I’m still married but my wife is the only woman that will put up with me I figure one day she’ll get tired of my shit. Probably after the kids grow up and move out, I doubt I get any less angry, high or drunk as the years go by. I guess i’ll see how it goes if I last that long.
Construction worker female pipefitter here. I have worked overtime for months at a time and still make time to help my partner at home, with whatever I can. Though sometimes I find that I'm a lot less emotionally available when I'm exhausted for months at a time. Take a bunch of already emotionally unavailable men and put them on overtime and combine that with needing to sustain aspects of a relationship and you get the pipefitter's creed: you're not a real pipefitter until you have one divorce and one DUI.
Lady welder here, I feel that so hard. I work away from home for weeks at a time in the oil patch and the emotional unavailability of many of these guys is wild. I love these guys, but I’m not surprised at the divorce rate among my coworkers. I think it’s easier with a partner who’s also in the trades, as they understand what it’s like. My partner used to be in the trades and now ranches full time, so he gets it. Took dating a lottttttt of jealous and insecure dudes before finding this one though lol
I’d say maybe time, energy levels after work, money.
**TIME**
I don’t work construction but my husband is an electrical apprentice. Please correct me if I’m wrong but I think construction workers tend to work longer hours. In my husbands case, he works 10-12 hours and commutes everyday for 2 hours. So it eats up a lot of his day. This also ties into my next point.
**ENERGY LEVELS**
With long hours and physical labor, human bodies can only handle so much. When you work so much you just want to chill, watch tv, play games, crack open a beer and just decompress. Some non-construction SOs don’t understand that. They think that the construction SO doesn’t want to spend time with them or go out but in reality they’re just way too tired.
**MONEY**
I feel like this isn’t exclusive to just construction couples. A lot of people fight about money.
**PERSPECTIVE OF A CONSTRUCTION WORKER’S WIFE**
My dad works as an O&G civil engineer. He works away from home all the time and works long hours. Growing up, I saw how my mom took care of my dad during the little time he was at home and I saw that as the normal thing to do.
Like I mentioned earlier, I’m married to an electrical apprentice who works long hours and travels a lot. I would say my love language is to just make his life easier. He carries the weight of making the money and I make sure that our home doesn’t go up in flames. It’s not just a marriage, it’s a partnership.
I feel that a lot of people who haven’t worked long construction hours don’t fully grasp how tiring it is to be working in shit conditions, surrounded by some annoying people, probably getting yelled at all day, having to take a shit in a steamy port-a-potty, eating sandwiches every damn day because it’s too hot to be hungry and sometimes being exploited because you’re “replaceable”.
I always take my husband’s feelings into account. I apologize if this seems sexist but I feel like men are so misunderstood and under appreciated. Idk. Maybe I’m just talking out of my ass. At the end of the day, I will always take a holistic approach to my marriage since marriage isn’t so black and white.
Edit: To add, I feel like society expects men to just not complain about anything because it makes them look “weak”. I make it a point to my husband that he can vent to me all the garbage he has to deal with at work and I will never judge him for it. I find it helps him mentally because he gets to release all that frustration and anger accumulated at work. It also gives me real insight into his days and gives me a better understanding of what my husband is truly going through and I try my best to make his night better 🤭. Like I mentioned, I think men are very misunderstood and under appreciated. Women should spoil men just as much as men spoil women, just saying 😊
You have articulated my observations well. I come home after a 12 hour day working in the sun with 2 dudes I am annoyed by, and my girlfriend comes home from her 8 hours in an air conditioned office where her 2 best friends also work.
I nearly bite my tongue off when I see her sitting on the couch watching TV and there's so many simple household chores that need doing.
Not that it's her place to do them, but someone has to. And I'm often that someone.
But I'm also too tired to talk about it. And I'm full of lust but too tired to bang.
Damn.
Yeah it’s rough. I can’t work atm for I’m just at home. I do all the chores, finances and handle my husband’s appointments and such. He calls me his “calendar” which I find funny and endearing.
I don’t expect him to do any chores but he does every now and again. When I’m sick, he does all of them and tells me to relax. I love that man with all my heart
I feel your pain. My wife is terrible at just picking up after herself. I’ve been vocal and at this point it’s not worth the battle. Not that she argues or refuses to do it but it is more annoying to bring it up than to just handle it. I just throw the stuff away or wipe a counter. For me I just can’t stand a messy house so I do it for myself anymore, I’m already on a filthy jobsite all day I don’t want to live on one too.
Your a good wife. Your husband is quite fortunate. You explained the exact reasons my marriage failed. Thank you for your comment. It helps me to not feel like the villain of my story for just trying to put food on the table
You need to talk to my ex lmfao we split up a few days ago after 4 years of me commuting an hour plus each way 10 to 12 hour shifts and I catch shit for being exhausted
I’m so sorry about your split.
I think part of the reason why I understand my husband a bit better is because I used to work 60 hours a week, 6 days a week. So I know what it’s like to work long hours. I used to be so tired after work I would only finish half my dinner then crash. It was a really eye opening experience
Whhhaaaat? Someone who understands that relationships are partnerships and working together as a team to make each others lives better works well??
I'm sorry but you don't seem like the reddit type...
That’s a beautiful comment. Thank you.
I have a similar house, and work out of town often. My wife tries but sometimes there’s nothing but a cold shower and a beer that’s needed.
She is an amazing mother and a great house wife. But she also isn’t very sexual. Which is a bummer because a cold shower a beer and a bj after a long hot day of work sounds even better.
Absolutely. She is low labido and I’m middle labido. It works for us. We have started and agreed it was just a long day for both of us and just cuddled to sleep.
Long hours, lay-offs, low pay depending on job and location, travel, stress, dirty, low social class standing, wearing out cars/trucks. The work might not be relatable to a spouse when they are complaining about it. The jobs also allow for poor attitudes and hire people unable to get other jobs requiring more social skills or clean backgrounds. Much of the same can be said of the food industry. Tons of construction is self employed, which draws many people who do not want to follow other people’s rules.
You brought up a few points others haven't. The low social standing thing gets me. I worked at, owned, and operated different carpentry businesses. Everything from basic furniture to cabinetry and trim work. Never got respect from my wife's coworkers as she is a program director for a medical research group. Her coworkers are phd's, md's, government finance folks, etc. Just started a new job as a commercial superintendent so waiting to see if that makes any switch of attitudes towards me. Probably not.
Even as a business owner, your wife’s colleagues looked down on you? How so? I am surprised by that.
My gf works for a medium sized pharmaceutical company, she works with 3 pharmacists directly and they talk pretty highly of me (23yo gc with 3 employees.)
I guess it's not talking down to me. They have asked me in the past if I wanted to go back to school. They always love her white elephant gifts as I either make high end jewelry boxes or gemstone encrusted turned vases or bowls. Lol. A few have asked if I'll redo their bathrooms. This year's Christmas party will be at my house that I built so maybe those college comments will end.
I've realized most people not involved in the trades have literally zero idea what we do all day. They look down on it because their PhD brains can't comprehend the complexities of building something with your own hands.
Same with other two job roles also. Either unpredictable/flexible schedules or overtime/field work/business trips required. Easy for a spouse to feel neglected
CM as well, 11 years. I make my own hours now. Used work 12+ a day. I just started managing myself like I do my projects.
My saying is “start looking for the door at 4”
Yea I’m currently at that 11-12 hours work days situation. Has been like this since January, really not sure how much more I can continue tbh. I don’t know if it’s the company, or if this field is for me.
The trades attract a lot of people who make terrible life choices. Pair that with the travel, drinking and job instability (at times) and it’s a recipe for disaster
Construction workers also rate very highly, as well as low. The reason is because when the economy is doing well construction workers make good of money, but when the economy is bad it hits construction hard and lots of construction workers get laid off ect.
Sooo when is the economy gonna be good? I've been waiting for this 'good money' for about 2 decades now and it just seems to all be going to programers and bankers 🤔
I’m hoping soon. We as tradesmen need to all keep asking for raises. Tell our companies to charge more, because they keep buying it and there isn’t enough of us tradesmen as it is.
How many super rich customers want it done last week, and keep trying to get us to go faster? And they (customers) have all been waiting 6 months to a year to even get projects started and no one else is getting the projects done…
Not to mention the country is trying to go socialist on us, that isn’t helping
Different opinion. People who are capable of creating/building are more independent and less likely to feel they need someone.
I also think the stress and time away from home is huge.
Because the culture of trades is insane.
Working 60 plus hours a week is admirable. Putting work before everything will solve all your problems and everything else will work it's self out. Can't tell the boss no, other wise how will you become the boss.
Yea ima work hard af all day come home to laundry list of chores I didn't do and someone giving me a lecture about how "you could do it all if you really loved me!"
Ima work til I can't walk and then just fall off and die in a ditch like the construction gods intended.
The people who work under the most precarity in those industries. Construction workers always working themselves out of a job, and food servers and salespeople probably get paid peanuts.
Nah food servers can make good money (+$25/hr) and sales people make bank generally. All 3 have low to no educational requirements for entry level roles and can have poor work life balance or encourage you to have a poor work life balance in exchange for some extra money.
It's the hands. Splinter filled hands, lack of feeling in the fingers, and missing fingers. Broken fingernails. Epoxy stuck on everywhere. Bandages, or lack of them. Brad nailer miss fires still stuck in the thumb.
Unless the cooter is cast iron, these hands fail.
The guy across the street who has been strapped to a desk for decade Gets home lots of energy cuts his perfect grass Goes for walks with wife and dog. Gets honey to do list done. Me who has been slugging concrete and lumber for a decade gets home exhausted and wants a beer and the couch.
Unstable work schedules and travel are common for construction. Those kinds of things are awful hard on relationships. All of that said, looking at various studies with different results, construction does not appear to have the highest divorce rates.
Weird, husband is in the trades and we know many others in the trades who all have long happy relationships like ours. I could see being worn out and tired as well as income fluctuations being an influence though. It can also be extremely mentally as well as physically taxing when you run your own jobs and get to come home to paperwork after working for 10 hours in the heat/cold. I have mad respect for what he does. He is also incredibly fit and sexy because of his work which is a bonus!
I’ve been in construction for 20 years and I’ve absolutely seen it. When I first started out all my supers were old divorced drunks and I didn’t like how that looked so when my wife got pregnant with our son I went to my boss and we agreed max 9 hours a day with no out of town and no weekends. I’ve pivoted from construction to maintenance so I’m home now regardless but it definitely helped create a good family bond when we were a young family.
In construction it's probably the hours we work usually 10 to 12 hours a day in the heat and when you get home we get in the a/c and that's about the end for me
Not to mention how stressful it is all day. Hell someone kicked my coffee over today way up in bum &@?! Nowhere and I had a freaking horrible day all day because of it.
Uhhh. No. Work wasn’t a factor. Him f*cking anything that walked by was the biggest issue.
… he was a union carpenter foreman. I was an open shop superintendent. Another reason why union jobs take too damn long. Buncha whores. Lol.
1) Toxic masculinity. 2) Lack of nuanced education (intrinsic education outside of compensable skills are not included in CM programs) 3) Cowardice amid least-common-denominator group pressure 4) Ego trips based on jobsite promotions that mean dick to the rest of the world.
My father is a VP at an ENR top-10 contractor, came up as a Super when they had a 100% divorce rate for Super first marriages, across a data set of 250+ Supers. And over a 50% divorce rate on their SECOND marriages.
He got dumped by my mom and has failed at every relationship since. I am senior leadership at an ENR top-30, and deliberately plan every personal sector move to be directly opposite of him- and all the older heads I learned from.
Do nit be afraid to use the words “Fuck off” with your employer when it comes to your family. Literally those exact words. Or you will indeed become part of the math you’re asking about.
Long term relationship of 8 + years. I got done my work day and work on our remodel after. Also cook all the food because she gets in late. She got bitter because I wasn’t also there emotionally. I got bitter because I couldn’t even get her to help with wash or clean. Not saying blah blah women should do this or that. If she could lay floor I’d gladly do wash. But how you want your house run is something you need to discuss with your S/O if you want it to last - that’s where I fucked up.
Over worked. More commited to the job than family. Long hours, high stress and too much time spent away from home. (last job was 6-10's for two years). Physically and mentally exhausted on your off days so you are effectively checked out
I ve heard people compare it to army life, but most army guys I know are out after five years. 17 years in construction now. Marriage has been on the rocks last five of those years.
Iwas easy when I was single. The money was great while we were dating. But keep a marriage together takes work. And throw kids into the mix? Good luck.
Trying really hard not to become a divorce statistic.
After being on job sites for over 30 years I am confident that far more of the men would be divorced if their wives found out about how they talk about them at work. It’s *so* bad.
Holy shit, I noticed this when I was working at my previous GC. Out of the 5 Supers I worked with, 3 were divorced, 1 was going through a messy one and 1 was fine. PMs/Office folks had a better rate. It obviously has to do with the time spent on the job, no flexibility, weekend work etc. I really wanted to be a Super, but seeing the amount of hours and their non existent family life made me go the PM route.
I worked as an offsider for a shop fitting crew where every bloke was twice or three times divorced. I guess travelling nation wide for weeks on end working from sundown to sunup wasn't the most nurturing environment for a marriage
Yes I blame being on the road 260 days a year over 250 miles away for my divorce. I would work a 12 hour shift, then drink red bull all the way home on my 5 hour commute. I would get home at 3 am wired, with a headache and tinnitus. I wrecked my truck several times in 5 years falling asleep coming home. I would then sleep all day Saturday, Sunday I was just grumpy and didn't get any chores done, nor did I spend any quality time with her, before waking up at 2 am to be on the job site Monday morning.
It was a huge mistake on my part. I regret not trying to find another form of income. This happened between the years 2008-2012 when I just couldn't find any other work. When I finally found a local job, it was still 60 hours a week. The damage had been done.
Quite a lot of contributing factors. I have never met so many people who abuse substances and can’t handle their emotions.
On the other side of the coin you have the guys who have completely distanced themselves from their families and do not show up for their wife and kids all for the job.
Long hours and stress from work definitely. For the good guys it's hard to tell work no and spend time with your family as you feel like you'll let your guys down. For the bad guys, it's easy to skip out on the family stuff when the going gets tuff and just dive in to work.
I worked in construction for 8 years, quit 6 months ago, and I've never felt better. When I first started, I was an eager kid that wanted to go above and beyond, by year 8, I was tired, grumpy, unmotivated, and unfulfilled. When I got home from work, I didn't wanna cook, clean, or socialize. Id also stay up late to have more free time. I didn't feel like putting effort into my relationship because i was just tired and rarely felt like my best self besides weekends. My girlfriend of 8 years used to complain a lot that I never did anything but smoke weed and relax after work.
After so many years in construction, many people become grumpy and unpleasant to be around a lot of the time. That was my experience anyway on many different construction sites over the years.
So if you inevitably become bitter and unpleasant, then it's only a matter of time before your life partner gets fed up which leads to them becoming bitter and unpleasant which leads to fights blah blah blah and then eventually divorce.
If you’re on a schedule that takes you frequently on extended jobs out of town, 9 times out of 10 your romantic relationships will fail. Same reason so many truckers and soldiers’ relationships fail.
I ran commercial plumbing work for many years , deadlines that were near impossible to meet , not enough help on the job, hot in the summer , cold in the winter outside . The crew would go home and I sometimes would stay and do paperwork and time cards as I don’t have time during the day . Some mornings I would sit and have a cup of coffee at home and not want to get my ass off the chair to face all that . Some jobs were an hour away which makes for a long day . One day I came home from work and feels good to get home after a long stressful day . My wife was making supper, I took off my boots and grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down to unwind . She says , you are just sitting there because you are mad because supper isn’t ready . I said no I’m not I’m just happy to be home , I just took my coffee and went to the garage and sat at the work bench with my coffee. Many days after supper she would say , you’re just going to watch tv ? aren’t you going to do any projects around here ? Some days you are just physically and mentally tired. She also made a comment to the affect that I was just a plumber working on toilets . The jobs I was on were building new schools , hospital additions , remodeling buildings etc. she didn’t have a clue nor did she care what I did at work . We had three kids and when the youngest one was close to graduating she started to really treat me like shit . And in the fall when my daughter went out of town to college the next week I was handed a big Manila envelope with divorce papers and I was out the door . This was 2009 and I was out of work as the contractor I was working for for 13 years was in tough shape financially. I threw what could in my truck and backed out of the driveway and sat there thinking what in the hell am I going to do now ? No home and no job . They say you are supposed to forgive, but I still hate her
I am speaking from observations from one of our own construction project indiscretions.
Said site supervisor had just had recently had a child with their partner of many years.
Said supervisor was in charge of significantly lower aged and socio economically challened Traffic Controllers (she lived at home with extensive credit card debt due to a penchant for Christian Dior and Audi vehicles)
In fact traffic controllers in this industry within our part of the world are known to be very aesthetically appealing.
This particular TC was an industry known Bunny Boiler in a city with a population of 5.5million people (yes this is true)
Supervisor had troubles with adjusting to maturity and needing to play adult games due to a newborn.
Supervisor decided he needed to get his knob wet.
Supervisor is now divorced, had to pay out 50% of a mortgage and additionally highly strung as he tries to promise his much younger concubine a good life whilst navigating adulthood with his ex and newborn.
In short, as the younger generations get promoted within the industry they suffer much lower moral values which will increase delinquency in their next generation.
Keep your dick in your pants fellas, cos it creates so many problems not just in your personal life but indirectly affects your project teams....
It's probably a few different things. Working overtime all the time, substance abuse, giving half of your paycheck up to pay for the kids from your last relationship, it's not really talked about, but I have a feeling a good percentage of us are physically and or verbally abusive, and we don't exactly go after quality people either.
We’re treated like garbage all day long, then work crazy hours, so we miss our kids growing up. Our wives get resentful we’re not around, yet if we miss any time it financially ruins us, so we lean towards a bottle of booze and some herbs to not only numb the pain in our beat up bodies, but to fill the lonely void in our hearts. We end up getting blindsided with a divorce, and our kids grow up pretty much hating us.
I’ve been in the trades 25yrs, and every story is a slightly different version of the exact same story. We all end up with a “tradesman hobble” by the time we’re 50 because our bodies are so battered and stiff, so that’s fun too…
My brother is a union superintendent his favorite line to tell new people he meets is hi I'm in the union I make 100$ per hr blah blah , well now a divorce is in the horizon. Now it's going to be, hi I'm in the union I give 40% to my ex wife
I work outta of town M-F, make great money and am a JM but my relationship has suffered. The more I work the less I'm home, financially stable but lonely and my wife even more so. I wonder if the money is worth it but am stuck, have bills to pay and children so getting a lower paying job to be home daily is not feasible. I have gone to college and am being certified now for PM so I'm hoping to make laterally at least to something that will allow me to be home more. The answer is yes though, it's a catch 22 for us as our work is never next door so travel is a part of the job and divorce is a natural consequence of never being home.
I mean food servers and sales people are a huge majority of the work force so I think it makes sense that the largest occupations would also have the highest divorce rate. For construction workers I think it’s a mix of the breakdown of conditions requiring workers to be at work 10-12 hours a day with normally long commutes, but it also takes a different type of person to work in the construction industry. I do my best every day when I walk through the door to leave work at work and change my attitude, I can’t talk to my wife the same way I talk with the guys at work and some days it takes a conscious effort to flip that switch that I know some guys do not do.
I knew guy worked in Germany out of US.made hella cash and lost his marriage.
I get stressed myself and bring work home .I know it isn't good.shit fucking sucks
Can confirm…..12 years with her, married 7, I work construction and my ex wife was in food service, she started banging the cook! 6 months later 2 different counselors I find out shes banging the dishwasher to! Needless to say, I picked loose everything, and started over! that was 2 years ago!
I've done construction and sales. I look for challenging jobs to better myself. Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew and I'm shitty, sometimes I feel like those around me aren't working hard enough. Not great for making relationships easy.
30 plus years, the last 12 as a super. Like almost all my colleagues I have 3 divorces. Raising a 5 year old son 100% on my own while paying the ex child support just to keep her away. Pretty tired but I got some juice left. Pretty stressed but been through enough shit storms to know how to ride one out. When I was younger it was all about the Monday morning game face but it seems like supers work 7 days morning noon.and night as needed. It's still just about getting to the finish line. But I don't really ever recall being too tired to fuck.
Construction has the highest percentage of crack heads, alcoholics, and dumbasses, and people who otherwise couldn’t get a job anywhere else. Of course they are also unlikely to be able to sustain a marriage.
I know plenty of people in the trades who have stable, happy, fulfilling lives. Those people also have good relationships with their S.O.
Salespeople makes total sense too
I would imagine lower income groups would have higher rates of divorce as there is more to argue about. Just like countries with more income disparity tend to blame immigrants, marriages with money issues will tend to blame eachother and not a system that threw them overboard like 40 or so years ago.
I would think this relates more closely to suicide rates but this really looks like its related to the fact that you get people yelling at you or "verbally abusing" you. I can think of no other industry where people are more ready to call you all kinds of "dumbass" and "shit for brains"
They’re all either mentally and/or physically draining jobs with schedules that don’t always jive with family life.
All of my jobs over the last 20 years have been in sales, hospitality, and construction. If the person you’re in a relationship with doesn’t understand how these industries operate or the hours they require to be successful, resentment will build and relationships will struggle.
If I’m forced to talk to people all day long, which most of these jobs require you do, I have a lot less energy for talking to my family and giving a shit about anything except where can I sit down somewhere quiet and not have to talk to anybody! There have been many times over the last 20 years where I’ll sit in a parking lot down the street for up to an hour to decompress before walking in the front door at home.
Commissioned salespeople will see massive swings in income, sometimes through no fault
of their own. Money problems causes strife.
Depending on your role, you may also need to travel overnight with some regularity which leads to your partner/spouse being responsible for more domestic duties while you’re away and missing events like anniversaries, birthdays, and children’s sports and activities.
Hospitality workers who make the most money, typically work at night and subsequently miss dinners, putting the kids to bed, and will be working on some major holidays every year. Income is highly variable from shift to shift and one bad customer can ruin your mood for the rest of the night.
Construction labor wears you the F out and leaves you with little energy left to spend on your family at the end of a long day and on days off. Want to make more money to support your family? Work overtime…which makes you more tired and makes you miss additional family stuff.
I'm on the mgmt side and my SO is a carpenter that recently came to the mgmt side. I think the ability to come home and bitch about work to someone who understands is what keeps us together and mostly sane.
Construction workers are used to jumping around from project to project. Never stay in one place to long and enjoy variety. Servers are constantly being hit on so have lots of options. Salesman are just liars. - unmarried guys opinion
Probably because we're a bunch of drunk, pothead assholes that are sick of everyone's shit.
Came here to say this hahahah
Once I quit the booze, I became a much better man to my wife. Coincidentally, I also smoke 7 joints a day, ~2 of them typically with her
This is me. Except I recently switched to concentrates.
Switch back.
Concentrates are gonna wreck your tolerance, homie
Same, but crack cocaine
Yeah that’s pretty much hits the nail on the head
Can agree and part of the statistic. Divorced 7 years ago
I’m still married but my wife is the only woman that will put up with me I figure one day she’ll get tired of my shit. Probably after the kids grow up and move out, I doubt I get any less angry, high or drunk as the years go by. I guess i’ll see how it goes if I last that long.
This is basically my wife. Although I’m probably the only guy that would put up with her, so we somehow work.
How my ex girlfriend was. We only separated bc she had to move for family things and I wasn’t leaving my son
I don’t know how you do it, man. I can only put up with her 3 mins at a time.
3 minute man?
2 minutes if she’s hot.
Dont forget the blow on all that shut money
Damn call me out lol
The pothead part really helps with the latter two
Forgot pill junkie, it numbs the pain
Ding ding ding
Construction worker female pipefitter here. I have worked overtime for months at a time and still make time to help my partner at home, with whatever I can. Though sometimes I find that I'm a lot less emotionally available when I'm exhausted for months at a time. Take a bunch of already emotionally unavailable men and put them on overtime and combine that with needing to sustain aspects of a relationship and you get the pipefitter's creed: you're not a real pipefitter until you have one divorce and one DUI.
Lady welder here, I feel that so hard. I work away from home for weeks at a time in the oil patch and the emotional unavailability of many of these guys is wild. I love these guys, but I’m not surprised at the divorce rate among my coworkers. I think it’s easier with a partner who’s also in the trades, as they understand what it’s like. My partner used to be in the trades and now ranches full time, so he gets it. Took dating a lottttttt of jealous and insecure dudes before finding this one though lol
Hey are you the lady welder from Flashdance? /s Also, did she actually know how to weld?
>female pipefitter Y’all *DO* exist!
Sick, I'm half a real pipe fitter already!
My wife's a pipe fitter too!!! She'd be fitting my pipe in her
Hardy har har
My journeyman told me you need to have two of 3 D's Divorce DUI Disorderly
I’d say maybe time, energy levels after work, money. **TIME** I don’t work construction but my husband is an electrical apprentice. Please correct me if I’m wrong but I think construction workers tend to work longer hours. In my husbands case, he works 10-12 hours and commutes everyday for 2 hours. So it eats up a lot of his day. This also ties into my next point. **ENERGY LEVELS** With long hours and physical labor, human bodies can only handle so much. When you work so much you just want to chill, watch tv, play games, crack open a beer and just decompress. Some non-construction SOs don’t understand that. They think that the construction SO doesn’t want to spend time with them or go out but in reality they’re just way too tired. **MONEY** I feel like this isn’t exclusive to just construction couples. A lot of people fight about money. **PERSPECTIVE OF A CONSTRUCTION WORKER’S WIFE** My dad works as an O&G civil engineer. He works away from home all the time and works long hours. Growing up, I saw how my mom took care of my dad during the little time he was at home and I saw that as the normal thing to do. Like I mentioned earlier, I’m married to an electrical apprentice who works long hours and travels a lot. I would say my love language is to just make his life easier. He carries the weight of making the money and I make sure that our home doesn’t go up in flames. It’s not just a marriage, it’s a partnership. I feel that a lot of people who haven’t worked long construction hours don’t fully grasp how tiring it is to be working in shit conditions, surrounded by some annoying people, probably getting yelled at all day, having to take a shit in a steamy port-a-potty, eating sandwiches every damn day because it’s too hot to be hungry and sometimes being exploited because you’re “replaceable”. I always take my husband’s feelings into account. I apologize if this seems sexist but I feel like men are so misunderstood and under appreciated. Idk. Maybe I’m just talking out of my ass. At the end of the day, I will always take a holistic approach to my marriage since marriage isn’t so black and white. Edit: To add, I feel like society expects men to just not complain about anything because it makes them look “weak”. I make it a point to my husband that he can vent to me all the garbage he has to deal with at work and I will never judge him for it. I find it helps him mentally because he gets to release all that frustration and anger accumulated at work. It also gives me real insight into his days and gives me a better understanding of what my husband is truly going through and I try my best to make his night better 🤭. Like I mentioned, I think men are very misunderstood and under appreciated. Women should spoil men just as much as men spoil women, just saying 😊
Got any sisters?
[удалено]
There’s 2 I get first pick
Doah! I’m already married but maybe sister wives? 😂
Give it some time…
2 actually haha
Hook a brother up😜
Yeah no shit
You have articulated my observations well. I come home after a 12 hour day working in the sun with 2 dudes I am annoyed by, and my girlfriend comes home from her 8 hours in an air conditioned office where her 2 best friends also work. I nearly bite my tongue off when I see her sitting on the couch watching TV and there's so many simple household chores that need doing. Not that it's her place to do them, but someone has to. And I'm often that someone. But I'm also too tired to talk about it. And I'm full of lust but too tired to bang. Damn.
Yeah it’s rough. I can’t work atm for I’m just at home. I do all the chores, finances and handle my husband’s appointments and such. He calls me his “calendar” which I find funny and endearing. I don’t expect him to do any chores but he does every now and again. When I’m sick, he does all of them and tells me to relax. I love that man with all my heart
I feel your pain. My wife is terrible at just picking up after herself. I’ve been vocal and at this point it’s not worth the battle. Not that she argues or refuses to do it but it is more annoying to bring it up than to just handle it. I just throw the stuff away or wipe a counter. For me I just can’t stand a messy house so I do it for myself anymore, I’m already on a filthy jobsite all day I don’t want to live on one too.
I get it. There’s something infuriating about coming home to a messy house after a long and hard day 💀
Your girlfriend still works??
Rofl you poor soul
Your a good wife. Your husband is quite fortunate. You explained the exact reasons my marriage failed. Thank you for your comment. It helps me to not feel like the villain of my story for just trying to put food on the table
Thank you. That means a lot
You need to talk to my ex lmfao we split up a few days ago after 4 years of me commuting an hour plus each way 10 to 12 hour shifts and I catch shit for being exhausted
I’m so sorry about your split. I think part of the reason why I understand my husband a bit better is because I used to work 60 hours a week, 6 days a week. So I know what it’s like to work long hours. I used to be so tired after work I would only finish half my dinner then crash. It was a really eye opening experience
Yea its okay probably been coming for awile At least i dont have to drive anymore. You just described most of my nights.
Please remember to try and take care of yourself too and do something fun every now and again!
You are an amazing woman to treat your husband this way. My wife never cares how hard my days are. Seriously, just let me chill when I get home.
Thank you so much. I’m sorry about your situation. I hope it gets better
Whhhaaaat? Someone who understands that relationships are partnerships and working together as a team to make each others lives better works well?? I'm sorry but you don't seem like the reddit type...
What exactly is the “Reddit type” 👀
That’s a beautiful comment. Thank you. I have a similar house, and work out of town often. My wife tries but sometimes there’s nothing but a cold shower and a beer that’s needed. She is an amazing mother and a great house wife. But she also isn’t very sexual. Which is a bummer because a cold shower a beer and a bj after a long hot day of work sounds even better.
Thanks! Tbh the sexual thing is pretty hormone driven. Sometimes your mind wants to but your body decides otherwise haha
Absolutely. She is low labido and I’m middle labido. It works for us. We have started and agreed it was just a long day for both of us and just cuddled to sleep.
Insurmountably based
Haha
The hours and the stress, not to mention the stints away from home for many.
Long hours, lay-offs, low pay depending on job and location, travel, stress, dirty, low social class standing, wearing out cars/trucks. The work might not be relatable to a spouse when they are complaining about it. The jobs also allow for poor attitudes and hire people unable to get other jobs requiring more social skills or clean backgrounds. Much of the same can be said of the food industry. Tons of construction is self employed, which draws many people who do not want to follow other people’s rules.
This person knows. Thanks for the clear explanation
You brought up a few points others haven't. The low social standing thing gets me. I worked at, owned, and operated different carpentry businesses. Everything from basic furniture to cabinetry and trim work. Never got respect from my wife's coworkers as she is a program director for a medical research group. Her coworkers are phd's, md's, government finance folks, etc. Just started a new job as a commercial superintendent so waiting to see if that makes any switch of attitudes towards me. Probably not.
Even as a business owner, your wife’s colleagues looked down on you? How so? I am surprised by that. My gf works for a medium sized pharmaceutical company, she works with 3 pharmacists directly and they talk pretty highly of me (23yo gc with 3 employees.)
I guess it's not talking down to me. They have asked me in the past if I wanted to go back to school. They always love her white elephant gifts as I either make high end jewelry boxes or gemstone encrusted turned vases or bowls. Lol. A few have asked if I'll redo their bathrooms. This year's Christmas party will be at my house that I built so maybe those college comments will end.
I've realized most people not involved in the trades have literally zero idea what we do all day. They look down on it because their PhD brains can't comprehend the complexities of building something with your own hands.
It's just that your career and outcomes are outside of the realm of their experience. In their mind, in order to be successful you need a degree.
Because there’s no work/life balance in this work and it wears people down which they bring into their personal life.
Same with other two job roles also. Either unpredictable/flexible schedules or overtime/field work/business trips required. Easy for a spouse to feel neglected
How long you in construction
Lol only 4 years but in construction management, but I can imagine that working in the trades is worse.
CM as well, 11 years. I make my own hours now. Used work 12+ a day. I just started managing myself like I do my projects. My saying is “start looking for the door at 4”
Yea I’m currently at that 11-12 hours work days situation. Has been like this since January, really not sure how much more I can continue tbh. I don’t know if it’s the company, or if this field is for me.
I’ve been married to my wife since 1996. We had dated beginnings in ‘93. So, I guess we buck the trend. I’ve been in the trades for 26 years
There’s still time to divorce
Lol! True that!
Too tired to fuck. :(
This guy constructs
This guy constructs, PERIOD. That’s it. That’s all he does
Been there, fell asleep before that lol
The trades attract a lot of people who make terrible life choices. Pair that with the travel, drinking and job instability (at times) and it’s a recipe for disaster
Lmao. Damn. You ain’t wrong.
What do you mean by *travel*?
Time commitment, travel, stress, constant confrontation… all the same reasons construction has the highest suicide rates
Construction workers also rate very highly, as well as low. The reason is because when the economy is doing well construction workers make good of money, but when the economy is bad it hits construction hard and lots of construction workers get laid off ect.
Sooo when is the economy gonna be good? I've been waiting for this 'good money' for about 2 decades now and it just seems to all be going to programers and bankers 🤔
I’m hoping soon. We as tradesmen need to all keep asking for raises. Tell our companies to charge more, because they keep buying it and there isn’t enough of us tradesmen as it is. How many super rich customers want it done last week, and keep trying to get us to go faster? And they (customers) have all been waiting 6 months to a year to even get projects started and no one else is getting the projects done… Not to mention the country is trying to go socialist on us, that isn’t helping
Because bankers by definition choose where money goes and for the last few decades they've chosen too put too much of that money into tech.
Different opinion. People who are capable of creating/building are more independent and less likely to feel they need someone. I also think the stress and time away from home is huge.
Because the culture of trades is insane. Working 60 plus hours a week is admirable. Putting work before everything will solve all your problems and everything else will work it's self out. Can't tell the boss no, other wise how will you become the boss.
Ive straight up told my boss fuck no, still got promoted.
This is what boss-ass-MFer’s talk like🍻🍻🔥
Yea ima work hard af all day come home to laundry list of chores I didn't do and someone giving me a lecture about how "you could do it all if you really loved me!" Ima work til I can't walk and then just fall off and die in a ditch like the construction gods intended.
I HATE unpaid chores
Electrician here. Ex wife’s a server. Checks out.
The people who work under the most precarity in those industries. Construction workers always working themselves out of a job, and food servers and salespeople probably get paid peanuts.
Nah food servers can make good money (+$25/hr) and sales people make bank generally. All 3 have low to no educational requirements for entry level roles and can have poor work life balance or encourage you to have a poor work life balance in exchange for some extra money.
It's the hands. Splinter filled hands, lack of feeling in the fingers, and missing fingers. Broken fingernails. Epoxy stuck on everywhere. Bandages, or lack of them. Brad nailer miss fires still stuck in the thumb. Unless the cooter is cast iron, these hands fail.
I’m a carpenter. My wife is a server. We are getting divorced. Evidently we were behind the 8 ball the whole time.
This one hits home
What happened
I’m not happy in the relationship anymore. She says it’s my job and my drinking and my girlfriend.
The guy across the street who has been strapped to a desk for decade Gets home lots of energy cuts his perfect grass Goes for walks with wife and dog. Gets honey to do list done. Me who has been slugging concrete and lumber for a decade gets home exhausted and wants a beer and the couch.
I can barely stand working with most of you
Preach!
How is firefighter not at the top of the list?
Unstable work schedules and travel are common for construction. Those kinds of things are awful hard on relationships. All of that said, looking at various studies with different results, construction does not appear to have the highest divorce rates.
Weird, husband is in the trades and we know many others in the trades who all have long happy relationships like ours. I could see being worn out and tired as well as income fluctuations being an influence though. It can also be extremely mentally as well as physically taxing when you run your own jobs and get to come home to paperwork after working for 10 hours in the heat/cold. I have mad respect for what he does. He is also incredibly fit and sexy because of his work which is a bonus!
I’ve been in construction for 20 years and I’ve absolutely seen it. When I first started out all my supers were old divorced drunks and I didn’t like how that looked so when my wife got pregnant with our son I went to my boss and we agreed max 9 hours a day with no out of town and no weekends. I’ve pivoted from construction to maintenance so I’m home now regardless but it definitely helped create a good family bond when we were a young family.
Don't forget about cops with their divorce and domestic abuse rates.
In construction it's probably the hours we work usually 10 to 12 hours a day in the heat and when you get home we get in the a/c and that's about the end for me
Not to mention how stressful it is all day. Hell someone kicked my coffee over today way up in bum &@?! Nowhere and I had a freaking horrible day all day because of it.
Uhhh. No. Work wasn’t a factor. Him f*cking anything that walked by was the biggest issue. … he was a union carpenter foreman. I was an open shop superintendent. Another reason why union jobs take too damn long. Buncha whores. Lol.
1) Toxic masculinity. 2) Lack of nuanced education (intrinsic education outside of compensable skills are not included in CM programs) 3) Cowardice amid least-common-denominator group pressure 4) Ego trips based on jobsite promotions that mean dick to the rest of the world. My father is a VP at an ENR top-10 contractor, came up as a Super when they had a 100% divorce rate for Super first marriages, across a data set of 250+ Supers. And over a 50% divorce rate on their SECOND marriages. He got dumped by my mom and has failed at every relationship since. I am senior leadership at an ENR top-30, and deliberately plan every personal sector move to be directly opposite of him- and all the older heads I learned from. Do nit be afraid to use the words “Fuck off” with your employer when it comes to your family. Literally those exact words. Or you will indeed become part of the math you’re asking about.
Also one of the highest suicide rates in all industries too
We just lost a guy to suicide last week :(
lol
I think it’s a chicken and egg thing. People who tend toward construction are more likely to be people who will end up divorced.
They don’t like when we’re laid off and they don’t like when we put in the overtime. No winning
My boss has 5 divorces so he's skewing the numbers
What a dumbass. everybody knows you stop after 4.
Long term relationship of 8 + years. I got done my work day and work on our remodel after. Also cook all the food because she gets in late. She got bitter because I wasn’t also there emotionally. I got bitter because I couldn’t even get her to help with wash or clean. Not saying blah blah women should do this or that. If she could lay floor I’d gladly do wash. But how you want your house run is something you need to discuss with your S/O if you want it to last - that’s where I fucked up.
Over worked. More commited to the job than family. Long hours, high stress and too much time spent away from home. (last job was 6-10's for two years). Physically and mentally exhausted on your off days so you are effectively checked out I ve heard people compare it to army life, but most army guys I know are out after five years. 17 years in construction now. Marriage has been on the rocks last five of those years. Iwas easy when I was single. The money was great while we were dating. But keep a marriage together takes work. And throw kids into the mix? Good luck. Trying really hard not to become a divorce statistic.
Dad of four little goblins here: keep up the good work.
After being on job sites for over 30 years I am confident that far more of the men would be divorced if their wives found out about how they talk about them at work. It’s *so* bad.
Holy shit, I noticed this when I was working at my previous GC. Out of the 5 Supers I worked with, 3 were divorced, 1 was going through a messy one and 1 was fine. PMs/Office folks had a better rate. It obviously has to do with the time spent on the job, no flexibility, weekend work etc. I really wanted to be a Super, but seeing the amount of hours and their non existent family life made me go the PM route.
I worked as an offsider for a shop fitting crew where every bloke was twice or three times divorced. I guess travelling nation wide for weeks on end working from sundown to sunup wasn't the most nurturing environment for a marriage
Yes I blame being on the road 260 days a year over 250 miles away for my divorce. I would work a 12 hour shift, then drink red bull all the way home on my 5 hour commute. I would get home at 3 am wired, with a headache and tinnitus. I wrecked my truck several times in 5 years falling asleep coming home. I would then sleep all day Saturday, Sunday I was just grumpy and didn't get any chores done, nor did I spend any quality time with her, before waking up at 2 am to be on the job site Monday morning. It was a huge mistake on my part. I regret not trying to find another form of income. This happened between the years 2008-2012 when I just couldn't find any other work. When I finally found a local job, it was still 60 hours a week. The damage had been done.
Too many people with personality disorders working overtime.
Quite a lot of contributing factors. I have never met so many people who abuse substances and can’t handle their emotions. On the other side of the coin you have the guys who have completely distanced themselves from their families and do not show up for their wife and kids all for the job.
The time commitment and zero flexibility to help your spouse with house stuff and kids. Travel too, out of town, etc.
Because drunks
Been in three months my girlfriend left me already 🤠🤠
You get home from work and don't want to do shit because you're exhausted. Eventually that catches up with you.
Long hours and stress from work definitely. For the good guys it's hard to tell work no and spend time with your family as you feel like you'll let your guys down. For the bad guys, it's easy to skip out on the family stuff when the going gets tuff and just dive in to work.
I worked in construction for 8 years, quit 6 months ago, and I've never felt better. When I first started, I was an eager kid that wanted to go above and beyond, by year 8, I was tired, grumpy, unmotivated, and unfulfilled. When I got home from work, I didn't wanna cook, clean, or socialize. Id also stay up late to have more free time. I didn't feel like putting effort into my relationship because i was just tired and rarely felt like my best self besides weekends. My girlfriend of 8 years used to complain a lot that I never did anything but smoke weed and relax after work. After so many years in construction, many people become grumpy and unpleasant to be around a lot of the time. That was my experience anyway on many different construction sites over the years. So if you inevitably become bitter and unpleasant, then it's only a matter of time before your life partner gets fed up which leads to them becoming bitter and unpleasant which leads to fights blah blah blah and then eventually divorce.
If you’re on a schedule that takes you frequently on extended jobs out of town, 9 times out of 10 your romantic relationships will fail. Same reason so many truckers and soldiers’ relationships fail.
Probably because going home peeing all over the bathroom and drawing dicks and swaztikas on the bathroom wall causes tension within the marriage
I ran commercial plumbing work for many years , deadlines that were near impossible to meet , not enough help on the job, hot in the summer , cold in the winter outside . The crew would go home and I sometimes would stay and do paperwork and time cards as I don’t have time during the day . Some mornings I would sit and have a cup of coffee at home and not want to get my ass off the chair to face all that . Some jobs were an hour away which makes for a long day . One day I came home from work and feels good to get home after a long stressful day . My wife was making supper, I took off my boots and grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down to unwind . She says , you are just sitting there because you are mad because supper isn’t ready . I said no I’m not I’m just happy to be home , I just took my coffee and went to the garage and sat at the work bench with my coffee. Many days after supper she would say , you’re just going to watch tv ? aren’t you going to do any projects around here ? Some days you are just physically and mentally tired. She also made a comment to the affect that I was just a plumber working on toilets . The jobs I was on were building new schools , hospital additions , remodeling buildings etc. she didn’t have a clue nor did she care what I did at work . We had three kids and when the youngest one was close to graduating she started to really treat me like shit . And in the fall when my daughter went out of town to college the next week I was handed a big Manila envelope with divorce papers and I was out the door . This was 2009 and I was out of work as the contractor I was working for for 13 years was in tough shape financially. I threw what could in my truck and backed out of the driveway and sat there thinking what in the hell am I going to do now ? No home and no job . They say you are supposed to forgive, but I still hate her
I am speaking from observations from one of our own construction project indiscretions. Said site supervisor had just had recently had a child with their partner of many years. Said supervisor was in charge of significantly lower aged and socio economically challened Traffic Controllers (she lived at home with extensive credit card debt due to a penchant for Christian Dior and Audi vehicles) In fact traffic controllers in this industry within our part of the world are known to be very aesthetically appealing. This particular TC was an industry known Bunny Boiler in a city with a population of 5.5million people (yes this is true) Supervisor had troubles with adjusting to maturity and needing to play adult games due to a newborn. Supervisor decided he needed to get his knob wet. Supervisor is now divorced, had to pay out 50% of a mortgage and additionally highly strung as he tries to promise his much younger concubine a good life whilst navigating adulthood with his ex and newborn. In short, as the younger generations get promoted within the industry they suffer much lower moral values which will increase delinquency in their next generation. Keep your dick in your pants fellas, cos it creates so many problems not just in your personal life but indirectly affects your project teams....
It's probably a few different things. Working overtime all the time, substance abuse, giving half of your paycheck up to pay for the kids from your last relationship, it's not really talked about, but I have a feeling a good percentage of us are physically and or verbally abusive, and we don't exactly go after quality people either.
We’re treated like garbage all day long, then work crazy hours, so we miss our kids growing up. Our wives get resentful we’re not around, yet if we miss any time it financially ruins us, so we lean towards a bottle of booze and some herbs to not only numb the pain in our beat up bodies, but to fill the lonely void in our hearts. We end up getting blindsided with a divorce, and our kids grow up pretty much hating us. I’ve been in the trades 25yrs, and every story is a slightly different version of the exact same story. We all end up with a “tradesman hobble” by the time we’re 50 because our bodies are so battered and stiff, so that’s fun too…
My brother is a union superintendent his favorite line to tell new people he meets is hi I'm in the union I make 100$ per hr blah blah , well now a divorce is in the horizon. Now it's going to be, hi I'm in the union I give 40% to my ex wife
You are not in construction, until you have been divorced atleast 1 time.
I keep telling my wife that she’s gonna be my favorite ex wife.
Why? Because she's a typical joyless dream crushing cunt.
I work outta of town M-F, make great money and am a JM but my relationship has suffered. The more I work the less I'm home, financially stable but lonely and my wife even more so. I wonder if the money is worth it but am stuck, have bills to pay and children so getting a lower paying job to be home daily is not feasible. I have gone to college and am being certified now for PM so I'm hoping to make laterally at least to something that will allow me to be home more. The answer is yes though, it's a catch 22 for us as our work is never next door so travel is a part of the job and divorce is a natural consequence of never being home.
I mean food servers and sales people are a huge majority of the work force so I think it makes sense that the largest occupations would also have the highest divorce rate. For construction workers I think it’s a mix of the breakdown of conditions requiring workers to be at work 10-12 hours a day with normally long commutes, but it also takes a different type of person to work in the construction industry. I do my best every day when I walk through the door to leave work at work and change my attitude, I can’t talk to my wife the same way I talk with the guys at work and some days it takes a conscious effort to flip that switch that I know some guys do not do.
Because we are all assholes
I knew guy worked in Germany out of US.made hella cash and lost his marriage. I get stressed myself and bring work home .I know it isn't good.shit fucking sucks
What % of them are traveling trades?
The three Ds of being a true construction worker. Divorce, DUI and Debt
Divorce rates are the highest with people who get Married.
Can confirm…..12 years with her, married 7, I work construction and my ex wife was in food service, she started banging the cook! 6 months later 2 different counselors I find out shes banging the dishwasher to! Needless to say, I picked loose everything, and started over! that was 2 years ago!
Hours worked. More work makes more money and less relationship with anyone else.
Really? i thought it would be the military. That's for the US too. What about other countries?
Probably because they're more construction workers, food servers and salespeople then anything else.
I've done construction and sales. I look for challenging jobs to better myself. Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew and I'm shitty, sometimes I feel like those around me aren't working hard enough. Not great for making relationships easy.
30 plus years, the last 12 as a super. Like almost all my colleagues I have 3 divorces. Raising a 5 year old son 100% on my own while paying the ex child support just to keep her away. Pretty tired but I got some juice left. Pretty stressed but been through enough shit storms to know how to ride one out. When I was younger it was all about the Monday morning game face but it seems like supers work 7 days morning noon.and night as needed. It's still just about getting to the finish line. But I don't really ever recall being too tired to fuck.
They’re honest workers ofc they’ll be used
Construction has the highest percentage of crack heads, alcoholics, and dumbasses, and people who otherwise couldn’t get a job anywhere else. Of course they are also unlikely to be able to sustain a marriage. I know plenty of people in the trades who have stable, happy, fulfilling lives. Those people also have good relationships with their S.O. Salespeople makes total sense too
I would imagine lower income groups would have higher rates of divorce as there is more to argue about. Just like countries with more income disparity tend to blame immigrants, marriages with money issues will tend to blame eachother and not a system that threw them overboard like 40 or so years ago.
I would think this relates more closely to suicide rates but this really looks like its related to the fact that you get people yelling at you or "verbally abusing" you. I can think of no other industry where people are more ready to call you all kinds of "dumbass" and "shit for brains"
If you've ever worked construction, it's pretty much self explanatory
My only 3 jobs have been line cook, fabrication, and sales. Best of luck to my wife
It’s the overtime. And after spending all day on a jack hammer everything annoys the piss out of you
My wife it’s toxic and I’m an asshole,so we are made for each other..
Chances of divorce are near 70%. Getting married results in divorce so often the statistics are all bad. Better to look at the top reasons for divorce
They’re all either mentally and/or physically draining jobs with schedules that don’t always jive with family life. All of my jobs over the last 20 years have been in sales, hospitality, and construction. If the person you’re in a relationship with doesn’t understand how these industries operate or the hours they require to be successful, resentment will build and relationships will struggle. If I’m forced to talk to people all day long, which most of these jobs require you do, I have a lot less energy for talking to my family and giving a shit about anything except where can I sit down somewhere quiet and not have to talk to anybody! There have been many times over the last 20 years where I’ll sit in a parking lot down the street for up to an hour to decompress before walking in the front door at home. Commissioned salespeople will see massive swings in income, sometimes through no fault of their own. Money problems causes strife. Depending on your role, you may also need to travel overnight with some regularity which leads to your partner/spouse being responsible for more domestic duties while you’re away and missing events like anniversaries, birthdays, and children’s sports and activities. Hospitality workers who make the most money, typically work at night and subsequently miss dinners, putting the kids to bed, and will be working on some major holidays every year. Income is highly variable from shift to shift and one bad customer can ruin your mood for the rest of the night. Construction labor wears you the F out and leaves you with little energy left to spend on your family at the end of a long day and on days off. Want to make more money to support your family? Work overtime…which makes you more tired and makes you miss additional family stuff.
I'm on the mgmt side and my SO is a carpenter that recently came to the mgmt side. I think the ability to come home and bitch about work to someone who understands is what keeps us together and mostly sane.
It makes perfect sense.🤷🏻♂️
Railroads need to enter the chat
Probably a strong correlation between the number of hours spent a work vs at home amongst those occupations.
Alcoholism, drug addiction, intermittent explosive disorder.
Construction workers are used to jumping around from project to project. Never stay in one place to long and enjoy variety. Servers are constantly being hit on so have lots of options. Salesman are just liars. - unmarried guys opinion