|
husband, baby, Nursing school..
I'm struggling, last year i failed a class because i was too overwhelmed, i worked nights, i was breastfeeding, pumping and going to school full time.. my husband dropped the ball when he failed his test for work and got super depressed about it. I feel bad that he was depressed about it, but I too was also going through something. I need to get schooling done. Now that I have a second chance, I dropped down hours at work, I'm not with my family as much and study when I can. My husband still manages to not understand what I'm doing. I guess I shouldnt study at home, but sometimes it's what I have to do. what do I do? how do I make him realize that watching the baby is something he will have to really do when I'm trying to study. I cannot study at night.
[ ]
Want to answer more questions in the Relationships category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Families?
There are no easy answers. If you two decided to have a baby by choice, you didn't think this one out enough in detail. If it was unexpected, then you realize now that having a baby changes everything for a husband and wife. It pretty much takes over your life for the next 18 years and its harder when they are little and can't do anything for themselves yet. You won't like what I have to say because until you finish school, you are not going to have a semblance of a more normal easier life. The wishes you had, now pretty much need to go on hold until the child is in school. That is what I meant you wouldn't like to hear. There is no way I know of to make this easier. Here's how I look at it. You can't return the baby and make it as if it never was. Since that option is out, the only things that can change are either quitting your job and doing only school or quitting school and only working for now. I am sure that the budget is tight or you wouldn't be working your way through school. So My guess is that right now, anything you could earn would be better than adding in school. I haven't mentioned breast feeding and pumping milk as that falls into the 'having a baby to take care of part'. By the way, kudo's to you on choosing breast feeding vs formula. Its better for baby. I can only recommend that you and your husband talk this out. No pointing blame. You both were a part of making baby which is the complication. Just school and a job is a hard enough juggle and ask any parent, there is no room for having a baby at this time. Since you already have the baby, you both need to make some hard choices. The choices are definitely not going to be your first or second choices for what you wanted right now in life but as the saying goes, "That boat has already sailed." You can only make some changes that both of you are in agreement with. For you, you need to think deep and hard about the husband. After a talk discussing the lack of options and what changes you both mutually decide on, if he is still dragging his feet and not having any compassion for you in this situation (cus its not only him) then you might want to seriously think about going to marriage counseling. Any counseling would be good to help you decide but if you have a partner unwilling to help, do their part, you may have a bigger problem. He may not love you as much as you think he does. My first marriage was like that. He certainly didn't love me the way a husband should love his wife. In some situations, it can be fixed, and in others, it can not. So counseling can help you know if there is something the two of you can do to love each other more or whether what you thought was love, was more of a strong liking or more like a love of a type of food to eat and that kind of love won't get you through this difficult time. I am not spouting off stuff that I do not know about. In my second marriage, I finally have a man who understands me well and I him. We love each other so deeply that we are concerned when one isn't doing well due to stress or sickness, or such and helping each other out becomes our top most concern. I am past baby and child rearing stage and we are older but it is critical for the two to work as a unit, not as two married people, carrying on as singles, making decisions only for themselves. Any decisions he makes alone or you make alone, will affect each other simply because you are married. Don't ignore the health of your marriage, because this situation and attempting to go it alone without helping each other or one choosing to not help the other, will only cause resentments eventually, if not already. After a while, these resentments will kill any love you once had and the marriage is over and now theres a child.
In case the worst happens and he can't handle the stress and leaves you and the baby or you both break up, do not worry about the child not having birth Mom and Dad happily together. I can tell you that the effects of children growing up with a parent who mistreats the other or friends who simply didn't get along and fought with their partners all the time, this will have very bad effects on children. I now have to live with seeing how my adult children were affected by my staying with their Dad instead of divorcing. I also know many people who do fight and have bad marriages, Their children would rather have each parent happily remarried to someone else and visit both rather than put up with two parents who don't love each other. A man who worked with my husband has such a marriage and a 10 yr old who is begging him to divorce because she hates that there is no love in the house. It doesn't work to give the child a kiss and hug and then turn right around and yell or throw things at your spouse. I am trying to think of everything you need to know because you are now on a different path than the one you started on. There's no going back. You can start with talking to your school counselor but I seriously hope that you both go as a couple for counseling regarding at least your situation. Have a professional pretty much tell you the same I have if you don't think I am understanding and right. I don't know at what point you are with the schooling, but if your'e close to the beginning, you may have to let your dream of being a nurse go. If you have to stop school but like the idea of working with people who are elderly or sickly and need help, you can always do something like care taking of people through an agency. If you have your own car, you can take them grocery shopping or to Dr. appts. and what little nursing study you've done will only be a benefit. There are classes to train you to do things like transferring a person from a wheelchair to their bed, etc. I used to do this, that's how I know. Then there are clients who need someone who has taken training thru the agency and has the know how to change catheters and such. I did not. I was once asked to stay overnight for a client who was bedridden due to a bad accident. I could sleep there as long as I could hear her if she woke at night needing covered taken down or put up or a drink of water. This is only one option of something you could do to earn money and though not what you originally wanted, it is still helping people and takes some very basic skills. Or if you decide you have to change your career choice to going to a trade school, that would take way less time and you could wait until baby is no longer breast feeding, maybe a year old or so, and then get a good daycare, or a relative you pay to do so and go to the trade school. MIke Rowe of Dirty Jobs and other shows, has a facebook show and also stresses training for trade schools. Things like that are being overlooked in favor of what many think are the better paying jobs like Dr. or Lawyer. One of my daughters and my husbands daughter, both never got a job in the field they studied for when they finished school. Its been about 5 yrs and his daughter finally after daycare jobs, tattoo parlor and other odd jobs, finally found a job with the training she had. My daughter was told there were plenty of jobs in the medical field, even as an assistant. Only a handful of her graduating class found jobs. The truth is, the market is flooded for those high degree jobs and yet colleges talk you into getting into debt. I hear all the time of people not able to pay off school loans or living like paupers until their late thirties or in their forties until they are done paying it off. So you may seriously want to reconsider what you are going after. So either you or your husband may want to consider retraining for the kinds of things mentioned at mikeroweworks. Here is the link to read up about it. [Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
I am trying to think of every possibility to cover for you, info that would help you both in deciding what changes you need to make. Obviously, it can't work the way you both wished for anymore. The baby changes everything.
]
More Questions: |