It's kind of amazing what it does for your marriage. I've seen both sides of it, myself. In both cases, my wife was also stay-at-home.
My first marriage was actually damaged by working at home. My wife was an introvert and I think having me around all the time hurt things (we were not particularly compatible to begin with which was exacerbated when I went from working 50-60 hours a week away to working most days at home).
My current marriage is greatly helped by it. There's nobody I'd rather share my time with than my wife and she feels the same. A lot of people will say what I said in the last paragraph applies to them -- they'd hate their spouse if they had to spend every waking minute with them and couldn't get away from time to time, but her and I thrive in the situation. I think it helps that her dad and mom were both small business owners who ran things out of their home and worked together on everything. It helps me because my wife is non-technical and by being around while I'm working/talking on conference calls, she understands more about what I do and the things I struggle with at work so she can offer more support/understanding to me than if I had to explain it all to her (it also avoids me having to spend hours explaining things). My four children love that I'm at home at all times. Even though they're respectful of the fact that I have to work and try not to bother me while I'm busy, they know I'm there if something important comes up. This is especially important since two of my children are step-'s and we're blending a family. The complexity of emotions that kids go through is helped by the stability of the fact that I'm seen as "always present" in the moment and at the time.
Yep, I understand your situation. Somehow I lucked into the second situation that you outlined. I think I'm exceedingly lucky that I missed the first situation - it seems to be the common case these days.
My first marriage was actually damaged by working at home. My wife was an introvert and I think having me around all the time hurt things (we were not particularly compatible to begin with which was exacerbated when I went from working 50-60 hours a week away to working most days at home).
My current marriage is greatly helped by it. There's nobody I'd rather share my time with than my wife and she feels the same. A lot of people will say what I said in the last paragraph applies to them -- they'd hate their spouse if they had to spend every waking minute with them and couldn't get away from time to time, but her and I thrive in the situation. I think it helps that her dad and mom were both small business owners who ran things out of their home and worked together on everything. It helps me because my wife is non-technical and by being around while I'm working/talking on conference calls, she understands more about what I do and the things I struggle with at work so she can offer more support/understanding to me than if I had to explain it all to her (it also avoids me having to spend hours explaining things). My four children love that I'm at home at all times. Even though they're respectful of the fact that I have to work and try not to bother me while I'm busy, they know I'm there if something important comes up. This is especially important since two of my children are step-'s and we're blending a family. The complexity of emotions that kids go through is helped by the stability of the fact that I'm seen as "always present" in the moment and at the time.
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