Wah lau eh, I really need to rant here before I totally lose my mind. Just want to see if I’m being unreasonable or if other SG wives are dealing with this exact same pattern.
Every weekday, my husband comes home past 8 PM, slumps on the sofa like a corpse, and complains how exhausted he is. Ask him to help feed our 3-year-old? “So tired, work brain fried.” Ask him to take the kid to the playground for an hour on Saturday afternoon? “Can we just stay home? I need to recharge, whole week was super heavy.” Fine, I give him the benefit of the doubt because corporate life in Singapore is memang stressful, so I try to be the understanding wife.
But miraculously, when Sunday rolls around, his chronic fatigue completely vanishes into thin air.
Alarm rings at 6:00 AM every single Sunday morning. He springs out of bed with more energy than a toddler on sugar, pulls on his neatly ironed golf polo tee, grabs his expensive club bag, and zips off to meet his female director at the golf club. Rain or shine, doesn’t matter. Suddenly, 33-degree humid SG weather is “fresh air” and walking 18 holes under the blazing afternoon sun is “a great way to unwind.”
He leaves at 6:30 AM, plays a full round, stays for “networking” drinks and lunch with the boss, and only comes crawling back home around 2:30 PM. Then what happens? He claims he’s “sunburnt and physically drained,” takes a shower, and sleeps straight until 6:00 PM. The entire Sunday—the ONLY full day we could actually spend together as a family—is completely burnt. I spend my entire weekend solo-parenting, handling laundry, meal prep, and trying to entertain a hyper toddler, while he plays country club gentleman.
Whenever I try to bring this up, he immediately pulls out the corporate martyr card. He tells me, “Babe, you don’t understand, this is not for fun, this is strategic! I am carrying ball for our family’s future so I can get promoted during the next appraisal and pay off our BTO loan!”
Bro, you have been “networking on the green” every single weekend for almost two years already. The only thing that got promoted is your golf handicap, not your salary! Your annual increment didn’t even cover your golf club expenses and the post-game lunches with your boss!
I am just so sick of family time being treated like an optional chore while his boss’s casual Sunday invitation is treated like a mandatory PMO decree. Am I overreacting? How do you guys deal with partners who prioritize corporate wayang over their own household? Should I just conveniently “lose” his golf bag near the void deck recycling bin or what?