DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: When we got married my husband was finishing his second engineering degree. He was in school full-time, so I was the main breadwinner for our family. Since he graduated, his income has supported us, and we have moved four times in the last ten years.
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We have been lucky to have been able to stay put for the past three years this time around, but the project my husband has been working on is wrapping up and he is on the hunt for his next job.
It is a stressful process not only for him, but for our whole family. The kids have made some good friends here, and so have I. I have also loved the part-time job I have working in the kids’ school covering the lunchroom and recess.
I know I’ll get another job wherever we go, and we will make new friends. But I don’t think my husband has any idea that the entire process is as tough on us as it is on him — maybe even more so, particularly when it means the kids have to change schools after the new year has already started.
I don’t want to sound whiny to him, but I need him to understand he’s not the only one feeling the pressure of having to make major changes every few years. He acts like it’s just him who is stressed and on the line.
Is it selfish for me to speak up for the rest of us, do you think? --- HARD ON THE REST OF US TOO
DEAR HARD ON THE REST OF US TOO: No. I rarely think open communications between spouses is a wrong or selfish thing.
If you approach the topic calmly and with your own concerns well mapped out, hopefully your husband will be able to understand that this somewhat nomadic lifestyle is taxing on everyone, and that it also needs to be a team effort if it’s going to be successful and tolerable for your whole family in the years to come.