Then I got lonely–for the same reasons you outline. So this Fall I signed up for two classes at the college–not online ones, but seated ones. That way I get to interact with actual people and I am still able to stay home. The tuition was pretty low, so that was good. If you can’t swing tuition for the local community college, check out the libraries and such, they often offer free or low cost classes to take. Then you can take scrapbooking or knitting or sewing classes and still have real people to talk to.

Steph, good point. I’m really lucky that my partner is willing to negotiate the housework. I realize that I need to lower my own expectations of myself. But it’s still hard.

I’m still trying to find the right balance. I think it comes with time/patience.

Now we ‘pick up for the cleaning person’ — she comes in and does the actual cleaning and neither of us does the bathrooms… My cleaning person is self-employed, so she doesn’t have an agency taking much of the fee I pay her. She also decides on her own schedule etc… so it’s a good job for her as she’s a single mother who is also in college… in fact, I also know she’s a good student because she took my class. When she was done being my student, I hired her.