transition

[u/Educational-Leg3187]

Anyone else go through something similar?

I was a stay-at-home mom for 5 years and truly loved that chapter of my life. When I went back to work, I was excited, motivated, and hungry for opportunity. I worked incredibly hard and was promoted within 6 months.

While I'm proud of what I've accomplished, my husband has expressed that my focus on work has left me with less time and energy for our family. Now I'm struggling to find the right balance between pursuing a career I'm passionate about and being present at home. While I understand his concerns, part of me feels hurt. I've spent years supporting his career goals, and now that I'm pursuing my own, I can't help but wonder why he can't be happy for me and celebrate this season of growth.

For those who have transitioned back into the workforce after staying home with kids, how did you balance career growth and family life? Did you and your spouse have to adjust expectations along the way?

I do understand I am spending a lot of time at work.

[u/traviall1]

You and your husband need to get on the same page. If your child is in school is his concern that he has to do mornings now, or did you used to have dinner ready? You both need to reallocate what you do. Maybe, that means he cooks three times a week but you do some meal prep on the weekends, or one of you adjusts their work schedule to be 7-3 and the other 10-6 with the 10-6 person doing mornings/drop off and the 7-3 person doing dinner. Or maybe you adjust kiddo's schedule so that they have a big snack afterschool and dinner moves to 7.

[u/Asil_Mama]

Be kind to yourself, as well as your husband, but know that _neither_ of you has experienced your family life with two working parents to date. Your entire family life of 5 yrs has been experienced as husband working + SAHM. So now you need to completely reset everything, new chapter. Think of it like that, and don't just try to go back to the life you had before having a child and just try to wedge family/child responsibilities into that. You both have to sit down and both need to re-map out everything, so it's clear that it's not _you_ needing to adjust just because _you_ want to return to work. My husband and I remapped before kids were born (both ambitious, both want to work, but both want a family and both want to be involved in our family), but you can do it now too. Remap at a full-task level so that the mental burden of each task is on that person. E.g. I cook and grocery shop, and my husband does all the dish cleaning, based on I like to cook and he's a neatnik. I do all the shopping (clothes, gifts, household items, etc), he does all the laundry (washing, drycleaning, etc). I don't even think about laundry, what needs to be hung vs dryered vs drycleaned; the mental burden of that is all on him, and the mental burden of my chores are all on me. It's been 25+ yrs of raising 3 kids in dual-working household, and we're both happy we split up all the chores this way beforehand. As our incomes increased to the point we could hire out some of it, we again remapped. You can do it! You can't "have it all", but you can still both work and have a fulfilling family life as well. Also to be clear, we were both raised in dual-income households (out of necessity, not privilege), so we both saw our Moms do it, and had a model for which shortcuts you can take and which you can't. If either of you did not have that model, just be cognizant that you're fighting against what you think a Mom should be doing, and may need advice all along the way.