Wife is not a good sham

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She does sound pathetically low energy and like it's not a benefit for anyone to have her home doing so little with so much expensive help. She may be a good enough mom (though kinda lazy) but she's a shitty housewife so send her back to work I guess, the current arrangement isn't working. It's a personality type, nothing truly wrong with it but it's just low capacity. I was in her spot with young kids and it felt like a vacation.

who’s gonna do the housework and childcare after OP “sends her back to work”? Or is OP still going to expect that she cooks dinner every night after returning from her nursing shift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She does sound pathetically low energy and like it's not a benefit for anyone to have her home doing so little with so much expensive help. She may be a good enough mom (though kinda lazy) but she's a shitty housewife so send her back to work I guess, the current arrangement isn't working. It's a personality type, nothing truly wrong with it but it's just low capacity. I was in her spot with young kids and it felt like a vacation.

Send her back to work? LOL. No one sends me to do anything.
Thank god I have a relationship where we both understand these decisions are mutual and not one issue mandates and directions.

How do you people find partners, much less procreate with anyone? Unbelievably toxic attitudes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She does sound pathetically low energy and like it's not a benefit for anyone to have her home doing so little with so much expensive help. She may be a good enough mom (though kinda lazy) but she's a shitty housewife so send her back to work I guess, the current arrangement isn't working. It's a personality type, nothing truly wrong with it but it's just low capacity. I was in her spot with young kids and it felt like a vacation.

Send her back to work? LOL. No one sends me to do anything.
Thank god I have a relationship where we both understand these decisions are mutual and not one issue mandates and directions.

How do you people find partners, much less procreate with anyone? Unbelievably toxic attitudes.

If you sit on your butt all day and do nothing while expecting your partner to carry the brunt of stress from a job and being a breadwinner, you are making a unilateral decision. Toxic, indeed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She does sound pathetically low energy and like it's not a benefit for anyone to have her home doing so little with so much expensive help. She may be a good enough mom (though kinda lazy) but she's a shitty housewife so send her back to work I guess, the current arrangement isn't working. It's a personality type, nothing truly wrong with it but it's just low capacity. I was in her spot with young kids and it felt like a vacation.

Send her back to work? LOL. No one sends me to do anything.
Thank god I have a relationship where we both understand these decisions are mutual and not one issue mandates and directions.

How do you people find partners, much less procreate with anyone? Unbelievably toxic attitudes.

If you sit on your butt all day and do nothing while expecting your partner to carry the brunt of stress from a job and being a breadwinner, you are making a unilateral decision. Toxic, indeed.

Good thing OP’s wife doesn’t actually do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She does sound pathetically low energy and like it's not a benefit for anyone to have her home doing so little with so much expensive help. She may be a good enough mom (though kinda lazy) but she's a shitty housewife so send her back to work I guess, the current arrangement isn't working. It's a personality type, nothing truly wrong with it but it's just low capacity. I was in her spot with young kids and it felt like a vacation.

who’s gonna do the housework and childcare after OP “sends her back to work”? Or is OP still going to expect that she cooks dinner every night after returning from her nursing shift.

It doesn't really sound like she's doing any of that now. So OP can continue to make dinner and the nanny take care of the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I took what people said on here and decided to talk to my wife. Not because I'm in the wrong, but because I needed to see if there was a deeper issue going on. We went out to breakfast solo and talked about it. My wife opened up that she doesn't enjoy being a SAHM as much as she thought she would. She misses working and interacting with adults. She said she feels jealous when going out with friends and hearing their work stories and having nothing to share. She told me she feels like she has lost part of herself and her identity. She said her not cooking is because she feels like she is always in " mom mode" and that she just doesn't have the mental capacity to cook meals. She is unhappy and feels like going back to work PT will give her that balance she needs. She said she feels like she isn't a contributing member of society and needs to feel like she has more purpose than just being a mother and wife.

She also said she has been feeling inadequate with the nanny there. She feels like the nanny can handle our two kids but she can't manage it. She had been feeling like this since for months but didn't want to feel like she was a failure by verbalizing it to anyone.

She is going to look for a new job that's PT. We will keep our nanny until our youngest is old enough for daycare. We will be looking for a housekeeper who will work weekly and help out more with meals, etc. to make life easier.

I hope you don’t mind if I share my personal experience with you, since it fortunately sounds like you and your wife have found a solution.

I became a SAHM somewhat reluctantly due to family and life circumstances, since I was also like your wife and had always been very ambitious and career focused. I hope you can somehow relay to your wife that my biggest mistake when becoming a SAHM was that I did not see, approach, or understand that being a SAHM was “a job”. Since my day as a SAHM didn’t look like any of my jobs in my previous career, and because society has a tendency to sometimes treat the SAHM role as either utterly natural for all women or as a form of permanent non-work/vacation, I went in with wrong mindset. In retrospect I had also internalized an anti-SAHM perspective that did not value the position as a job that was equivalent to a traditional employer based position.

I should have approached the SAHM role in the same way that I had always approached my previous jobs: there is a lot of stuff that I’ll need to learn, the first six months to a year may be a steep learning curve in which I may mistakes, some days will just be garbage but that doesn’t mean I’m in the wrong job, and I won’t know if the job is for me until enough time has passed that I can assess the job based upon the job itself as opposed to the often unpleasant feeling of still being in the learning curve phase. If I had become a SAHM in the same way and with the same mindset that I had started new professional positions, I think I would have had a less muddy and unpleasant first year or two of being a SAHM.

Additionally, I suspect that maybe your wife thinks the nanny is better with the kids because she probably is better with the kids. But this is the case only because your nanny has mastered the learning curve of staying home with small children. She’s not magically better than your wife, she’s just practiced the job skills for much longer than your wife. I too thought our children’s daycare employees were much better than me to the point in which I was convinced that I would never come close to their level of performance. Now that I’ve been a SAHM and mastered the learning curve, I can see that the women I thought were “more natural” than me really just had more experience and practice. Perhaps some of them were in fact natural caretakers too, which made their learning curve shorter and more pleasant than mine. But undoubtedly they were objectively better than me then. However now that I have “done enough reps” and learned the skills required, that is no longer the case. Not that I’m some perfect SAHM, but I now have everything under control and I feel generally confident about my performance (despite having more kids since I’ve become a SAHM). I also still miss my career and the societal respect that came from it, but it’s no longer a sharp feeling and I’m at peace with where I’m at currently.

So even if your wife does find part time work, please tell her that there is hope for her as a SAHM if it comes up again in the future! And I beg both your wife and anyone reading this to ask their doctor to test their TSH levels postpartum. I’ve had postpartum thyroiditis after each child, but it hits after the 6 week OBGYN postpartum appointment so it wasn’t always caught in time to prevent the effects. I have had it begin at 3 months and 6 months, and I believe that it can begin as late as 9 months. Your wife's energy levels and sleep needs sound similar to how mine were when I had postpartum thyroiditis. Everything immediately improves with a prescription for synthroid, so there is hope there too!

[Anonymous]

One thing I’ll say as a SAHM is that No Children Time is really critical. Everyone will have a different level of need for how much No Children Time, but if you’re not getting enough you will definitely go insane. Small children are just draining. It’s not hard. But many SAHMs get themselves into a situation where they only have maybe two No Children Time hours a week except for the exhausted time after bedtime. I think few people can be happy like that. But the partner who works also needs personal time, so they’re unlikely to fully relieve the SAHP very often.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lot of lazy excuse makers in here. The entitlement is off the charts; such excuses would never be made for a man.

"You don't know how hard it is to lift a finger and click re-order on Amazon Fresh!!"

+1.

[Anonymous]

OPs wife is a pampered princess. Lives in a 2.7m home, gets weekly massages, and has childcare for most of the week. I see posters saying she needs time to herself, but when does OP get time to himself? He works all day and maybe gets a couple of measly hours to himself if he isn’t working or with his wife. He gives her time off on the weekends but it doesn’t sound like he ever gets any personal time to himself. I stand by that she’s lazy, entitled, and a bad mother/wife.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She does sound pathetically low energy and like it's not a benefit for anyone to have her home doing so little with so much expensive help. She may be a good enough mom (though kinda lazy) but she's a shitty housewife so send her back to work I guess, the current arrangement isn't working. It's a personality type, nothing truly wrong with it but it's just low capacity. I was in her spot with young kids and it felt like a vacation.

who’s gonna do the housework and childcare after OP “sends her back to work”? Or is OP still going to expect that she cooks dinner every night after returning from her nursing shift.

It doesn't really sound like she's doing any of that now. So OP can continue to make dinner and the nanny take care of the kids.

you failed to read the thread

[Anonymous]

People on here are being so dramatic, she isn’t good at being a sahm. And I totally get it, kids are exhausting even with all the extra childcare. But if the job isn’t working out it’s fair to come up with a new game plan. It doesn’t sound like she is happy, it is understandable why you aren’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She does sound pathetically low energy and like it's not a benefit for anyone to have her home doing so little with so much expensive help. She may be a good enough mom (though kinda lazy) but she's a shitty housewife so send her back to work I guess, the current arrangement isn't working. It's a personality type, nothing truly wrong with it but it's just low capacity. I was in her spot with young kids and it felt like a vacation.

Send her back to work? LOL. No one sends me to do anything.
Thank god I have a relationship where we both understand these decisions are mutual and not one issue mandates and directions.

How do you people find partners, much less procreate with anyone? Unbelievably toxic attitudes.

If you sit on your butt all day and do nothing while expecting your partner to carry the brunt of stress from a job and being a breadwinner, you are making a unilateral decision. Toxic, indeed.

She's not "doing nothing", she's not doing all of what OP wants. That is a difference in perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OPs wife is a pampered princess. Lives in a 2.7m home, gets weekly massages, and has childcare for most of the week. I see posters saying she needs time to herself, but when does OP get time to himself? He works all day and maybe gets a couple of measly hours to himself if he isn’t working or with his wife. He gives her time off on the weekends but it doesn’t sound like he ever gets any personal time to himself. I stand by that she’s lazy, entitled, and a bad mother/wife.

ok well, OP can divorce her and give her 50% of the assets and alimony. win win!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I took what people said on here and decided to talk to my wife. Not because I'm in the wrong, but because I needed to see if there was a deeper issue going on. We went out to breakfast solo and talked about it. My wife opened up that she doesn't enjoy being a SAHM as much as she thought she would. She misses working and interacting with adults. She said she feels jealous when going out with friends and hearing their work stories and having nothing to share. She told me she feels like she has lost part of herself and her identity. She said her not cooking is because she feels like she is always in " mom mode" and that she just doesn't have the mental capacity to cook meals. She is unhappy and feels like going back to work PT will give her that balance she needs. She said she feels like she isn't a contributing member of society and needs to feel like she has more purpose than just being a mother and wife.

She also said she has been feeling inadequate with the nanny there. She feels like the nanny can handle our two kids but she can't manage it. She had been feeling like this since for months but didn't want to feel like she was a failure by verbalizing it to anyone.

She is going to look for a new job that's PT. We will keep our nanny until our youngest is old enough for daycare. We will be looking for a housekeeper who will work weekly and help out more with meals, etc. to make life easier.

I hope you don’t mind if I share my personal experience with you, since it fortunately sounds like you and your wife have found a solution.

I became a SAHM somewhat reluctantly due to family and life circumstances, since I was also like your wife and had always been very ambitious and career focused. I hope you can somehow relay to your wife that my biggest mistake when becoming a SAHM was that I did not see, approach, or understand that being a SAHM was “a job”. Since my day as a SAHM didn’t look like any of my jobs in my previous career, and because society has a tendency to sometimes treat the SAHM role as either utterly natural for all women or as a form of permanent non-work/vacation, I went in with wrong mindset. In retrospect I had also internalized an anti-SAHM perspective that did not value the position as a job that was equivalent to a traditional employer based position.

I should have approached the SAHM role in the same way that I had always approached my previous jobs: there is a lot of stuff that I’ll need to learn, the first six months to a year may be a steep learning curve in which I may mistakes, some days will just be garbage but that doesn’t mean I’m in the wrong job, and I won’t know if the job is for me until enough time has passed that I can assess the job based upon the job itself as opposed to the often unpleasant feeling of still being in the learning curve phase. If I had become a SAHM in the same way and with the same mindset that I had started new professional positions, I think I would have had a less muddy and unpleasant first year or two of being a SAHM.

Additionally, I suspect that maybe your wife thinks the nanny is better with the kids because she probably is better with the kids. But this is the case only because your nanny has mastered the learning curve of staying home with small children. She’s not magically better than your wife, she’s just practiced the job skills for much longer than your wife. I too thought our children’s daycare employees were much better than me to the point in which I was convinced that I would never come close to their level of performance. Now that I’ve been a SAHM and mastered the learning curve, I can see that the women I thought were “more natural” than me really just had more experience and practice. Perhaps some of them were in fact natural caretakers too, which made their learning curve shorter and more pleasant than mine. But undoubtedly they were objectively better than me then. However now that I have “done enough reps” and learned the skills required, that is no longer the case. Not that I’m some perfect SAHM, but I now have everything under control and I feel generally confident about my performance (despite having more kids since I’ve become a SAHM). I also still miss my career and the societal respect that came from it, but it’s no longer a sharp feeling and I’m at peace with where I’m at currently.

So even if your wife does find part time work, please tell her that there is hope for her as a SAHM if it comes up again in the future! And I beg both your wife and anyone reading this to ask their doctor to test their TSH levels postpartum. I’ve had postpartum thyroiditis after each child, but it hits after the 6 week OBGYN postpartum appointment so it wasn’t always caught in time to prevent the effects. I have had it begin at 3 months and 6 months, and I believe that it can begin as late as 9 months. Your wife's energy levels and sleep needs sound similar to how mine were when I had postpartum thyroiditis. Everything immediately improves with a prescription for synthroid, so there is hope there too!

OP's "not because I'm wrong" tells me everything and all about what I need to know about him. What a prick.

[Anonymous]

Good luck finding a part time job. It ain’t easy. She does sound pampered.