What is the point?

I find myself, as you will know from this blog, at a problematic time in my life. My inability to actually pull myself together is really beginning to bug me. I feel excluded, as I am sure many people do. I am stuck at home with the kids while my husband is off having loads of fun with his job. And yes, I do know he works very hard, but he loves his job and has a great time while he does it. And yes, he's very considerate and loves me very much. But all I get is the exhausted husband who's too tired to get out of bed when he's home, and too exhausted to be any fun in bed either! There's a shocker for you!

So when I hear about him organizing parties (all in the name of work) and having a great time meeting very interesting people I cannot help myself and feel jealous. We never go to parties when he's home, and wouldn't dream of going out to a club, he's always too tired. So I think, right there is nothing stopping me having a good time while he's away and he certainly wouldn't dream of stopping me having fun, but who with? All my friends are married with kids and work full time, none of them would want to go out and have fun as they are all happy at home with their spouses and offspring. I just don't know anyone who's single and would go out. There is no way I would ever consider going out on my own, I am certainly not looking to meet anyone who might get the wrong idea, and let's face it, it is neither fun or understood to go out on my own.

So what should I do? How can I change my life in order to find the right kind of people to widen my circle of friends with other women who's husbands also travel a lot and they too are bored at home with the kids? I don't necessarily want to go out to clubs and dance the night away, but a nice friendly dinner with intelligent conversation or a trip to the movies or a show would be nice every now and again.

It seems to me that in this age of social networking sites and all the other stuff there is out there, even this blog, gets me absolutely nowhere. No one ever comments on my posts to let me know they agree or disagree with me. My twitter is a total flop. Yes I have fun on Facebook, but all my friends on it live in different countries not just different cities! So as you can see, things are pretty difficult when it comes to socializing. I also live in a residential area where everyone hides behind their fences and no one speaks to anyone else. The only person I have regular contact with who is a neighbor is a woman who used to work for my Dad and lives just up the road! But even she is busy with her elderly mother in a nursing home nearby and her husband in the evenings.

Just to see what would happen, I posted on twitter that I was going off-line for good and thanked all my followers for putting up with my boring posts. The only response I got was from my husband asking me what had happened.

Well what has happened is, I can't really see the point in it. No one answers my posts anyway. And I just feel like I'm having my nose rubbed in it when I get to read all my husband's numerous posts about all the fun he's planning for his next event in Colombia or Mexico.

On top of it all, we will be launching Phase IV of the building work to be done on our house. So not only do I get to be here alone with the kids but I get a house full of Rumanian builders and more dust then anyone can humanly cope with - especially with my allergies.

So yes, I am complaining, I feel as if I don't exist. I feel lonely.

Life's little problems

Ok, life has been pretty tough for the past year, lots of things going on and I have been affected by them all from the fallout. I have an incredibly intelligent husband and he has his own company and even in this time of crisis, his company is in expansion and doing really well. This is great! However it generally means he's traveling all the time and that means I get stuck at home with the kids - not fun. Living with "god" is not an easy thing to do - it is all about him. So how many other women out there have the same problem?

Woman are extremely resilient and resourceful. Men have been allowed, for as long as most of us can remember, to just get on with bringing the money in. Woman, as we all know, in the majority of cases have to hold down a full-time job, run the house, look after the children and be a loving and supportive wife.

When I met my husband I was lucky enough to be able to stop working. However, in his absences due to his hectic schedule, I have started working again. I am luckier than most though, my husband's salary pays for everything and I can work just to keep my brain in tip top condition and earn a bit of extra money for anything that's needed.

Women who are married to self-employed men know that it is an extremely stressful life. The main problem with this kind of job is cash-flow. He knows the money is coming in, what no one knows is when. Being dependent on other bigger corporations to pay up is not a great place to be for peace of mind. They quite often delay in paying the "little guy". I have often been to the supermarket to do the weekly shop and ended up with the cashier telling me my credit card is over the limit - I learnt the hard way to always carry enough cash just in case. As I have pointed out to him on many an occasion, the people we have to pay at the end of the month: credit card companies, house security company, schools, etc do not call him - they call me.

Before meeting my husband, I lived alone with my young daughter, held down a full-time job and paid all the bills - even if that meant I had nothing left over at the end, and now to have to explain to people that we will pay them as soon as possible, just pushes me closer and closer to the edge.

So me being me, meant that I got active. I found "slavery on-line", yes it does exist! Web sites where you can join up (you have to pay a fee to do this) and you can access a list of job offers for sepecific things that need doing. For example, secretarial work, computer programming, PAs, writing and translating, etc all from the comfort of your own home. Why is it slavery? Well you have to bid for the job you want and this means competing against other people all over the world, so the lower your bid the more likely you are to get the job assigned to you. Most of the people on there end up working for a very low wage.

As I pointed out before, I am one of the lucky ones, I do this just to have a little extra when my husband's cash-flow hits a tough patch. Have I thought about going back to full-time employment? All the time, but I really do want to be here for my kids. Before I married, my daughter had to go to early birds school club and after school club so that I could get to work on time. We both got out at the same time, but I had a 40 minute drive back to pick her up. Now, thanks to my hard-working husband I can take my kids to school and be there to pick them up, and funnily enough, that is all they ask for.

Now, if I did choose to go back to work, it would have to be for a really good reason or to a job I loved and that gave added value to my life.