My DH does not understand what it's like to be the primary parent

[Anonymous]

My kids always come to me first when they need anything. Ok, fine. Often I just do whatever it is they need or facilitate them doing it themselves (i.e. encouraging them to get their own snack from the snack shelf I have created for this precise purpose). Sometimes I'm busy or need a break and I will suggest they do it themselves or, if they need help, that they ask their dad for help.

My DH does not understand that this is exhausting. He does not get that being the first point of contact for literally any problem that anyone has is completely draining and exhausting. He doesn't understand that even when I am able to redirect the kids to do something themselves, the distraction of having to pull myself from what I am doing to make this redirection makes my life feel constantly disjointed and interrupted. He especially doesn't understand how exhausting this is when the activity I am distracted from is something like cleaning the kitchen, making dinner, paying bills, booking a vacation, researching summer camps, or any of the many, many tasks I do not for myself but for my family as a unit. And yes, sometimes I am also trying to do something for myself -- workout or read a book or take a shower. Basically I don't get to do anything (not even write this post) without being interrupted and asked for something. And my DH also does plenty of interrupting and asking me for things, wanting to know what we should do for dinner or where his shoes are or if the dishwasher is clean or dinner, etc.

Often when I redirect my kids to go ask my DH for help or say "I'm sorry I'm in the middle of something, I can't help right now", my DH is amazing at just ignoring their requests or saying "yes I'll help in a minute" and letting that minute last for a half hour or longer. And when he does this, they just boomerang back to me, only with more urgency and annoyance, necessitating that I stop whatever I am doing and just help them because at that point I cannot focus on anything anyway. And my DH just gets to go on doing whatever he is doing, which is sometimes something for the family unit but is often a video game or looking at his phone.

He views this problem strictly as one of allocating parenting. He doesn't understand that I feel like I live in a perpetual state of disruption and that what I want is a fundamental adjustment to the way people in our family get their needs met. I think my DH needs to step up and volunteer to help the kids more, needs to respond more quickly to their requests for help, and be more proactive so that they see me less as the first, last, and often only parental resource in the house, and see him more often as the go-to for at least certain tasks. I just can't go on like this, and I hate having to "assign" him parenting tasks rather than having him take them on himself, because that in and of itself is a burden that disrupts the other demands on my time.

Can anyone else relate? Anyone had success in changing this dynamic. I'm so tired and just want to think a complete thought or finish a task without interruption.

Also, before you ask, we both work.

[Anonymous]

I completely relate. It’s all me. Exhausted.

[Anonymous]

Keep telling them to go to daddy. Don’t say a million words. Just say: ask your dad. Do it as many times as needed until he helps. Eventually, it’ll work.

[Anonymous]

Same. It took about ten years of re-direction to make the tiniest, littlest dent in the older kid only. It drives me bonkers. Even the pets come to me for their needs. All of them walk right by my husband. And part of the problem is the same where he says “In a minute” and then drags it out and upsets them and makes them feel like they can’t rely on him. I have never found a solution to this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Keep telling them to go to daddy. Don’t say a million words. Just say: ask your dad. Do it as many times as needed until he helps. Eventually, it’ll work.

No because he just ignores them, like OP said. In my house that turns from “hungry for lunch” to complete starving meltdown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Keep telling them to go to daddy. Don’t say a million words. Just say: ask your dad. Do it as many times as needed until he helps. Eventually, it’ll work.

No because he just ignores them, like OP said. In my house that turns from “hungry for lunch” to complete starving meltdown.

I’m the PP who for 10+ years has been re-directing to their father with limited impact. I think I’m just all-around more pleasant and flexible.

[Anonymous]

Do you have more than one child? I mean besides your spouse?

[Anonymous]

If it’s something like a meal, decide ahead of time who’s in charge of lunch.

Also, when you need uninterrupted time, you need to leave the house. I know that kind of sucks. But if you’re not good at ignoring the way your husband is, leaving is the best strategy. Even if you’re just sitting on a park bench reading or whatever. Go to the library or a coffee shop to work. Etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Same. It took about ten years of re-direction to make the tiniest, littlest dent in the older kid only. It drives me bonkers. Even the pets come to me for their needs. All of them walk right by my husband. And part of the problem is the same where he says “In a minute” and then drags it out and upsets them and makes them feel like they can’t rely on him. I have never found a solution to this.

OP here and this made me laugh because yes! Same here. A persistent problem I have is these kind of "rolling needs". One of my kids will need help with something and I'll help. Then another kid will be frustrated because they had to wait while I helped the first kid to ask me a question (even though I will have said "I'm busy, go as dad"). So then I'm responding to an annoyed kid. Even if I can get the annoyed kid to go get dad to help, it's a second distraction. Then just as I'm settling back into something, my DH will show up with a question (almost certainly pertaining to the annoyed kid's issue, why can't he just solve these problems on his own). Then when I finally get everyone to leave me alone, the cat will start eating plastic, which is what he does when he needs food/attention/his litter box cleaned. Every time.

This pattern happens at least 10 times a day on the weekend. Today I'm trying to do our calendar for November/December and figure out holiday travel, visits with my parents and my MIL, etc., and I just feel crazy because I have had so little time to actually do this task. It's almost 1:30 in the afternoon and I feel like all I've accomplished today is putting out everyone else's fires. My DH, however, has successfully leveled up twice on whatever stupid video game he is playing. Sigh.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know why y’all marry these men.

[Anonymous]

Can you say “hey DH, I need an hour of uninterrupted time to do this thing”? I am usually the primary parent but my husband is really good at keeping the kids out of my hair if I have something I need to get done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have more than one child? I mean besides your spouse?

Yes, we have two (plus DH, haha). A big part of the problem is that they will both come to me and get annoyed while I'm helping the other one. Like I'll be helping Kid 1 with something and Kid 2 will start just harassing me about needing something else, and in the meantime my DH is off in the background, seemingly oblivious to this. And he doesn't seem to get that being harassed by Kid 2 while I'm trying to finish something with Kid 1 is stressful! It makes me feel a bit crazed.

He wants me to always come to him directly when this happens and make a custom request ("I am helping Larlo with this stuck zipper but Larla can't reach the peanut butter, can you help her with that?") and I feel like he should just be a little more in tune to things that are happening right around him and consider just saying "Hey Larla, Mom's in the middle of something -- can I help you?"

Instead what will happen is I'll ask him to do it, he'll act aggrieved at the interruption, and then two minutes later when I've finally dealt with Kid 1's zipper, DH will pop his head and say "Do you know where the peanut butter is, I can't find it."

Aaaaaaaaargh. I cannot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have more than one child? I mean besides your spouse?

Yes, we have two (plus DH, haha). A big part of the problem is that they will both come to me and get annoyed while I'm helping the other one. Like I'll be helping Kid 1 with something and Kid 2 will start just harassing me about needing something else, and in the meantime my DH is off in the background, seemingly oblivious to this. And he doesn't seem to get that being harassed by Kid 2 while I'm trying to finish something with Kid 1 is stressful! It makes me feel a bit crazed.

He wants me to always come to him directly when this happens and make a custom request ("I am helping Larlo with this stuck zipper but Larla can't reach the peanut butter, can you help her with that?") and I feel like he should just be a little more in tune to things that are happening right around him and consider just saying "Hey Larla, Mom's in the middle of something -- can I help you?"

Instead what will happen is I'll ask him to do it, he'll act aggrieved at the interruption, and then two minutes later when I've finally dealt with Kid 1's zipper, DH will pop his head and say "Do you know where the peanut butter is, I can't find it."

Aaaaaaaaargh. I cannot.

.

I totally get this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why y’all marry these men.

When I married him, he was a self-sufficient adult who owned a home, was great at his job, planned dates for us, did his own laundry, etc. I never expected to be in this situation, and even when we had one kid he was pretty good. But something about the second kid... he just checks out a lot now. I have no idea what red flags I supposedly missed. I don't know what I could have done to prevent this beyond aggressively forcing him to take on childcare duties when they were babies. Should I have forced him to take a solo paternity leave, would that have helped? But then how do you even do that, it was not an option for us.

I think he hit a limit on parenting and we didn't know what that limit was going to be until we exceeded it. He was doing fine up until then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why y’all marry these men.

There was nothing that would have indicated this. Also, he used to try to get them to come to him. It would work for a bit but slowly, all of them, including the pets, would revert back to me. I think I’m tooo competent.