To work or not to work?

Time is already ticking away towards D Day, the day we move to Spain. The first few days after we made the decision I was so excited I could hardly wait; all I could think about was wandering down to the beach in bare feet and shorts. But now my normal anxiety has reasserted itself and I keep thinking about the whole "I am not working" thing.

People ask me "what are you going to do in Spain?" and I am finding myself using feeble words like "Well, of course I'll work but initially there will be a lot to do, you know, admin.." If people keep asking me what kind of thing I think I might do, I am saying "oh, consulting, or maybe something local.." It is all a bit defensive.

Well, for the last x years of my life, I have been shouting at "research" in the Mail and Telegraph about how women should give up work and stay at home. I have all the arguments as to why I should work at my fingertips. But now, for the first time in my adult life, I am about to stop working and I have forgotten all the research in the Mail that proved why this was an excellent idea.

I am not saying I am exactly sad about this. People have kept asking me how I felt, as if I were sick, but the fact is that the last job I really enjoyed was Euromoney, in 1989. This was a great wheeze; travelling around South East Asia, staying in the Shangri La Kuala Lumpur, meeting a few bankers, picking up knock-off Gucci bags, and then bashing out a feature; things were downhill after that.

However, it is a bit unsettling and the worst thing about it is that I keep worrying about how it will affect my relationship with Sandy. The other day I heard an item on Radio 4 that said marriages often break up when the woman stops working, because she can only talk about nappies and the man gets no attention any more. Actually, I mean I keep worrying it will mean Sandy can boss me about. He already says things like: "I was thinking of buying you a van," and when I correct him and say "You mean, you were thinking WE could buy a van for me," he says it is the same thing, which it is not.

We have had some conversations like this:

Me: I’ve worked very hard of course. I did work right through having the two children. (I may make a point about being sick daily on the M40 when I had to drive to Windsor for work. The car was full of liquorice allsorts which I mistakenly thought would stop vomiting.)
Silence from Sandy who is on his laptop.
Me: I feel really bad about it. I’ve always worked, I was brought up to work.
Silence.
Me: On the other hand, I have just earned a year’s redundancy, so I don’t need to start working for a year.
S: Yes, that’s right. (To the computer) Shit!
Me: Are you pleased we’re going? We couldn’t go of course if I wasn’t able to settle the children in. I’m doing a lot already, getting the teacher organised.
S: Good. (Fiddles with laptop)
Me: It’s good they’ll learn Spanish, isn’t it?
S: Yes, very good.
Me: But are you pleased we’re going.
S: Yes, very pleased.
Me: You don’t sound very pleased.
S: Well, you know it won’t make that much difference to me – I’ll still be working.
Me: That makes me feel bad. I feel bad if you’re working and I’m not.

This conversation which is a version of others we have had at regular intervals through our marriage potentially goes on for hours and is repeated regularly. What I am getting at is I want him to say “I don’t want you to work” or “you don’t need to work.” I have been trying to get my husband to say these words for the last 15 years, but to no avail. I would like his permission not to work, and he stubbornly refuses to give it. The closest he will come is “You do what you like, it doesn’t matter to me.” I’m not sure what this means: does it mean "I am easy either way," or does it mean: "I am not going to risk expressing a view"?

When challenged when he is in a good mood, e.g. in the pub, Sandy says he genuinely doesn't mind if I work or not. At these points, I wonder if this might not be an argument I am having with him but with myself.

These are the arguments I have always used for working:

Argument 1: Independence.

It was good for me to work, because then Sandy and I are equal if there’s an argument, and he can’t use money against me. This has always seemed a good argument, but when I think about it, it implies I dont trust my husband (or anyone). Maybe it's time I tried.

PS: I am not good at taking money from people though; I like to have my own, and I don't like people buying me stuff. Ex boyfriend Timothy, now so rich he doesn't work, used to offer me money and clothes. (At the time, I felt he was trying to control me but it could just be a matter of taste; after all, he doesn't eat anywhere less smart than the Savoy whereas I really am much happier in somewhere with metal tables.) He bought me three Hermes scarves; I have been debating whether to take them to Spain because I could wear them like Grace Kelly on the beach –but knowing me I would look like a peasant woman - anyway, nobody on Vera beach is going to be checking out my look. The alternative is to "flog them on eBay" (people keep advising me to do this).

Argument 2: money.

Yes, jobs earn you money, but I have ploughed back a significant percentage of said salary into clothes, shoes, makeup, etc. I have been into Space NK a lot and got a lot of scary spray on foundations that made me look like a flight attendant, Botox fillers and dinky eyebrow stencilling kits I couldn't work. Sometimes I think I spent about 75% of my salary on maintaining my lifestyle, depending on what you count. Of course, if I had stayed at home and not worked, I might have spent even more on gym membership and Zoffany wallpapers.

Argument 3: health

Working is good for you – or is it? As my children say in their most sinister voices. “Or is it?”

If you don’t work, like people with private incomes and layabouts, your personality doesn’t develop because you can do what you like and nobody rubs the corners off you. There may be an element of truth in this - look at celebrities - but equally you don't want to rub off so many corners that you go out of shape. Look at Jasmine, my friend who did not do well or go to university but married young. Whereas I have spent the last x years stressing about office politics, she has worked at home with her horses, and the fact is she is sweet and laid back and I am a nervous wreck with anger management issues.

Argument 4: work is fun

Sandy favours the “you know you like it really" argument (you know you like housework/ you know you prefer driving an old car, etc.) “You’d be bored if you didn’t work – you would soon get fed up (implication: You’d have to take pills and we'd have to put you in a psychiatric unit.”) Possibly, but we don’t know till we’ve tried it, and as I have pointed out, it is not as if work has made me well-balanced and we have the evidence to prove that it has not.

(Jasmine supports Sandy's view, largely because she doesn’t want me to go to Spain, only her view is also affected by the fact that she has delusions about what working is really like. She thinks my job is a bit like Rebecca’s in Hotel Babylon, which I wish it were because I would certainly like to be Tamsin Outhwaite.)

As part of her anti-Spain campaign, Jasmine keeps saying things like “I can’t see you with your high-flying job doing nothing in the middle of nowhere.” I can see a mental picture of me, dressed in an Armani suit, standing in the middle of a turnip field and crying that I miss Christophers. I protest that she doesn’t know what I am like, but it is clear the business suit is interfering with her vision of the real me. When I see myself, I see myself in my old shorts and bare feet, but it is no use saying this to Jasmine, who wears high heels on the school run. She sees the tractor as a threat, whereas I see it as salvation.

In summary, I might be worrying about not working but it is nothing to do with having enjoyed my job, and also it is not bad enough worry to even make me consider a U turn. Instead, I am wondering why, if I never wanted to do all the jobs I have done since 1989, I ended up doing them. I hate to blame everything on low self-esteem, which is the answer to too many questions, like ADD or autism but I do think a) that I was a scaredy cat, and that I thought something frightful would happen if I didnt get a proper job and b) that I didn't deserve to do what I wanted.

According to the shrink from the Priory I saw once, I didn't feel entitled to do anything I wanted, or accept gifts such as Hermes scarves (although I have to say I think I don't like gifts because I am dead fussy and I know I will be disappointed if they don't come from L'Artisan Parfumeur or Liberty: as I keep saying to Sandy, House of Fraser Bluewater is just not the same thing, however convenient it is.)

The long and short of it is, I am sure I’m the one who locked the door and took away the key. That being so, I am now going to unlock it and see what happens. As for the fact that, as people keep saying to me "You can always come back," no, I don’t think so. THis is bollocks: going back is almost always a mistake; look at Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. There is a Rubicon, and I have definitely crossed it.