Husbank Works All Week on the Road

Updated on September 12, 2012
J.W. asks from Mount Vernon, IN
3 answers

I am looking for some advice from any women out there that their husbands/boyfriends work on the road and are gone for a week or more at a time. I personally start feeling like I am a single mom. And when I do wait for his phonecalls, all he wants to talk about is him, his work. He never seems to take any interest in what I'm telling him about my day? I'm starting to wonder if this marriage is going to work out. We have only been married for almost 3 years, with a 20 month old baby. Maybe this is how all guys are when they are gone all week or more. He never lets me talk for very long, he interrupts me or gets impatient if I have too long of a story for him, but I need someone to talk to a partner who will listen??

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C.B.

answers from San Francisco on

Oh, this doesn't just happen with hubby's who are on the road and away for days/weeks at a time.

My hubby asks me daily how my day was, but I've learned that that's just his segway (sp?) into tell me how HIS day was. LOL! He'll say "So how was your day?" and before I can even take a breath and reply, he starts telling me about his.

I pretend to listen - day in and day out it gets old. I also don't worry about talking about my day other than a funny antedote (SP?) or something because I work in the legal field so to explain something that happened on a case can require a LOT of explanation and he's just not up for it.

I wouldn't take it too personally; it's just the way some men are. I bet he doesn't even realize he's doing it. I know when I finally mentioned to my hubby that although he asks about my day, he really doesn't care, he was genuinely surprised to realize that does that. He makes an intentional effort now to listen to my account of my day.

So just mention it to him and see what he says or if anything changes.

3 moms found this helpful
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C.P.

answers from Dallas on

It's tough when having to do the role of "single/married mom". both of you need someone to listen. have you tried talking to him about it (when he's home during a quiet/relaxing time) I used to send e-mails/faxes and then we'd touch base on what was most important. it will take time and you have to make him aware of your needs for someone to listen to you too. do you have friends you talk to during the day? ;make it a point of having the TV off when you're both talking .... tv is very distracting (when I figured that out, I'd tell my husband "let me turn off the tv so I can hear you better" .... and he did the same. that helped. BTW, do you skype?
find more ways to communicate. I know that's putting the "burden" on you, but I find if I get to say what's on my mind (even if it's just the computer listening as I type my e-mail) it does help you feel a bit better. it's not the solution but your need to communicate has been sort of met. The need to be listened to, sadly is another topic.

hang in there and tell him how you feel. Good luck! ~C.~

2 moms found this helpful
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G.B.

answers from Oklahoma City on

When I married my hubby he lived in a different town than I had been living in. He is a guy and not in to having chats. I was so lonely and depressed. He was gone a lot with work, even went to India once.

Anyway, I started calling my friends in my own town I had been living in and found that I just missed talking non stop with my friends. I ran the phone bill up each month into the hundreds. When we went to marriage counseling this behavior of mine came up. Hubby was concerned about the bill being out of control, I was concerned about the bill too but could not fathom not having anyone to talk to.

The doc looked at us and said to hubby "Do you really want to sit for about an hour each day listening to her talk about the cute shoes she saw when she was walking down the street to go buy groceries? Do you really want to listen to how funny someone's clothes were at Walmart? If you don't want to be her girlfriend you need to let her have her girlfriends". To this day hubby never says anything about the phone bill. Of course it's better now since we have U S Cellular phones and can talk to anyone and it not be an extra charge.

Girls like to talk about inane things and men are to the point, want to talk about themselves, they don't have the social skills women have, so I would tell you this.

You need to pick up the phone at least once per day and call a girlfriend. Tell them everything that's been going on, how funny the baby is, how cute they walk, how their hair is getting to long...first haircut... finally getting hair...what ever, talk about shoes, what happened on White Collar, Warehouse 13, or Alphas. Talk about every little mundane thing you can think of.

Then call a different friend the next day. Or family member. The point is that you need to talk about your life, that's how females are usually wired. That's how we work out our problems, we're usually more verbally oriented when it comes to this type stuff.

Hubby is a guy, it's all about him and what happened to his day. He loves you for sure but he is just being a guy. They can only do one or two things at the same time and sometimes not even that. Like watching football and eating food, sometimes the food goes all over the floor because he forgot it was in his lap.

Talking face to face is totally different for a guy too. They can totally focus on the other person and not get distracted. Talking on the phone is hard for them. Their brains are more visual.

1 mom found this helpful
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