Its fun to be a consultant’s wife but you got to master it all

Thank you for reading the last post and showering it with lots of love –   When you are a Consultant’s wife, you know this life…

Here is the second one in the #Consulting series!

If you are married to a Consultant, I am sure you know the 4 C’s- Corporate-Clientele, Constant- Commutation, Crazy-Competition and  Cappuccino-Cocktail that have a strong presence  in your husband’s life. To top it, the deadly Combination of all of these leads to the Cranking in your life.  How does one handle? Well as consultant’s wives, we have to ace many arts of life… Lets list them!

• You got to sound super strong even though you may be feeling a weakling in your heart.   Its a great life as a consultant’s wife when the spouse is around but the moment ‘Check-Ins’ begin, life goes crackling. Its super-tough to lie, convince and assure your parents, friends that you are doing amazing when the truth is living alone, missing hubby, having only a mobile to chat over, crying in low moments, and curling with a book on most of the nights is really giving you hard times.

• Now that you are married to the enigmatic guy blessed with convincing prowess, you have a new life as well as a new body clock to adhere to. You might have your own job but gradually your body learns to abide by the constant snoozing alarm clocks, early flights, late night meetings, conference-calling,  email replying at 2 in the night, sleeping with the lights on, project deadlines, calls from client locations, never keeping to their promises of returning home early and constant traveling of your consultant husband.

• Well, buy a globe or an atlas soon after you get married or ask someone to gift you. You need it most to know the exact location of your husband  and give a consolation to yourself that he is nearby and its a small world.  You may not grow on English vocab but you definitely learn the visa processes, currency exchange rates and the time difference of innumerable places around the globe. The friends and relatives soon look up to you for suggestions on holiday destinations.  Oh yes! I can guide anyone to go around and holiday in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) (I lived there for two months and roamed around in burka too)

• Here comes a serious advantage of a globe-trotting husband. A consultant’s wife soon becomes a specialist in geography though in school she would have hardly scraped through passing marks. She updates her FB constantly with places, pictures, and  food of unique places. The foreign holidays or the forceful ‘tagging along’ earns her a status of a ‘well-traveled person’. No doubt, she maybe a keen observer and learner herself but the credit goes to her husband.  Wow! What a husband you have! So lucky you are that you get to learn and travel to so many places! 

• Married to a consultant, soon you find yourself arrested in a sinusoidal curve of happy and depressing phase of life.  6 weeks when he is home, you meet friends,  catch up with families, go out for dinners, shop around, you rock the city even though the timelines and time-sheets are constantly on his mind  (You eventually learn to ignore them)— Aaah the wife feels all loved and pampered in these lovely days but she doesn’t know the bomb is about to fall. And in the fifth week the good guy declares- ‘ I will be away for next 8 weeks’. Its killing, believe me! Another lull period stares you right in the eyes and you fear those depressing nights and low weekends. Ask me, I can speak, write and blog more than Deepika Padukone on depression and learning to overcome it!

• Now, here is the answer to all those people who feel jealous about your happening life. Like I said in my last post, your super busy husband wants to see you super-busy too because it will keep him off the constant nagging.  But a wife’s job gets affected. Honestly, I was not able to concentrate well in my job when it was a new marriage and hubby was constantly missing from my married life. (In the first year, eights months he was away, now he travels for like half of the year) In my job I felt guilty asking for leaves and my boss was finding it too easy to read that I was loosely handling my job.

• You learn to accept the bribes and gifts that he brings to make up for all the phone calls that he dint answer and for the days he extended his stay.  Gradually you also learn to take his answers in mono-syllables too because most of the time there is an unanswered email that’s going around in his mind. He is smiling at you but I can bet he is thinking of the next call that he has to jump in. When you ask- ‘You heard me, right? He answers ‘Yes’. When you ask more, you realize soon- he was sweetly ignoring. When you take it to the next level, he meekly says- The day has been grinding, now you don’t do this to me please?  When you say– you are no more taking it, He is like ‘ Its just happened today that I lost my attention, believe me it won’t happen again’ …. No, no don’t fall for it. He will do it again in the next hour because you know he is a busy consultant…

• You eventually have to learn to fight the baby-fats too. Of all the business commitments, your guy will never return from Africa or Middle East or Europe empty-handed. Loads of chocolates are brought for you, for your family and your friends.  When you ask them ‘Why so many, I will grow fat?‘ He will sweetly say- ‘I thought you loved them baby, you must have a stock-full always.’   Really? I answer back- I love you too baby, why don’t you apply the same to you and just stay here with me always.  

• It starts after the first year but a wife learns to ace it too. Going deaf to the noises around ‘So when do you plan a family?’ . Those people who know your life in and out pester you more. The world rejoices in troubling an already troubled soul.  How do you tell them again and again that your guy is too busy traveling and single parenting is not your cup of tea.

• But then one day you do give in to the pressures as you want to believe that the guy will travel less and will enjoy to be with the baby. Now this is really so hurting- the child matters and not the wife. But its a woman’s soul and you take the plunge. Well, this is really scary where I am told that its almost like single parenting when you are a consultant’s wife. You look after your own kids and you play the whole parental role all alone, the husband will not change because his job and travels will not stop. Recently I read, the partner of a consulting firm meets his kid only twice in a week. Really sad state of life!!!

• You soon realize you are married for life to a person who can never be on time on the days when its matters for you. He promises to be back in just 6 weeks, the project definitely gets extended for two weeks without a fault of his. He assures you he will keep track of time and return from party on time but that never happens. The same person who is utterly punctual about his job mandates forgets to see his watch when its time to come back home. Further, he promises he will be there with you for the Karwachauth Puja next year but the year is far and promises are tough to keep. The most important project of his career falls in his kitty during October-November and he has to go. You had said you wouldn’t fast but still you do because you are a wife. Skype is there to help you do the nitty gritties of seeing the husband post the prayers around the moon.  (Out of 3, I have done 2 long distance fastings and I know how a hungry wife feels when her husband is away in Europe)

• The consultant’s wife learns to fix up her own things from the kitchen drainage to the blockage in the washroom. She gradually becomes patient. She learns to ignore your ignorance. She learns to attend some important family parties alone, she learns to miss functions to avoid that nagging question- ‘Where is your husband traveling now? Oh! you hardly get to live with the poor chap.’ She learns to maneuver the car or move around in metros and autos. She may have been the pampered daughter of her parents but she soon learns to live alone, cry in loneliness, overcome her depression pangs, look after the kids and manage the house single handed-ly.

Of all this that I have written above, I must say the consultant guy works too hard and definitely there is a woman behind his success who should never be forgotten. Together, there goes a lot of effort in adorning a relationship. With abundance of crazy love and unwritten commitment, the husband-wife bond keeps going.  Yes, all urban love stories are made up of these interesting adjustments and sacrifices. Just that I have a consultant husband giving me enough reasons to crib, complain and cherish and me being an engineer-blogger, loves to create peppy stories.

Laugh your way. Its a #UrbanLovestory!

I had no plans to write another one so soon in the Consultant series but the pouring mails and lovely comments from everyone and specially consultant’s wifeys  has got me doing this. Hats off to all the super-wives of the on-the-go busy (Consultant) guys.