How much free time is reasonable per day in this situation?
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Anonymous
| I know lots of high earners who are involved dads but only see the kids on weekends. It’s really not the end of the world. |
Anonymous
Not really your place to opine. Ask the kids what they think. |
Anonymous
My dad was like this, as were most of my friends dads. I really don’t remember it being that bad. I remember that he taught me how to run and how to read fiction and get a lot out of it, introduced me to Russian literature when I was in high school. We still don’t have the kind of relationship where I would call him with my problems, but I will certainly take care of him in his old age, and I love him very much. |
Anonymous
I get your point. But you should know not everybody’s kids go through these dire stages. |
Anonymous
| It sounds like the DH resents being a parent and is avoiding being at home. Plenty of partners at my firm telecommute several times a week so they can avoid the commute time and spend more time with their families. And, obviously, he can look for a different type of job that would require fewer hours, if his free time is really so important to him. I think OP needs to sit down and have a heart to heart with him about what's going on. And definitely keep her job, because the answer may be that he doesn't want a family life. |
Anonymous
My dad was like this for several years- we rarely saw him during the week- until he got a new job where he was home in time to pick us up from school and spend the afternoon with us. We were all much happier having him around more. |
Anonymous
|
It sounds like OP's husband is willing to spend time on weekends and does take his son to activities but that OP packs a 4-year-old's schedule with more weekend activities than they need.
It also sounds like he's killing himself to provide a lifestyle that is much easier for her than for him. She's not bending at all and is acting like a martyr about her contributions, which she could outsource. She's telling him he needs to do evening time with their child but her schedule included no time alone with her husband. Their child is also tough to manage, which is not necessary for a 4-year-old. She says she handles all of the parenting, so maybe work on the son's behavior so he isn't exhausting to be around, and have him ready to tuck in at 8. That way husband can do story time and still have some time to breathe before going to sleep. |
Anonymous
That sounds miserable. I'm married. Both my husband and I get a lot of alone time, free time. But we understand that that's important. Family life sounds utterly suffocating. |
Anonymous
If you have read the whole thread, OP posted that husband has always worked these types of hours and has said he wouldn't want to not work these kinds of hours. OP would be happy with fewer hours/less money/husband around more. |
Anonymous
He's an introvert. He needs the alone time to decompress after spending 70 hours a week working and possibly having to interact with people (and possibly in tense/stressful situations). You seem extremely exhausting/intense and, frankly, like a nag. You're way too fixating on keeping score. No one should feel like their punching a time card with their spouse, but it seems like you want to police his hours. Your child is at an age when it he is chatty, and it sounds like he's extroverted. Your husband simply doesn't have the bandwidth to deal with that on top of 70 hours working. All of the things he does are things that relax him, allow him to decompress, and, except for the reading, have a physical component to counter all of the commuting/sitting. If you keep nagging him to spend time with you or with your child, he will just come to see doing both those things as miserable work, and he will resent you and your child. You can't control him. If you're worried about your child, then outsource more stuff so that you can spend more time with your child. Entire generations of people grew up with one parent mostly absentee. If your kid ends up hating your husband, well, that's not your fault. But you may find that if you just back off and let things happen naturally, then maybe as your kid gets a little older, your husband will find a way to bond with him, perhaps through a sport or gardening. But you can only control your actions. You admit that your DH has always been clear that he would never change his work hours. You knew what you were getting into when you had the kid. But you thought you could change it. I don't know why women do that. Either don't have a kid with a man who is clear he is not changing his life for the kid, or have the kid and do what is within your own control. In all of your posts, you make little mention of how much time you and your husband spend alone, without the kid. That's important, too. |
Anonymous
| that should read "fixated" and "they're punching" |
Anonymous
| Once again, what was DH's position on having the kid in the first place? Was he enthusiastic about starting a family, or was he ambivalent but went along with it to make OP happy? This matters a lot here. |
Anonymous
Not really. Because once he committed to sex without birth control, he has a responsibility to be a father to the child he chose to create, even if he did it to make his wife quiet. |
Anonymous
He always worked these hours and now that the kid is here, he works his ass off so the kid has an easy and privileged life. That's what parenting looks like for a lot of people. If OP didn't secure a commitment for him to change his work hours before having a child, that's on her. Meantime she has an extremely easy life courtesy of his hard work and she's nitpicking. She sounds exhausting. |
Anonymous
Well, I don't know. There are men who are ambitious and career-oriented who very much want to have a kid, but it's less about the kid than it is about achieving a goal (their concept of family). They want to have a wife, 2.5 kids, prestigious job, but it's impossible to have all of those things without tradeoffs. Lots of men (and women) are fine with the tradeoff being that they don't spend much time with the wife or the kids. But I have little sympathy for the wives in these situations because, in most instances, the wives knew it going it; it was clear the husbands were very ambitious and that would leave little time for family. The wives actually sought that out and saw landing the ambitious husband as a win. So when they later complain that they're lonely or their husband doesn't spend enough family time, I have little sympathy, especially when they look down on the man who works a middle class, 40-hour week, but actually sees his wife as a friend and companion and makes time to be around her (and kids, too). They also tend to throw insults at women who work full time as well because they didn't marry a "high earner." Again, there are always tradeoffs. You make the choices you make and live with the consequences. You married a high-earning, workaholic man, but he made it clear all along he wasn't going to change. Now, you're upset because he hasn't changed even though he had a kid. And it's flat out unreasonable to expect someone who works 70 hours a week at a high-stress job to not want down time. No, you can't work that hard and then not have an opportunity to decompress in the evening or on the weekend. |