Sincerely, Your Stay At Home Wife
Dear Billy,
I want to tell you that I am proud of you. Thank you for working hard everyday at your job. You work hard to provide us the best life you can and through your hard work, it allowed us the blessing for me to stay home and raise our daughter.
It was not an easy decision. Dropping down to one income is scary and takes faith and lots of prayer to ensure we are making the right decision. As you very well know, not only was it a financial hardship but it has been hard for my spirit to settle into this new role. I am sorry for not always being graceful, for not always showing how grateful I feel to have been given the opportunity to raise our daughter. The hours are long and the job is hard and at times that overtakes the positive side of things.
I always knew this was the right decision for our family, but I also knew this would be one of the hardest decisions I had to make. For I would be sacrificing my independence and a large part of my identity. I worked hard to move up the latter in my industry and at 29 years old I finally reached my career goal of holding the General Manager title. I enjoyed working and worked very hard to understand and excel in my industry. My job played a huge part in my identity. It was something I was great at and I knew I brought value to any company I worked for. I took pride in all that I have accomplished and my work ethic that got me there. I struggled with the idea of leaving for months. I tried to rearrange my work and home life so once the baby was here I could keep working. But no matter how I would arrange everything, God would not allow it. He made it clear that I needed to stay home.
There are days you finish work to come home and find me in a rut. Naturally you want to make me feel better. Here is some advice of what I need from you as my partner to help get me through these tough times:
- Understand that I just worked about 18 hours straight before you got out of work to give me some relief. 18 hours of no breakfast or lunch break, rushed bathroom breaks, pumping, breastfeeding, diaper changing, and who knows what else. There is no normal to my day. Everyday is something new and a puzzle I am trying to solve. So when you walk into a very broken me do not try to FIX me, simple be gentle and provide me support.
- Let me vent. These moments are not codes for you to try to resolve my problems. I am a smart woman and know what I have to do to get through. Sometimes I just want to scream and if I can't vent to you without judgement and a sense of you trying to fix me, then who can I vent to? All I am asking you to do is listen and reassure me that I am doing a great job and that you love me. A hug, a kiss, a back rub would be so great.
- Give me time to be alone. After 18 hours of investing no time for myself, I need to regroup. I need time to workout, or take a nice shower, go walk around a store, or simply go to the room, close the door and just lay in silence. But I need time.
- Plan a date for us at least once a month. It gives us something to look forward to and a break from our normal routine. Make me feel like I am a priority. That I come above work, hobbies, money, and children. That would go a long way.
In this journey it is easy to feel like I don’t bring vale or what I do is not as important as you since I do not bring home a check. I know that feeling is called “me ego” and I am working hard to let that go, but it will take time. What helps me adjust to my new life is when I hear the horror stories or nannies and daycare's mistreating children. Or when parents shares their heartbreak of missing a milestone in their child’s life due to work. It is in these moments I feel blessed and I am reassured that I am making the right choice. I will never know what that feeling is and I am blessed to be able to say that. She is now smiling, laughing, cooing and gripping things. She is starting to identify mommy and daddy and gets sad when we are out of sight. I got to be there for all of these moments. How fortunate am I to have been given this opportunity. So with that I push my ego aside and thank God for my life.
I know that everyday is a new journey. I know there will be great days and not so great days. I know I am exactly where God wants me to be, in the role that will best serve our family. I know with you as my husband we will be great. It was a little hard but I finally erased "General Manager" as my title and replaced it with "Mom". And I must say, it looks good.
Thank you for loving me when I am not lovable, thank you for working hard to provide for our family, thank you for being my husband.
Sincerely,
Your stay at home wife.
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