SillyOctpuss
Well-known member
This was a hard post to write. It involves me opening up a bit on the internet and discussing some feelings. So if that's not for you then you've had fair warning and can move along but if you stick with it I promise it does have a happy ending.
Well it's been a hell of a year. This is a long post so grab a beverage.
I've not really opened up much about my private life on the forum but feel like it's time to say a few words, just in case there's anyone out there who may be in a similar situation.
Up until last August I was working full time for a rather large company whilst also acting as carer for my wife and trying to be a dad to an awesome three year old little dude.
When he was younger we managed this dynamic but once he hit three he got to the stage where my wife was struggling to cope while I was at work. Thankfully I was able to do a lot of work remotely so I was available to help during the day when he decided he didn't want to listen to his mum. Part of my wife's condition affects her mobility and energy levels so basically she struggles trying to keep up with a three year old.
So working 50-60hrs a week (I was contactable 24/7 = phone calls at 3am), doing all of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, helping my wife AND trying to look after my son things became difficult and eventually something had to give.
Can you guess what it was? Yup it was me.
I basically fell apart, my physical and mental health took a major nose dive. So my Doctor signed me off work and my company put me on sick leave for five weeks to recuperate. During this time it became obvious that the workload I had on my plate was unsustainable and I had two choices.
1 - Drop some things off my plate to focus on family and myself
2 - Keep going as I had been and end right back where I was in another 6-10 months.
Well family obviously won out and when I was due to go back I asked my company for redeployment into a part time role. Rather annoyingly despite all the things I’ve done for them over the years they decided to be quite unhelpful and tried to keep me in my full time role. One of the perks of being the guy who deals with a lot of problems means you know where a lot of the bodies are buried. Once I dug a few of these up and passed on some relevant details my company suddenly became much more interested in helping me move into a part time role and were now very concerned with my mental wellbeing and physical health.
So fast forward to November 2021 and I was now working 16hrs a week with literally zero fucks to give. I’d turn up to work twice a week, work damn hard when I was there, clock off and then not think about them a second more until I was next back on site. Things were pretty good. Our house was tidier than it had ever been, I was looking better, feeling better, my wife's health was a little better due to her being generally less stressed. We were financially tighter than before but damn me things were good... then boom. the universe fucked me and fucked me hard.
We got a call from the estate agent who managed our house to inform us the landlord had decided to sell and we had 2 months to move. Well shit. This honestly becomes a serious problem when you
A - live in a bungalow because your wife can't manage stairs
B - Your son has recently been diagnosed with autism. He had delayed speech and has started a new pre-school where he's both been really happy AND we’d seen definite improvement in his speech and language
C - You have both a cat and a dog
D - You now work part time and have to show that you can afford the place you want to live in.
So we looked and looked and looked and found literally zero bungalows or ground floor properties for rent anywhere near either my place of employment or my son's preschool. Finally after we were getting close to our two months time limit to move, we found a place which was both more expensive and not as nice as our last place! Yup it was not even close to as nice as our last place but we had absolutely no other options and had to go for it.
So queue a bunch of money to some movers to get us into the new place and everything's fine now right? Hell no. Basically the house had issues which were not disclosed and we didn't find out until after we had moved in. There were problems with the water, the power and the central heating system. After much arguing with the landlord we managed to get out of our tenancy agreement but had to start looking for a new place all over again.
So we spent weeks looking and the best we could come up with was far enough away that we’d have to move our son into a new school and I’d have to move jobs so after talking it out for a while we decided to move back to N Ireland to be closer to my family.
Well it's been a hell of a year. This is a long post so grab a beverage.
I've not really opened up much about my private life on the forum but feel like it's time to say a few words, just in case there's anyone out there who may be in a similar situation.
Up until last August I was working full time for a rather large company whilst also acting as carer for my wife and trying to be a dad to an awesome three year old little dude.
When he was younger we managed this dynamic but once he hit three he got to the stage where my wife was struggling to cope while I was at work. Thankfully I was able to do a lot of work remotely so I was available to help during the day when he decided he didn't want to listen to his mum. Part of my wife's condition affects her mobility and energy levels so basically she struggles trying to keep up with a three year old.
So working 50-60hrs a week (I was contactable 24/7 = phone calls at 3am), doing all of the cooking, cleaning, laundry, helping my wife AND trying to look after my son things became difficult and eventually something had to give.
Can you guess what it was? Yup it was me.
I basically fell apart, my physical and mental health took a major nose dive. So my Doctor signed me off work and my company put me on sick leave for five weeks to recuperate. During this time it became obvious that the workload I had on my plate was unsustainable and I had two choices.
1 - Drop some things off my plate to focus on family and myself
2 - Keep going as I had been and end right back where I was in another 6-10 months.
Well family obviously won out and when I was due to go back I asked my company for redeployment into a part time role. Rather annoyingly despite all the things I’ve done for them over the years they decided to be quite unhelpful and tried to keep me in my full time role. One of the perks of being the guy who deals with a lot of problems means you know where a lot of the bodies are buried. Once I dug a few of these up and passed on some relevant details my company suddenly became much more interested in helping me move into a part time role and were now very concerned with my mental wellbeing and physical health.
So fast forward to November 2021 and I was now working 16hrs a week with literally zero fucks to give. I’d turn up to work twice a week, work damn hard when I was there, clock off and then not think about them a second more until I was next back on site. Things were pretty good. Our house was tidier than it had ever been, I was looking better, feeling better, my wife's health was a little better due to her being generally less stressed. We were financially tighter than before but damn me things were good... then boom. the universe fucked me and fucked me hard.
We got a call from the estate agent who managed our house to inform us the landlord had decided to sell and we had 2 months to move. Well shit. This honestly becomes a serious problem when you
A - live in a bungalow because your wife can't manage stairs
B - Your son has recently been diagnosed with autism. He had delayed speech and has started a new pre-school where he's both been really happy AND we’d seen definite improvement in his speech and language
C - You have both a cat and a dog
D - You now work part time and have to show that you can afford the place you want to live in.
So we looked and looked and looked and found literally zero bungalows or ground floor properties for rent anywhere near either my place of employment or my son's preschool. Finally after we were getting close to our two months time limit to move, we found a place which was both more expensive and not as nice as our last place! Yup it was not even close to as nice as our last place but we had absolutely no other options and had to go for it.
So queue a bunch of money to some movers to get us into the new place and everything's fine now right? Hell no. Basically the house had issues which were not disclosed and we didn't find out until after we had moved in. There were problems with the water, the power and the central heating system. After much arguing with the landlord we managed to get out of our tenancy agreement but had to start looking for a new place all over again.
So we spent weeks looking and the best we could come up with was far enough away that we’d have to move our son into a new school and I’d have to move jobs so after talking it out for a while we decided to move back to N Ireland to be closer to my family.
