Wednesday, August 29, 2007

"Earning" the break

As a working mom with a stay at home husband, I try to do my best to support him. I am surrounded by my friends who are stay at home moms and who sometimes complain about how they don't get breaks, are exhausted, always doing housework, and never get support from thier spouse. So I like to think I do my best to support my dear, tired, husband. I do my own share of housework, do bath everynight and clean up the home every evening. I try to overcompensate for being a working mom.

The thing is? He doesn't like to take breaks. We have this on going tension/joke that I'm always trying to get him to take some time 'off' from housework, home renovations, our daughter. He needs it! It isn't going to get better if we don't rest every now and again, right?

But truth be told, sometimes I want him to relax so *I* can then feel better/justified in relaxing at some other time. The guilt! Why do I feel like I have to 'earn' my relaxing time? A perfect example of this: for my 30th birthday (in Jan), I asked for a full body massage for my birthday. My mother in law, Linda, was happy to bestow this awesome gift on me! Have I used it? Nope. Do I want to? Absolutely yes!! The reason WHY I haven't used it? Because, according to me, I haven't quite 'earned' it yet.

This is ridiculous! Of course I have earned it. I realized this last night and made an appointment today for the 7th. I know I am not alone in this feeling of neglecting oneself or postponing taking care of oneself. I need to work on this.

2 comments:

LauraC said...

Thanks for delurking. I also put myself last most of the time. Only after everything else is done do I feel like I can take time to do something I want to do. Monday night I read Real Simple while Jon cooked dinner and it felt great!

Megan said...
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