. I've told him he should just stop reading my threads...but I think that's kind of like putting a plate of cookies in front of a kid and telling him/her that s/he can't have any until tomorrow.

I guess I shouldn't use my job as a "crutch" to validate myself. I should already have enough self-esteem to not NEED external validation. But, the fact of the matter is that I do. It's the main reason that I got addicted to other men during our "swinging" phase. I enjoyed the compliments, the conversation, etc. (although, I see now how sick that really was to get validation from meaningless sex...but when you're THAT low in the pit, just about anything can lift you up a bit) Now, however, I'm getting the compliments and conversation in a non-sexual, non extra-marital-affair-ish way. It's very satisfying when I find the right applicant for a job...to hear from a hiring manager that the candidate's resume is "dead on." Or, when a candidate tells me that they like me so much, that I'm so upfront and honest and friendly that they want to leave their entire job search in my capable hands. Or, when my boss tells me that he wants me to take over an entirely new division for the company and grow it from the ground up...eventhough he's been patting one of the other new recruiters on the back constantly, and keeps pushing me to produce more. (no doubt he's figured out how to motivate me, I guess) Or, even when I can make an applicant feel comfortable enough to not only laugh while we're talking, but to divulge all that personal information that it's illegal for me to ask...are you married? kids? religious? they just open their mouths and spill it all...before you know it, I know their wife's name, the names and ages of all their kids, whether they rent or own (which is important info to know in a relocation situation), etc. But the best time is when I'm able to win someone over...you know, one of those people whom you cold-call and is VERY gruff on the phone, yet, before long they're not only sending your their updated resume, but they're giving you the names and contact info of their friends PLUS the name of their manager (which is crucial for getting a new client).

As I said before, I'm getting very good at my job and it's nice to spend my entire day smiling instead of moping and/or sleeping like I used to. The only bad thing I've noticed, however, is that the minute I walk in the door to my house, I get drop-dead tired. It happens EVERY single day. I'm hoping it's just getting used to working full-time again and isn't some subconscious "avoidance" thing.

Thanks again,
Crystal [color:"red"] [/color]

That was not me that said for TD to be a big boy. That was keepmovn4wrd. I am refraining from commenting on maturity levels.

Crystal - The first year of a new job, I was always drop dead tired. It is stressful to work out of the home every day, when you haven't done it for awhile.

Plus you've got a husband and kids - that's enough to wear anyone out.

I wish you could meet some of his SF needs. I've had a lot of SF when I didn't really feel like it. What if TD told you he really didn't "feel like" supporting his family?

Crystal, I know from my experience, shortly after my W's A, she went to work outside the house after years of being a SAHM with at home job. She was very excited, and happy with the new job. I was very happy for her also. At the same time nervous about her being away from the house so much, as well as meeting new people.

There was no reason for this, I was just being overly nervous/sensitive.

I was not too disappointed when they would only offer her weekends, and "SHE" choose to go back to working at home.

I don't think it would concern me at all now (16 months later).

Best of luck to you two!

Also consider it's better for him to get all distractors out of the way before sitting down to study (I.E. the house being clean, etc.)

A few hours of quality study is better than a day full of distracted reading words because your mind is working overtime thinking of everything else.

Moveforward,

I'm so sorry. It's sometimes hard to keep everyone who's posted straight when trying to do it all in one post. I have edited my post to reflect the correction. Again, I'm sorry. Thanks for pointing it out so that I could fix it.

Crystal

I find it funny that you would say TD would be distracted by all the things that need to be done around the house, because I've always considered TD to be "clutter blind." That's not a DJ, because he'd admit it. It's actually a joke. In fact, I picked up the term from a stand up comic on Comedy Central one night...TD used to LOVE watching it together on Friday nights when we had cable TV (which we don't anymore). In recent months, I, myself, have suffered from the same illness. PLUS, he spends all of that time straightening the house, yet his office looks like a tornado just blew through it. LOL He's only straightening it, I think, to deposit love units. That is VERY appreciated, especially his extra attention to make sure the kitchen is clean so that when I come home from working all day and then picking up the kids from my Aunt's house, I won't be hit immediately by all the STUFF that needs to be done. I'm just saying it's ok for him to cool it a bit until after the exam.

As far as SF goes...I'm doing my best to get there. I won't go into detail about why I do or don't, because he reads this thread and he knows how I feel (he doesn't need to see it in print too). It's #3 on his list of ENs, and I'm working on his top 2--Admiration and Honesty/Openness.

Crystal