[Part 17] I Couldn't Look My Wife in the Eyes on Her First Day Back

[Series #17] I Couldn't Look My Wife in the Eyes on Her First Day Back

A Working Dad's Survival Story in the Age of AI · Series #17 · Holding on is a strategy. But you can't do it alone.

I want to share a story about my late mother-in-law.

I love spicy food. She knew that. So whenever she made stir-fried anchovies, she always made two versions — one with dried chili peppers, one without. That was the kind of person she was. She took care of her son-in-law better than her own children. One day, she said something quietly.

"Shouldn't you let your wife rest now?"

At the time, our first child was three years old. Our second had just been born. My wife had three months of maternity leave, and then she was expected to go straight back to work. My response was simple. "Things are a bit tight right now."

They say men are slow to grow up. I was. I wasn't thinking about it at all. I just assumed that was how life worked. By the time I'd grown up enough — somewhere in my mid-40s — I finally understood why she'd said what she said. And how hard those years must have been for my wife.

That has stayed with me. I still think about it. So when my wife left her job recently, I genuinely wanted to protect that. To let her stay home. To finally give her that rest. But it didn't work out that way.

I. The Holding On Never Stops

Holding on is genuinely hard. Holding on while keeping a job. Holding on while keeping a family fed. And then trying to hold on through something new — starting a blog, thinking about YouTube, studying AI.

So many people tell you how to do it. This is how you grow views. This is how you generate income. "I'm giving you everything — why won't people just do it?" You hear that and you start. At first, it feels okay. There's a lot to learn, a lot to follow. When AdSense approval finally comes through, it even feels like something is beginning.

But the real fight starts after that. Six months pass. A year passes. Nothing much changes. Two or three times a week, the same thought creeps in. "Is this actually possible? Is this even the right path?" And then you do it again. Then you burn out again. Then you do it again. Because the alternative — selling your labor indefinitely, with no end in sight — is too bleak to accept.

That desperation keeps you sitting back down at the desk every day.
But something inside keeps quietly thinning out.

II. Reality Doesn't Wait for You to Be Ready

Not long ago, my wife got sick and had to leave her job. I was deeply unsettled. Revenue from my main work was shrinking. Living expenses were growing. The blog and YouTube were exactly where they'd always been. For the first time, I felt afraid of holding on.

In the end, my wife went back to work. This is a woman who has worked for over thirty years. She went back after thyroid surgery, with a body that hadn't fully recovered. I had promised myself this time would be different. That promise lasted less than a year before it fell apart.

On the day she went back,
I couldn't bring myself to look her in the eyes.

III. I Wasn't Holding On Alone

For a long time, I told myself it was my fault. That I was putting my wife through this because I wasn't good enough. But as time passed, a different thought started to form. I thought I was holding on alone. But the truth was that my family had been holding on alongside me the entire time.

My wife was holding on with her body. My children were holding on by pretending not to notice the anxiety in their father's eyes. My wife going back to work — that was my failure. But blaming that failure alone doesn't keep the household together. In the end, painful as it is, this is the reality we're living: leaning on each other because there's no other way.

I lean on her. She leans on me.
That's how we're getting through today.

To Close

I used to not understand what people meant when they said "holding on is a strategy." What kind of strategy is just holding on? But I think I understand it now. Holding on isn't about white-knuckling it through something alone. It means being in a state where the person closest to you is holding on right beside you.

Holding on alone doesn't last as long as you think. Revenue is hard to build alone. And your mind is hard to protect alone.

I'm not enough. But this is the reality of being a working dad in your 40s and 50s.
Surviving the AI era isn't just about what you do.
It might be about who you hold on with.

···

I think of my mother-in-law from time to time.

And I feel sorry.

The question I'm taking into the next post:

What our generation has —
can experience really become a weapon in the age of AI?