For a lot of my marriage, I felt like I was living in waiting. Waiting for my husband to get home. Waiting to eat supper because maybe he’d be home soon enough to eat with us. Waiting to make plans because I wanted him to come too. Waiting for work to slow down, the long days to end, or the next job to be different.
I didn’t realize how much of my life I was arranging around his work schedule because it made sense to me. Of course I wanted my husband there. Of course I wanted us to do things as a family. Of course I’d rather wait another hour to eat supper if it meant he could sit at the table with us. I love my husband. I like spending time with him. But somewhere along the way, I got so used to wanting him to be part of our life that I forgot our life was still happening when he wasn’t there.
Then Missouri Happened
In 2022, my husband started working in Missouri. He would leave Monday morning and come home Friday night, and somewhere in those Monday-through-Friday stretches, something changed in me. I got comfortable being alone.
I started taking our boys places by myself, and I became way less nervous about doing things without him. Instead of looking at five kids and thinking I needed another adult there before we could go somewhere, I packed everybody up and went. It wasn’t that I stopped wanting my husband there. I learned that wanting him there and needing him there were two very different things. That realization gave me a kind of freedom I didn’t even know I was missing.
Apparently, I Needed to Learn That Lesson Twice
Fast-forward to 2026. My husband took a job in South Dakota that was supposed to last a few months. Hahahahaha. They were supposed to be done in July, and then July came and went. I have spent more time angry about that than I’d like to admit.
I understand construction. I know they can’t perfectly predict how long every job will take. Things happen and timelines change. But maybe don’t tell me you’re going to be done in July if nobody actually knows you’re going to be done in July. Then we heard October 31. Then November 14. At this point, I don’t think anybody knows. I just pray he’s home before Christmas.
This year has forced me to confront that old version of myself again. The one who wants to wait until he’s home, wait until our family is back together, wait until things are normal again, and wait until I can finally exhale and start enjoying things the way they’re “supposed” to be enjoyed. Except at some point, I had to ask myself what happens if I spend months waiting for a date that keeps moving?
How Much of Your Life Are You Waiting to Live?
That’s really what this comes down to for me. I spent a lot of years waiting for permission I didn’t actually need. Permission to go somewhere without him. Permission to make plans. Permission to have my own interests. Permission to spend time on something that mattered to me. Permission to be more than the person holding everything together at home while he worked.
To be clear, my husband wasn’t standing there telling me I couldn’t do these things. I was waiting for permission from myself. When you’re married to a man who works incredibly hard, it can be easy to minimize what you’re doing because you know what he’s carrying too.
He’s working 17- to 20-hour days. He’s exhausted. He’s hundreds of miles away from home. He’s sacrificing, and he IS doing a lot. But I’m doing a lot too. I’m raising our boys, taking care of our house, homeschooling, working, and handling whatever random thing decides to fall apart that day. I’m carrying the million little responsibilities that don’t stop just because Dad is 500 miles away.
Both things can be true. He can work incredibly hard for our family, and I can still need a life that feels like mine.
I Didn’t Need a New Husband. I Needed Something That Was Mine.
This is the part I wish more blue-collar wives talked about because sometimes when you’re frustrated with your husband’s schedule, you start believing the solution is for the schedule to change. If he could just get home earlier. If this job would just end. If they would stop scheduling Fridays. If busy season would hurry up. If he could just be around more. And yes, sometimes I absolutely want those things.
They recently changed my husband’s schedule from Monday through Thursday to Monday through Friday. Now he drives out Sunday, works all week, drives home Friday, and we get a couple of hours before bed Friday night, all day Saturday, and church together Sunday before he leaves again. Am I thrilled about that? Absolutely not. They say it’ll help them finish the job faster. We’ll see.
But I’ve had to realize that I cannot build my happiness around a work schedule I don’t control. I can love my husband, miss him, cry because I know how hard those days are on him, and be mad that work gets so much of his time while still waking up tomorrow and living my own life.
Something Changed When I Started Creating Again
I didn’t wake up one morning and decide I needed to become an entrepreneur. Actually, some of the things that helped me find myself again had absolutely nothing to do with money. I dug in the dirt and planted a garden. I colored. I learned how to hand knit a blanket. I painted. I tried things simply because they sounded interesting.
The more I created, the more I found things I enjoyed. I started using parts of my brain that had nothing to do with remembering appointments, planning meals, keeping the house running, or figuring out which child had lost which shoe. Creativity gave me somewhere to put my attention that was mine simply because I enjoyed it.
That’s what I would tell another woman who says, “But I don’t know what my thing is.” Don’t put pressure on yourself to discover your life’s purpose by Tuesday. Start creating. Plant something, paint something, write something, learn something, or make something horribly ugly and laugh about it. Follow your curiosity for a while because the more I used my creative side, the more I started recognizing myself again.
My “Thing” Had Actually Been There All Along
I’ve always loved writing. I’m a published author now, but long before that, I was apparently the designated note taker at school. When somebody was absent, the teacher would ask, “Who wants to take notes so-and-so can have them when they get back?” I didn’t even have a choice because everybody would turn around and point at me.
I still have notebooks sitting all over our house. Writing is just part of who I am. So when I learned about letter writing as a way to make money, something clicked. This was something I already liked doing, and even better, I could do the work and get paid for the work.
That mattered to me because I’d previously been in an MLM. My income there depended heavily on other people buying something. Letter writing felt different because I could sit down, write, do the work, and there was an established process for getting paid. But here’s the important part: I wouldn’t have found my Letter Writing Pipeline if I hadn’t first learned that letter writing was even an option.
Maybe You Haven’t Found Your Thing Because You Don’t Know It Exists Yet
That’s one of the reasons I think women get stuck when someone says, “Just find your passion!” Okay, HOW? Are we supposed to magically know about every possible hobby, skill, business model, income stream and opportunity in existence and then select our calling from the giant invisible menu?
I didn’t need somebody to tell me exactly what my thing had to be. I needed exposure to possibilities. I knew surface-level information about several ways people were making money online, but there is a massive difference between knowing something exists and understanding how people actually do it.
That’s eventually what I found inside Boss Suite. It gave me somewhere to learn the ins and outs, somewhere to ask questions, and somewhere to explore different possibilities. I’ve since worked with affiliate marketing, letter writing, Amazon KDP, TikTok Shop, Amazon reviews and UGC.
That doesn’t mean I believe every woman needs six income streams, and it definitely doesn’t mean every income stream will be right for every person. Exploring simply gave me the opportunity to figure out what I enjoyed instead of assuming I was supposed to already know.
The Biggest Thing Boss Suite Gave Me Wasn’t Actually Money
This might sound ridiculously simple, but Boss Suite gave me something to do. It gave me something to learn, something to experiment with, something to think about, and something that fed my brain for a purpose. It helped wake up the creative part of me again.
Sometimes that creativity spills into things Boss Suite doesn’t even teach. One night, I sat down to work on my blog around 7 p.m., and the next thing I knew, it was 3 a.m. Was that an appropriate bedtime? Absolutely not. But I was creating. I was writing. I had ideas. I had things I wanted to offer and things I wanted to say.
Boss Suite doesn’t teach blogging. Maybe it will someday, but that’s not why I’m telling you this. I’m telling you because once I started feeding that creative part of myself again, it didn’t stay contained inside one course. I wanted to make things again. I wanted to learn again. I wanted to see what I was capable of.
Then Something I’d Created a YEAR Earlier Made Money
Eventually, my blog made money from a post I’d written a year before. That was a huge moment for me because suddenly something I had created in the past was still out there working. My creativity wasn’t just something I could squeeze in when I had spare time. It could become an asset, and it could create income.
Having my own income has changed little pieces of my life in ways that probably wouldn’t sound impressive in some internet business ad. I can stock our pantry with more confidence because I know we have ways to access more money. I was able to buy bigger clothes that actually fit my body without feeling guilty about spending the money. Those things matter to me.
I’m not trying to build some internet fantasy where my husband quits his job and we take pictures with laptops on the beach. I’m building options. I want our family to have more than one way money can come into our house, and I want to know that the things I’m building can contribute too.
Having Something of Your Own Doesn’t Mean You Stop Needing Your Husband
I think this distinction matters because independence inside a marriage doesn’t have to mean separation from your spouse. You can be independent and enjoy your husband. Surely your husband has things he enjoys too. Mine does.
I’m literally working on this while he’s building a metal dragonfly thingy. We’re both here. We’re together. He’s doing his thing, and I’m doing mine. That’s marriage too.
We don’t have to be staring lovingly into each other’s eyes every second we’re in the same room to prove we enjoy each other. We can coexist in a hundred different ways. Sometimes we do things together. Sometimes I work while he creates something. Sometimes we sit together and barely talk. And sometimes he’s 500 miles away and I have to build a full life without him physically here. None of those things mean I love him less.
You Are Allowed to Thrive While You Wait for Him to Come Home
That’s the lesson I’m still learning. I still miss my husband. I still want more intentional time with him. I still want more communication. I still want him to recognize that while he’s working his butt off out there, I’m working my butt off here too.
And yes, sometimes I still get angry. I’m not going to pretend I’ve reached some enlightened blue-collar-wife state where changing the schedule again doesn’t piss me off. It does. But I don’t want to hand an unpredictable construction schedule the power to decide whether I get to enjoy my life.
I don’t want to look back someday and realize I spent years waiting for the next job to end because there will probably always be another job. Another long day. Another project. Another deadline. Another busy season. There will always be another reason we could wait.
Every Blue-Collar Wife Deserves Something of Her Own
Not because your husband isn’t enough, your marriage isn’t enough, or because you need to prove that you don’t need anybody. Every blue-collar wife deserves something of her own because she’ll live her entire life waiting if she doesn’t.
Your something doesn’t have to make money. It can be a garden, a notebook, a craft, a hobby, a project, or a skill you’re learning simply because your brain lights up when you learn it. You are allowed to have something in your life that exists simply because it makes you feel creative, curious, excited, challenged, or more like yourself.
But your something can make money too. If the idea of building something that belongs to you while also creating more options for your family makes something inside you perk up a little, I think that’s worth paying attention to.
What If You Don’t Know Where to Start?
Start by seeing what’s possible. That’s one of the reasons I recommend Boss Suite. Boss Suite is a $597 course built around multiple ways of earning income rather than forcing you into one specific path.
For me, its value has been having one place where I can learn more about opportunities I’m interested in, understand more of the ins and outs, and have somewhere to ask questions while I figure things out. It’s helped me explore things like letter writing, affiliate marketing, Amazon KDP, TikTok Shop, Amazon reviews and UGC.
That doesn’t mean you’ll love the same things I do, and I hope you don’t go into it trying to copy me. The whole point is discovering what fits you. Boss Suite isn’t a guarantee that you’ll make money, and buying a course doesn’t replace actually doing the work.
I also don’t think you need to buy Boss Suite in order to have something of your own. You can close this post, grab an old notebook, and start writing tonight for free. You can buy a packet of seeds, pull out the coloring book that’s been sitting in the closet, learn something on YouTube, or finally try the thing you’ve been thinking about for six months.
But if you’ve reached the point where you’re thinking, “I want something that’s mine. I just don’t know what that something could be yet,” Boss Suite can give you a whole lot of possibilities to explore.
Because sometimes finding your thing starts with finally discovering that your thing even exists.
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