Needing Advice From Truckers And/or Trucker Wives

To all the truckers out there and/or trucker wives.. How do I cope with my husband being an OTR Trucker while I work from home and take care of our kids?

Here are a few things to consider.. I have a toddler and a stepdaughter (my husband’s child from his previous marriage). My husband used to be an otr trucker. He worked locally when I delivered the baby but then recently decided to go back out on the road again. While he was local, I still felt like I had no help with the kids. Post Partum was extremely tough and honestly I do more with my stepchild than he does and that’s his biological child. I spent months trying to talk to him and finally when he said he was “trying” to change, trying to be helpful, he went back on the road. I’m not sure how distance is going to help. Instead, I still feel alone.

I work primarily from home but I do have a demanding job and I take care of our toddler, plus I watch my stepdaughter every other weekend. It feels like I’m really all alone in this.

Please be gentle and understanding. I’d love to hear thoughts, comments, etc.

While he was local, I still felt like I had no help with the kids.

I'm not sure we can help you. This problem really isn't trucking related. There's a lot more problems here than your man's occupation. I think you need some kind of professional help. I'm gently suggesting you seek out a marriage counselor.

This is actually how I found this site. This was my first Post

I'm a local driver and I've never been otr , but I can tell you it's a grind. I work 10-14 hours a day and when I first started, I volunteered to work every weekend. Most days I just want to get home, take a shower and go to sleep. Some days, I'll skip dinner. My commute is 15 minutes and I feel that way.

I agree with Old School. There isn't much we can do. I'd love to give you a secret formula, but there isn't one. I will tell you that sometimes my wife and I get into a spat about her working too and me not being available. My response is "if I doze off I can kill somebody, if you doze off you might hit your head on the desk".

This isn't me dismissing what she does or her contribution, but it's a reality I need her to understand and it's so real that I have to put in those terms.

Unfortunately, that's the nature of this beast. I hope things work out for you and that you try to stick around here to get a true understanding of what this career entails. You'll get it from multiple angles and different paths within this career. This group is also very supportive and informative.

OTR Relationships

That's an article i wrote a while back, but it rings true today.

What you are feeling is no different than any new mother, regardless of occupation. Old School was right, it is not a trucking issue. It is a life issue.

You married a man with a child and accepted that child. Great for you! 4 days a month you commit to that child. So what you are saying is that you have one child most of the time and feel overwhelmed? The child is now a toddler and years later, you are still complaining about having dealt with post partum years ago? You work from home most of the time which means you are saving money, time and stress on commutes and child care?

What exactly do you want from your husband? Locally, he probably worked 10 and 12 hour days. He was probably exhausted physically and mentally. Then came home to a wife who told him he still wasnt good enough. Does he ever talk about his stress or concerns?

My guess, he thought perhaps going OTR he could make more money. Use it to help you. Perhaps that means hiring a cleaning lady a couple of days a month or child care one day a week. I don't know.

Feeling alone and overwhelmed means you need to get out and meet others. Working from home is isolating you. Join a Mommy and Me class or something with your toddler. Meet other families. You sound as though you see the children as burdens. If you create a "play day" then perhaps you will feel differently.

A little comedy here... you are still sane. My mother of 5 kids said you are sane until child number 3. With one child, you know who broke the lamp. Two kids you can seperate when fighting.. that third kid always jumps in and that is when a parent goes crazy. Kid 4, 5 and 6 dont matter after that.

When you put things into perspective... you have a working husband who loves you, 2 healthy children, a work from home job where you have a clean bathroom and comfy bed, and you are sane, unlike my mother.

I, on the other hand, have no husband (which means no one helps with bills), no kids, a dead mother, dead sister, dead father, work OTR in a dirty job in sleet and snow, hurricanes and heatwaves, and paid $1900 for a mattress just to be able to sleep on the truck. I also have to use filthy showers and rest rooms, and have limited access to internet or food choices. This makes me lazy and my weight fluctuates 40+ pounds at a time.

Pay a babysitter and go on a date night with hubby when he comes home. Have him massage you. Then appreciate what you have. Focusing on the bad stuff is not good.

I guess I need to be clear about something else. My husband is not financially helping me. Did not financially help when he did work local and is not doing it now.

My SD is 7. My biological daughter is now 1 year old. I am not complaining about post partum years and years after. Post partum was my every day life and my every day feelings and emotions until recently, when I started going to therapy and working on myself.

When my husband worked locally, I worked during the day and took care of our daughter, while he worked. Even if I didnt sleep all night with the baby, I was still up before he went to work to make him breakfast, pack his lunch and be there with him until he left for work. When he came home, I always had hot food ready for him, and guess what? Even when he was home, the kids and home were still my primary responsibility.

My children are not burdens. But I am NOT a single mom. My job and his job is our separate responsibilities. But being that we are a married couple, being that I did not make them by myself, my children should not be just my responsibility. Taking care of the home and all the responsibilities that come along with a home and children should not be my sole responsibility because I am "married". If I was a single mom, I would not be on here asking for advice. If I was a single mom, then the responsibilities would be all mine.

I was always emotionally and physically available to my husband. Always. Always asking if he ate, how hes feeling, how his day is going. He has no problem talking to me. And I never said he wasn't good enough. I simply asked for help. Which I should be able to do. Because again. I am working too and I did not make these kids by myself.

I'm not here to complain about my husband or my life. I'm not here saying that my situation is worse than others. I am aware that other people are in worse situations. As for me, I'm simply just here asking if anyone else is in this situation and if you are, how are you coping with it? I'm trying to look at other points of views and gain an understanding. I'm simply trying to look or ways to mend what feels broken.

OTR Relationships

What exactly do you want from your husband? Locally, he probably worked 10 and 12 hour days. He was probably exhausted physically and mentally. Then came home to a wife who told him he still wasnt good enough. Does he ever talk about his stress or concerns?

I, on the other hand, have no husband (which means no one helps with bills), no kids, a dead mother, dead sister, dead father, work OTR in a dirty job in sleet and snow, hurricanes and heatwaves, and paid $1900 for a mattress just to be able to sleep on the truck. I also have to use filthy showers and rest rooms, and have limited access to internet or food choices. This makes me lazy and my weight fluctuates 40+ pounds at a time.

Pay a babysitter and go on a date night with hubby when he comes home. Have him massage you. Then appreciate what you have. Focusing on the bad stuff is not good.

For you, this isn't a career issue it's a relationship issue. There are issues that are deeper than the job and that's not something we can help you with. You may need marriage counseling to help clarify roles and expectations in the relationship.

In order to get a solution, it's really helpful to understand the dynamics of his career..

It could be read that you somewhat feel like your husband is intentionally abandoning you, in fact it kind of appears tha way. That's logical, and indeed many partners feel that way. But it's based on a misconception of what we do.

I'm guessing that in your mind, weather you realize it or not, you think of him driving a truck just as anyone would drive a normal passenger vehicle.

The reality is that every minute of time behind the wheel of a semi is potentially deadly for everyone. You need to understand the level of responsibility we carry as professional drivers. One wrong decision, one split second of innatention and catastrophic results can, and often do occur. That level of responsibility and concentration alone, maintained for 11 plus hours, day in and day out, will tax a person.

My wife runs a home day care, her job is demanding yes, but not nearly like trucking. Not even close. You can't begin to fathom the demands this places on a driver over time. If you csn, I'd highly recommend getting a sitter and going for a ride along with your husband for a few hours, perhaps on a local. It might give you some perspective on what any day is like of his.

There's also a lot of evolutionary biological differences between men and women. We have instincts and do things we do from thousands of years of behavior in our DNA. Your husband is a resource provider, it's in our nature as men. You are a relationship cultivator, it's in your nature. It's how we survived as a species.

As others recommended, seeing a counselor would be a great place to start, both your instincts are putting you at odds with each other, a counselor can help find some mutual understanding of both your positions and then give you both some tools to work with I'm bridging the gap.

So if he helped you financially.... would you feel better? Try to come up with a budget and both put a certain amount into a pot for bills.

If you have been dealing with this for a year, he isn't going to change. Essentially, he ran away from home to escape the responsibilities of you and the kids. What you do next is your decision.

Again, what you are describing is a normal life pattern women go through. I cant even tell you how many of my friends tell me the exact same scenario over and over. And some feel the "women have a career and family" mantra of the 1960s feminists is a bunch if crap. Motherhood is hard enough without adding a career.

Up until rececently you had PP. So he was dealing with you for a year while you were emotional. If he came on here, he would give us a story. Go to therapy and see if we will go with you. You can zoom now.

This is not a trucking issue. Trucking makes it easier for an absentee spouse to be absent. If he doesnt want to help, he wont. Nothing we can tell you will help.

You say you only recently started working on you... keep at it. As you progress, you will realize what you need to do. You have already told us that you feel alone and used and not appreciated. It takes teo to fix things.

Coping skills? Deep breathing. Meditation in morning and night. Hot bath when kids asleep. Expecting him to change is not going to do the trick.

Good luck

It's taken me a bit to come up with an answer that doesn't totally rip on the two of you as people.

As previously said, this is NOT a career issue, this is a person issue.

He dumped the responsibility of his child on you.

He knocked you up again.

He does zero contributing to household duties.

He contributes zero financially.

That better be some dang good 🍆, cause you, my dear, are getting royally screwed.

Stop playing the victim, and stop being a martyr. Take yourself to therapy. Work on figuring out how to set and enforce healthy boundaries, communicate exactly what you need, and speak up when something just isn't working for you.

Men are NOT mind readers. Expecting him to do everything you do, without a discussion of why it's important to you or the family, then sitting there ticked off and stewing is unfair, and disingenuous.

Divorce him. Sue for child support. Move on.

Seriously, he’s not mature enough to man up and be a father, won’t help financially, and literally ran away from his responsibilities. You’re not going to get him into couples therapy, he’s got it good right now. And I’m not ragging on otr guys who are fathers, I’m friends with several who do it as the sole breadwinner of the family. I’m coming at this as a driver who after almost twenty years of being told we couldn’t have kids, surprisingly became a father two years ago. It takes sacrifices your man obviously is not willing to make. For example, just two months ago I turned down a dedicated, regional , otr position (I’m talking a job most otr drivers would kill for-weekends off, hourly with overtime, guaranteed six figures, brand new truck and trailer, no touch.) But it required spending four nights on the road, and evenings with my son is more important to me right now, and also helps keep my wife sane. (Before I get ridiculed for turning down a better job, the pay and benefits are the same I have now, I just work harder for it.)