Ok here is my situation. I finished BA in 1998. Then I got a job straight away. Worked in London for next 2 years. Met a girl who was on holiday in London. Stayed together for 3 months. Then had a long distance relationship with her.

Then moved to a foreign country to be with her. Got married. Got a job in the foriegn country. Been married now 3 years. Love my wife she loves me no problem from that side.

Now this job that I have involves 3 to 3.5 hour of travel
everyday:-( I have been at this job for exactly 2 years. There has been hardly any work for me since day one. It's a non-design company but I do the design side of things for them ie. graphic design, web etc etc.

I really want to get better at Maya and move on but here is the CATCH!!
At work I have so much free time and I try to learn Maya etc but my boss does not like when I learn... maybe he thinks I will leave. He says we should use the time to find new strategy to sell design. In last 2 year he has made 10000 strategies for his company.

Anyway in my contract and according to what we had discussed at the time of me coming here was that it's purely my bosses job to bring the work in. My job is to only execute it.
I feel I am here only to be shown off to clients.

I want to improve and work on my portfolio but when I get home it's around 8 and then I have to wake up at 5.20. So I am not getting any time to learn properly.

I have the following options-

1- I am thinking about leaving my job and going freelance after staying at home and working on my portfolio for 3-6months.

2- Tell my boss I can only work 4 days a week. Use the friday with weekend to learn Maya, portfoilio and create clients.
This option might work or backfire if my boss says all or nothing.

My wife does not want me to use option 1 or 2 UNLESS I have clients or another job. For me it's a case of chicken or the egg.
I am 29 and time is not on my side. I dont want to waste my life sitting behind the desk. I know some of you might say that you should not give up your job in present economic conditions but I tell you what it's very draining to act busy all day. On top of that I have to fill bloody time sheets all the ****ing time!!!**!!

I earn 44,000 US dollars (started in 42k 2 years ago). I don't have any kids and we both are not going to have any either. So I don't have any reall responsibilities apart from my wife tellling me not to quit.

What should I do?????? All this travelling and not gettting anywhere with Maya due to lack of time is getting me down.
The worse thing is I find Maya comparatively easy if I get the chance to just sit and learn :-(