Domestic battles

Last night, as Reinout came home, I was just wrapping up my dinner, stressed as in half an hour I had my appointment with my hairdresser. Reinout asked me why I was so stressed. I looked at him with an almost (I imagine) blank face. I had just made dinner, emptied the laundry and put another one in and taken out all the garbage (which is a lot given we are going through a renovation downstairs). This completely mundane operation requires a lot of time management. Every part of of the process is on an ETA, just to make sure the steaks don’t burn in the meantime (although Victoria complained that they did).

I hurried with my dinner as Reinout was going into town for an appointment with a business associate and I could make him company on the way. As we walked he asked me again why I was so stressed. I gave pretty much the same answer this time including work, emails, meetings etc whilst taking care of Sebastian. Now it was his turn to look at me in complete surprised. It was the face of “but honey you don’t work?” We left it at that, and I continued to talk about my “work” day which didn’t raise too much interest from my husband’s side….or so I imagined.

Fast-forward 13 hours later.  It’s morning, 8 o’clock and my husband gets a call that he needs to go to Antwerp. It’s his morning to take care of Sebastian until 1 pm when Caroline comes in. It’s also the point when I flip.
“OK, then YOU call my boss and tell him I can’t come in because you have a meeting.”
It fires off a whole discussion about my work – life balance. I go in with all ammunition about my dreams, my visions, my right to contribute to this family too. Just as much as my husband do, which I love him for and support him in doing. I’m not really angry. I just want to make a point for something that is very important to me.

My husband says he would gladly swap with me. But somehow I don’t think so. It’s more than having the freedom to choose, the right to work, the equality of genders. It’s a personal thing. I still hold the fear of becoming that sad woman that after 10 years of being a housewife, in an unhappy marriage, sharing her husband with lovers and prostitutes alike, finds herself unable to leave. It’s my absolute nightmare. I rather work in the local supermarket, cleaning my kids school-toilets than becoming that bitter woman, imprisoned, enslaved in a golden cage. So I can’t let that happen. Even if I have to work 80 hour weeks. That’s it! I make no excuses, no apologies. It just is.