Honestly, how do you manage dual income marriage with kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You hire weekly cleaners, you get before/aftercare for school age kids, you make lists of everything, and I mean everything that needs doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi annually, and annually. Break it up into as small parts as possible. (Eg, it’s not grocery shopping, it’s meal planning, identifying what you need, grocery shopping, food prep, cooking, and cleaning up, these are all separate things). Then you truly split it up. And you let the other person fail if they don’t do it. If your DH wants a date night, he finds a sitter, hires them, makes dinner reservations, pays the sitter etc.

OP here. You are right, if I write it down everything that we do, he is failing it! He simply expects me to make myself available to have sex, to have date night, to accompany him for a trip, whenever convenient for him. If I just quit managing the household, it will all fall apart. He does not even realize the amount of work and energy required from me to organize kids schedules, hire and coordinate helps, cleaners, contractors, pay bills... He even expects me to do our taxes! I think this is a gender issue.

Give him a list of tasks to do. You act like you are doing it on your own and you're not as you are paying someone to do everything. Be real.

Good grief. Haven't we established that it's absurd for a responsible adult to need a task list from a spouse? If she is going to be a manager she should get paid extra.

Paid, it's part of being an adult. She isn't actually doing any of the work. She's coordinating outsourcing. Most bills are auto pay. The accountant does the taxes and the cleaners come as scheduled. Grow up.

Sure. But thats if you do nothing extra and just barely live. Kids drs appts need to be scheduled and attended. Breakfast and dinner need to happen with some planning even for takeout and shoppings/cooking/cleaning. Vacations planned. Possibly kids activities or at least aftercare. Any remodel, new furniture, fixing breaking household stuff etc etc

This is OP. Just to keep all these things in mind and keep it run on schedule is so tiring. I know rich people hire house managers to manage all these, but that cost some 50k+ post tax money, which we can’t afford with our income. My job is already taking most of my time and energy, in addition to keeping the household and kids going (with a lot of help). I just don’t have any sexual drive anymore… when I look at him, I just want him to take the kids so I can catch up with sleep. He obviously expects something else to connect us physically and emotionally…. I can’t keep up with this expectation anymore… I fee like failing it

[Anonymous]

Those of us who manage this have spouses that aren’t jerks. Your husband just sounds like a jerk. Not sure what you can about it — he is unlikely to change.

[Anonymous]

Life. Priorities. Guilt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You hire weekly cleaners, you get before/aftercare for school age kids, you make lists of everything, and I mean everything that needs doing on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi annually, and annually. Break it up into as small parts as possible. (Eg, it’s not grocery shopping, it’s meal planning, identifying what you need, grocery shopping, food prep, cooking, and cleaning up, these are all separate things). Then you truly split it up. And you let the other person fail if they don’t do it. If your DH wants a date night, he finds a sitter, hires them, makes dinner reservations, pays the sitter etc.

OP here. You are right, if I write it down everything that we do, he is failing it! He simply expects me to make myself available to have sex, to have date night, to accompany him for a trip, whenever convenient for him. If I just quit managing the household, it will all fall apart. He does not even realize the amount of work and energy required from me to organize kids schedules, hire and coordinate helps, cleaners, contractors, pay bills... He even expects me to do our taxes! I think this is a gender issue.

Give him a list of tasks to do. You act like you are doing it on your own and you're not as you are paying someone to do everything. Be real.

Good grief. Haven't we established that it's absurd for a responsible adult to need a task list from a spouse? If she is going to be a manager she should get paid extra.

Paid, it's part of being an adult. She isn't actually doing any of the work. She's coordinating outsourcing. Most bills are auto pay. The accountant does the taxes and the cleaners come as scheduled. Grow up.

Sure. But thats if you do nothing extra and just barely live. Kids drs appts need to be scheduled and attended. Breakfast and dinner need to happen with some planning even for takeout and shoppings/cooking/cleaning. Vacations planned. Possibly kids activities or at least aftercare. Any remodel, new furniture, fixing breaking household stuff etc etc

This is OP. Just to keep all these things in mind and keep it run on schedule is so tiring. I know rich people hire house managers to manage all these, but that cost some 50k+ post tax money, which we can’t afford with our income. My job is already taking most of my time and energy, in addition to keeping the household and kids going (with a lot of help). I just don’t have any sexual drive anymore… when I look at him, I just want him to take the kids so I can catch up with sleep. He obviously expects something else to connect us physically and emotionally…. I can’t keep up with this expectation anymore… I fee like failing it

Yup. Im the PP. my DH does a ton alreqdy (1/2 the shopping (costco etc), most of the laundry, taxes and 1/2 the kid activity shuffling). But anytime he says "we should do xyz", i say "great let me know what you come up with or have options for me to discuss if you want my input.

[Anonymous]

First of all, your jobs individually DO pay "that much" and a lot more. You are in the top 1%. Please recognize your privilege. Second of all, I am guessing you two are "keeping score" with each other. "I did this and this, so you should do that and that." "I haven't slept at home in two days and you have so you take this so I can nap." DH and I don't do that - if one of us is up and doing something, so is the other. If I'm taking the kids to the birthday party circuit on a Sunday then DH is not napping at home - he's folding laundry and prepping dinner and giving the dog a bath. Thirdly, if you have help at home and you two are STILL overwhelmed with chores and kid responsibilities, you don't have the right kind of help at home - reevaluate that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both DH and I are in highly intellectual jobs that come with a lot of intellectual stimulations, prestige, fun and stress, but don't pay that much. Think of academics, economist at international organizations, etc. We make about 400k in total, evenly distributed. So we are comfortable, but neither of us can afford to quit - we can't afford the same lifestyle with single salary, the sunk cost of PhDs, and all the fun and meaning come with our jobs.

The problem is, we work long hours and travel a lot for work. With two kids, despite a lot of help around the house, we still find ourselves increasingly arguing about who should take the kids, do the chores, etc. We complain about not spending enough time together, but we just can't make it because one of us is either traveling or recovering from the travel...

I'm afraid we are growing apart... I'm the woman and feel like that I already sacrifice a lot of my own time to support him. He just wants me to be the funny sexy available girlfriend whenever he has time. I often just want to take a nap, recover, catch up with work, because I just took the lion share of everything while he was away...

How do you manage dual income marriage? If either of us give up our job, are we destined to separate at some point? It is just so stressful...

Whining about a 400k HHI.
Clueless much?

[Anonymous]

OP, just make peace with the fact that you’re one of the poors. It will improve your frame of mind immensely.

[Anonymous]

OP, own your own choices. You sound like this life just happened to you. It didn't. You are very privileged. Sure, you might look at households with much higher incomes, or family money, or whatever, and feel sorry for yourself. Stop it. There is nothing good that will come of that and it also makes you sound incredibly annoying.

YOU created this life. Everything you are complaining about is the result of a choice you made (your job, your choice of partner, where you live, your lifestyle, the number of kids you have). If those choices are not making you happy, look at your options and make different choices. I think you also need to figure out what your priorities are, because right now it sounds like you and your spouse both think you should not have to make any compromises with regards to your careers, and still have ideal family life and marital relationship. This is dumb. Most people who have very happy marriages and family life make choices to prioritize those things, even above careers. It doesn't mean they quit their jobs, but people (men and women) will make sacrifices at work in order to be more present for their kids and spouse. What makes you think you shouldn't have to do that to have what they have?

[Anonymous]

There’s a lot of space between dual income households where both adults work and both adults working long hours and traveling.

We both have careers we love and that are meaningful but neither of us ever travels for work (though I have two local events a year when I’m out of the house from 8am-9pm two days in a row, but that’s still only 4 days a year). We both work 40 hours a week every week. I’d say each of us work after the kids go to bed maybe once a quarter.

Is there any room for both of you to take a small step back where you would stop with the travel and the long hours? It’s that or pay people to do a lot of stuff, which sucks, and means you’ll be making $400k but living like you make $300k.

HHI $225k by the way, also divided about equally, so chill with your “don’t pay well” crap since you’re both very, very well paid. If you want to keep the jobs you have, you’re going to have to pay to outsource a lot of stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those of us who manage this have spouses that aren’t jerks. Your husband just sounds like a jerk. Not sure what you can about it — he is unlikely to change.

OP also sounds like a jerk though. It sounds like she basically resents her kids and her husband for asking anything at all of her, because she wants to focus on work. And her husband sounds the same. And they both seem to resent that they don't have double the income they currently have so they can outsource all the parenting/household work, yet they both chose careers where I'm sure they were aware there was a ceiling to their earning potential.

They just sound very entitled and selfish and it is not surprising at all that they are struggling with their marriage. As their kids get older, those relationships are going to suffer too because neither of them knows how to prioritize personal relationships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both DH and I are in highly intellectual jobs that come with a lot of intellectual stimulations, prestige, fun and stress, but don't pay that much. Think of academics, economist at international organizations, etc. We make about 400k in total, evenly distributed. So we are comfortable, but neither of us can afford to quit - we can't afford the same lifestyle with single salary, the sunk cost of PhDs, and all the fun and meaning come with our jobs.

The problem is, we work long hours and travel a lot for work. With two kids, despite a lot of help around the house, we still find ourselves increasingly arguing about who should take the kids, do the chores, etc. We complain about not spending enough time together, but we just can't make it because one of us is either traveling or recovering from the travel...

I'm afraid we are growing apart... I'm the woman and feel like that I already sacrifice a lot of my own time to support him. He just wants me to be the funny sexy available girlfriend whenever he has time. I often just want to take a nap, recover, catch up with work, because I just took the lion share of everything while he was away...

How do you manage dual income marriage? If either of us give up our job, are we destined to separate at some point? It is just so stressful...

You have champagne tastes on a beer budget.

[Anonymous]

PP nails it. Dual high demand fullfilling careers with two kids wanting a stress free household need a professional house manager to manage your life. So you only need to manage one house manager instead of a fleet of helper/contractors. It will cost you a fortune.

Conclusion: since you can't afford a house manager, how about you guys sit down to talk about where you both need to sacrifice a bit travel/fun and accept a certain level of stress, sleep deprive and less frequent intimacy to make it work?

[Anonymous]

Even with a 50-50 division of labor, families at this income in HCOL areas that make this type of dual career family work well tend to have some combo of 1) short commute/ability to WFH 2) local family/grandparents and 3) willingness to outsource lots of home and childcare labor and 4) cut things (limiting kids activities, saying no to bday parties far away, leave the living room undecorated etc).

At other times we’ve had zero of the above and right now we have 1-3 and a quite equal partnership and it’s very doable.

[Anonymous]

I was in your situation. I quit my lawyer job and took a job at my kids school so that I had the same hours as they did.

We are still earning the equivalent income as before since I no longer need to pay for aftercare/summer camps/cleaners/lawn care/exc.

We also got a dog as I was home more.

My extended family thinks I threw away all my education and that I am a sucker if my DH leaves me. All I know is I had to take the risk to try to preserve the family I had and I am much, much happier as a result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both DH and I are in highly intellectual jobs that come with a lot of intellectual stimulations, prestige, fun and stress, but don't pay that much. Think of academics, economist at international organizations, etc. We make about 400k in total, evenly distributed. So we are comfortable, but neither of us can afford to quit - we can't afford the same lifestyle with single salary, the sunk cost of PhDs, and all the fun and meaning come with our jobs.

The problem is, we work long hours and travel a lot for work. With two kids, despite a lot of help around the house, we still find ourselves increasingly arguing about who should take the kids, do the chores, etc. We complain about not spending enough time together, but we just can't make it because one of us is either traveling or recovering from the travel...

I'm afraid we are growing apart... I'm the woman and feel like that I already sacrifice a lot of my own time to support him. He just wants me to be the funny sexy available girlfriend whenever he has time. I often just want to take a nap, recover, catch up with work, because I just took the lion share of everything while he was away...

How do you manage dual income marriage? If either of us give up our job, are we destined to separate at some point? It is just so stressful...

The problem isn’t the dual income. It’s a failure to communicate. Are you two a team or not? If you aren’t a team, but just 2 individuals trying to have your own lives, then you need to have a come to Jesus moment where you sit down and figure out why you had kids, so that you don’t have any more of them. Re the kids you have, it’s best to send them to boarding school asap. You may be able to get financial aid because in the boarding school world, you two are poors.