One great benefit to working full time is that I'm getting sloppier. I used to be the kind of wife who was always reminding my husband that he should pick up after himself and not leave so much junk just laying around the house. And my husband's really not that big of a slob; he was just messy compared to me. I would try to tell him that even if it didn't really matter to him whether the house was tidy or clean or organized, it did matter to me, which should make it more important to him. But somehow the message just never got through all the way. He would pick up and clean up and organize on random days, when he had time, when there wasn't something more important on his mind, but he just wasn't as on top of it as I was. And some days that just irked me.
However, while I was reminding my husband that he should be more consistent in picking up after himself, I was only working five or six hours a day and commuting ten minutes or less, while he was working eight or nine hours a day and commuting a half hour or more.
Now that Craig is going to school and only working part time, he gets home earlier than I do. I'm the one working eight hours now, and he's home almost every evening before I am. He still doesn't really want to tidy up the house every day and make sure everything's in it's place because that's just not at the top of his priority list. But the big positive is... it's not at the top of my list either.
I'm not saying that I'm a slob now, just because I'm working longer hours, but it is definitely forcing me to mellow out a little. Right now, there are dirty towels all over the place in the bathroom, and the clean towels are all in piles in the office, waiting to be put away. We only make our bed on weekends or when we've just washed the sheets. The dishes don't get washed every day; sometimes we skip a day. And some weekends, we don't really do any housework because the dust and grime in our home will still be waiting for us the next weekend when we have a little more time and energy.
This state of affairs would never have been acceptable to me in the past; it would have really made me feel stressed. But now I just don't care as much about that stuff. Is it important? Sure. I want to take care of my home and live in clean and comfortable environment. But does it have to be perfect all the time? Hell no. This realization is such a relief to me. And hopefully my mellowing out a little is a relief to my husband as well.
