Today’s post is from my husband. I am a blogger here at Blogging on the Side and on my own personal blog, Your Modern Family.
This is from the side of my husband (blogging can be annoying to them when they don’t understand, so I wanted to share our story for you, so that hopefully you will feel encouraged by it and maybe show your husband- he can see why you do what you do! haha!)
Our story: He is the love of my life! We started dating in high school when I was 14 and he was 15. We went to opposite high schools in the same home town and opposite colleges, three hours apart. We were married the year that we graduated and we moved from PA to NC together.
We now have four kids (7, 5, 3 and 1) together and we have a strong marriage (10 years now), because we keep God and family first in our lives. We are best friends, without a doubt.
Blogging was hard for him to understand, at first, so I asked him to write a post to the husband’s of blogging wives. Ps- he actually came up with the name of my personal blog, Your Modern Family. He has been a part of this from the get-go!
Here is his post… (he was talking to me, while I typed what he wrote. Those typing classes that I took in high school have made blogging so much faster, by the way!)
I am going to ask him questions and you will see his answers:
1. WHAT DID YOU THINK WHEN I SAID THAT I WAS GOING TO START A BLOG?
“When you said you were going to start a blog, I thought it would be “I’ll spend an hour a night here, an hour a night there, just writing a little.” I didn’t realize that blogging would be so time consuming.
I didn’t realize that it isn’t just writing. Writing is the small part of it- that part only takes you about 20 minutes. It is all of the other stuff that you do that takes up your time, like pictures, and technical stuff and “social media stuff”, as you call it.
For a while there, you were staying up until 2:00 in the morning, which you still do a lot of nights, trying to blog while the kids are asleep because you don’t want it to take away time from them, which I admire. You were still waking up at 7:00 in the morning, so you weren’t getting nearly enough sleep, but you wanted to succeed at blogging and being a wife & mom, but that’s how you are. You are a go-getter. (its becky here- this actually drives him crazy because he says that I always have a project, but that’s just my personality).
2. IF YOU HAD TO GIVE ONE PIECE OF ADVICE TO OTHER HUSBANDS, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
If I had to tell husbands of bloggers something, I would tell them, especially those with kids, you have to expect that as the father, you have to step it up a little bit when your wife starts blogging, like starting any job. You have to keep the kids busy if she works, but it brings you closer to your kids and builds your bond. Take them to the park or something.
3. WHAT WAS THE HARDEST PART FOR YOU AT FIRST? YOU SEEMED FRUSTRATED.
It was frustrating at first. I was working late hours, not getting home until 6:30 or 7:00 and when I’d get home, we would get the kids to bed and you would start working on your blog, instead of hanging out to watch our shows. It was a lot of time at first. I didn’t get it and it was annoying to see you online again.
It was a lot of time and when you are used to having your wife spend time with you, that is really tough at first, but it gets easier once she gets her blog going. You’ve been blogging for what, a year now? Its so much better now that you have it going. I feel like we spend a lot of time together again. Now I know why you wanted to do it right at first so that you could have it moving how you wanted and now you don’t have to do nearly as much and it has been paying off now.
4. WHAT WOULD YOU TELL HUSBANDS ABOUT WHEN IT GETS EASIER?
As the husband, you just have to buckle down for six months, because its just like having a newborn. You don’t realize, when you have an infant, how much time it will take- how much they (a baby) will need you. That’s just like your blog- it has to be nurtured before you can ‘let it fly’ and know that ‘it will land on two feet’, you know? A lot of hours go into taking care of it to get it going and starting out right.
5. WHEN DID YOU START TO REALIZE THIS WAS WORTH IT?
I remember for a while, that you (Becky) had to point things out to me.
You would say: “Mic, look at this coding. This is what I am doing right now. I have to do all of this just to add a link to my post. The point of adding a link in here is to bring more page views to my post. The more views that I get, the better off my blog will be.”
Seeing it like that helped because I saw that you weren’t just “playing online”, you were doing things that I didn’t understand. Once you showed me what you were doing & I understood, I realized that you were starting a buisness and that you weren’t just “playing online”. I appreciated that.
Now that you have been blogging for a year, you have found that you can do it in just two hours a night. You aren’t doing it all evening long anymore. You don’t blog when the kids are up and if you do, you find ways to entertain them. You have found a good balance, that it doesn’t take up family time.
6. WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN I BLOG?
The way I look at it is if I wanted to watch the football game for a couple of hours, you used to say “Oh, really? Ugh. Ok.” but now you always say “Yeah, go ahead and do that. I’ll write up a post.”
Plus, it frees up time for me to do some of my own things because if I want to do something that you don’t want to do, like watch Gold Rush, or football or if I want to work on the car, you can work on your blog while I do my thing. It gives us our own hobbies.
7. DO YOU THINK ITS BEEN WORTH IT, FINANCIALLY?
YES, it has been a huge benefit to our family. The supplemental income part… is huge. They say money doesn’t buy you happiness, but it helps to alleviates worry. Your blog makes a lot and it makes things a lot easier. It is like a self-starting job. The more you put into it, the more you get out of it.
Plus, you are helping other people. That’s what you love to do. You get e-mails from people needing help or advice and you can give them what they need, which is big. That’s who you are anyways- someone that helps. Like your new blog, Blogging on the Side, you are helping other bloggers because you always want other people to do well. Plus, you have gotten to be good friends with the girls you blog with, so that’s been nice for you, too.
8. WHAT WOULD YOU TELL A HUSBAND OF A WIFE JUST STARTING HER BLOG?
If I had to give one piece of advice to the husband of a blogging wife, I would say “Rather than discourage, encourage.”
The biggest thing: Be a patient partner. When you started, Beck, you couldn’t figure out the technical side of it, but you got it because you stuck with it and figured it out on your own by doing research.
9. WHAT ABOUT IF THEY FEEL LIKE THEY NEED TO SPEND MONEY ON THEIR BLOG TO MAKE MONEY?
Yes- do it. For the husbands… let your wife spend money on a nice computer, once you see that she is sticking to it for 6 months (he laughs). It will cut down on her blogging time by a lot! (Becky’s little note: I have a macbook pro. My old laptop was very slow and would freeze often. This has made it so much better. Plus, its a tax write-off!)
I really wanted her to quit blogging when I was working a lot and coming home and had to do more around the house because you were trying to start up your blog and it was taking up a lot of your ‘free’ time- the time when the kids weren’t up. You were getting discouraged and so was I, but you figured it out and got a good flow and balance.
10. WHAT ABOUT CHANGING SCHEDULES OR GIVING UP CERTAIN THINGS?
You aren’t really giving anything up, just rescheduling things. You still spend time with the kids, but now you have figured out how to blog when they aren’t there, like during nap time or quiet time. You write down ideas when the kids are up, but save the writing for night. You preschedule social posts in the morning, before the kids get ready for school. You are always thinking about it, but blogging about it later. You don’t have the down time that you used to have.
Expect crock pot meals.
Expect take out or pasta night once a week.
Expect that she won’t get the laundry done every day or the house spotless every day.
11. WHAT ABOUT HOUSEWORK? DID IT BOTHER YOU THAT I DIDN’T PUT IN THE TIME THAT I USED TO? BE HONEST!
Beck, it bothered me, at first, that you weren’t doing as much housework. I know, I know (he says this because I rolled my eyes) It just that it was always done before. Dinner cooked. The house cleaned & everything picked up. Everything in its place. Toys put away. Laundry done. Everything swept & dusted… just really clean. Now it might be a few days where the laundry isn’t done every day or dinner is just a quick meal or crock pot meal.
Well, now that you are using that emeals thing, its better again, you seem to enjoy cooking when its planned for you (he laughs), but now that I see all that you have to do, I don’t expect you to do it all. You had spoiled me and the kids (he laughs). You still do. (now I laugh)
12. DO YOU THINK ITS WORTH IT NOW THAT YOU SEE WHAT COMES FROM IT?
Yes. I definitely think if you are in this to make money, or to be a success, you have to put your hard work into it.
When I see those very profitable months, I see how much your hard work pays off.
It is like a commission only job. If you put 50% into it, you get 50% out of it. If you put 100% into it, you get 100% out of it.
13. WHEN DID THINGS CHANGE FOR YOU THAT YOU FELT LIKE YOU STARTED SEEING THE REAL BENEFITS?
The fact that you get free things in the mail every day helps, or when you get over 150 e-mails a day… that still shocks me!
I still remember the exact day that I saw how great your blogging was for our family.
When they delivered a vacuum cleaner to our house and I saw a $300 vacuum and I said “Oh- did you buy a new vacuum?” and you said “No, I got this, plus I am being paid to write about it”
I realized, Ok- she’s making real money on this. This is a job. I need to take it seriously.
Now, if you got a car, I would know you’ve really made it. ” (We both start laughing at this one, but he goes on to tell me “Not a fancy one. Just a regular car, you know? Maybe you can e-mail…” Ok, then, Mic… I think this interview is about done.). haha!!
So there you have it! From the mouth of a blogger’s husband.
So, tell me, how does your husband handle being a blogger’s spouse?