My first ever blog!

Well this is my first ever blog.  How exciting.  I wonder if anyone will read it?

I'm not a big believer in New Year's resolutions because if something needs changing then why wait for the New Year.  But sometimes a New Year can be a good jolt to kickstart something new and I've decided 2012 is the year for me.  Primarily I want to turn my working life around so I am making a difference again and so it fits better around my home life.  But as with most things you can't deal with them as an isolated bubble so any change is likely to impact upon other areas of my life too.

To make decisions about the future I believe you have to understand the past and make peace with it in whatever small way you can.  The last few years have not been the easiest. 

I had my first baby in May, 2007 and my son is now 4 1/2 and at school.  He rocks my world even when he's bouncing off the walls trying to be a superhero.  Shortly after he was born my OH bought the business he worked in with some other people.  We thought this would be a new beginning with fabulous opportunities for us and our children.  It would of course be hard work and so I tried not to moan (too much) when OH worked long hours and I was on my own for the entirety of the period that our son was awake during the week.

Then the recession hit and it became clear that things would be harder than we had ever dreamed.  In August 2008 OH started to seem depressed and the stress was clearly beginning to bite.  Having suffered with depression myself I can recognise the signs and also the need to get help.  He felt he needed to just carry on - the alpha male providing for his family has to just stick his head down and get on with it no matter how hard things become.  I did not agree with this but I could see that he felt the need to work through this and to make it right.  In May 2009 I found out I was expecting our second child and was so happy that even though things were tough it could bring some much needed joy to our lives.

Things did not get better for OH and he continued to show signs of extreme stress and depression much to my concern.  However, he refused to consider getting help or seeing his doctor.  Anyone who has lived with someone being ill and refusing to get help will know how utterly frustrating and heartbreaking this is.  In August 2009 we went to a friend's wedding reception and OH drank too much culminating in the most almighty row.  OH told me he could see nothing to look forward to and felt there was nothing good in the world, or in our lives.  I felt I could take no more and notwithstanding the fact that I was 4.5 months pregnant I felt I had to do something.  So I started packing a bag to leave.  My son was at my mum and dad's and I thought I would go there whilst I made some decisions.  Faced with this OH broke down confessing the true extend of the stress and depression and that he had in fact considered ending it all.  How do you cope when the father of your child and the man who is your world tells you that?

He then agreed to see his doctor and he was diagnosed with depression.  He didn't want medication or counselling but I felt we'd made a start and that was significant.  Shortly after that we went on holiday for 2 weeks and had a fabulous time in Dorset.  I think at this point OH realised the truth of the old maxim "family is the most important thing in the world".  Things weren't magically better but although he was still extremely stressed he seemed to have found some glimmer of joy in the world.

Things continued with the business being up and down until our daughter was born in February, 2010.  I have loved every second of being a mummy to two.  First time around I was scared and incompetent.  Second time around I was relaxed, in control and unstressed by it all.  It was magical.  Those first few days I felt like I was on cloud nine.  Tired and sore from the c section but seriously, blissfully happy.

Until my daughter was 10 days old and OH got ill.  Really ill.  He would sweat uncontrollably, he would shiver under 4 fleeces and a blanket.  Blood tests showed something wasn't right but the GP was unable to work out what it was.  Despite being on his knees he felt he could not stay at home.  The business needed him and his partners were sympathetic but never sent him home.  So he worked and he came home and went to bed and that was our life for weeks.  I remember lying in the bath 2 weeks after a c section thinking how can I cope with a 2 year old, a newborn baby and running a house when I've just had major surgery?  The answer that came to me was basically you do, or you die.  So I got on with it.  Don't get me wrong I'm not some bloody superwoman.  Anyone that knows me will tell you I could be in the Olympics for moaning.  But my children needed me and my husband needed me and this was not the time to bang on about my needs.

Thank god we had private medical insurance because without that I don't think we would ever have got a diagnosis and OH would never have got better (this is of course not right but that's another post).  Slowly OH got better and improved and began to have a relationship with his daughter who he had spent next to no time with.  She would not agree to be comforted by him until she was about 18 months old (of course now she's worked out daddy's the soft touch it's a different story).

Once OH got better towards the middle/end of 2010 my mind was made up.  I felt OH had to leave the business and I didn't really care what it cost us.  He felt different.  He was tired of it and stressed beyond belief but he felt he couldn't leave without being declared bankrupt.  We would then lose our home.  He spent more meetings than I can remember talking to his partners and trying to get them to see how stressed he was and that no business can go on with cash flow problems like theirs.  Some months he took no drawings.  Some months we had to wait until 3 days before the end of the month to find out if we'd be able to pay our mortgage.  Yes I worked but I earned less than a quarter of what OH had when they'd started the business.  I couldn't cover a mortgage and bills.  His drawings nearly halved for a bit.  Then they went back up a bit.  Then they weren't paid.  We had to borrow some money from OH's parents.  Through all this OH's partners felt it was just a minor matter and that other businesses had teething problems and there was a recession.   They would take no steps to address the problems.  They could pay their bills thanks to having higher household incomes.  They didn't seem to care that the stress was nearly putting OH under.

So early on in 2011 we said enough is enough.  We decided OH would leave even if he went bankrupt and we had to sell our house and rent.  Sometimes you just have to look at what's important and let go of everything else.  It was touch and go and before he could leave we had to remortgage our house to pay a tax bill and we'll be paying that back for years.  But he has moved on and so now have we.  We are less stressed and our family life is much more balanced.  We have kept our house and OH managed to avoid bankruptcy.  There are ongoing issues which I very much hope will be resolved in the early part of 2012 so we can finally put this whole episode to bed.

I never, when my children were small, to keep working in the same job, doing the same thing in the same way.  But throughout all this it seemed more sensible to keep my working life on an even keel and to keep earning the money.  OH is now settled doing other things.  Our children are happy and healthy and son is now settled in school.  My daughter attends a private nursery and is looked after by Grandma whern I'm at work.  So it feels to me like 2012 is the year to do something for me and to make work, work better for me and my family.  Next blog post more about my job and the future.  Is this the longest first blog in the history of the world?  Told you I had something to say....