Holding my boundary. Let him be mad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rigidity becomes necessary when a more causal approach leads to being chronically taken advantage of.

+1

OP, would Fair Play help?

I’ve seen this mentioned a lot on this board. I think I’ll buy it.
About a year ago or so, I suggested we write down our individual loads. Like the things we own related to home kid family finances etc. we each drafted up our list and shared it.
Mine was probably 3x longer?
After he read mine, he went back to “edit” his list. He added random bs to make his list as long as mine. It was legit laughable. I’m talking about things like “manage Netflix and Hulu passwords”
“Call customer service representatives when internet is down”
“Filled out birth certificate paperwork”

Then he said the whole exercise was a farce.
A part of me hopes he doesn’t come back from this work trip. I think this often. I am not the best version of myself when he’s around. I have stayed quiet for so long to kept the peace and not risk an argument, at the expense of my inner turmoil. Today in his text rage he said that I act like taking care of “my daughter” is unbearable. Sometimes I wonder if I’m on a hidden camera show. Did I not see all these red flags before marriage? I’ve ignored my “knowing” for so long. I know I married the wrong person for me. I feel stuck.

Calling Comcast involves being on hold for 5-30 minutes and maybe going through Level One support before you get someone that can help you.

Resetting passwords? Sometimes 30 seconds (still needs a place on to do list) other times involves sitting around waiting ten minutes for the reset email, etc.

Filling out birth certificate paperwork is also work too, even if (1) it only take 5 minutes and (2) you don’t think it’s real work.

If you’re including things like “did three loads of dishes” (each of which takes maybe ten minutes), he can include things like that.

Hi dh! Lol. Op here. Let me clarify the point of the exercise was to list out current ongoing mental load items. Not things like filling our baby’s birth certificate application 3 years ago.

Ok then. You have a terrible husband. Work around that or divorce him.

Nowhere in the post I’m replying to did you say, “He included stuff from years ago.” You just said “he added random bs.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dh and I have always split Saturday. He gets up with dd and has her for the am, lunch and puts her down for nap. I have dd after naptime thru dinner and bed. I get a free am, dh gets a free afternoon.

Dh took dd to his moms house this morning. They walked in the door around noon. He announced that he was exhausted, dd needed lunch and a nap and he was going to relax. I was standing in a towel with wet hair from the shower after a great workout. Sat am is My time.

I said, cool dd, excited to play with you after nap! Maybe we can go to the museum.
Dh: “wait you’re not handling lunch and nap?”
Me: “why would I, it’s Sat am?”
Dh: shooting me dirty looks glares.

This is not the first time he’s done this. To me this says, He believes his time to be more important. He can walk in the door and just throw everything on me bc- I’m the mom? I let this dynamic go on for a long time and slowly I’ve started implementing boundaries. If I didn’t speak up for myself, I’d do 100% of the cooking cleaning and childcare. If I don’t speak up for myself, he would never wash a dish. Spill something on the counter and leave it.

As predicted, he sent me a rambling nasty text message of how unloved and unappreciated he felt. And that dd (who is 3) also felt unloved by the cold welcome. He said I need to stop being competitive selfish and petty about childcare.

Now what do you think his reaction would be if I walked in the door and announced I was tired and our daughter needed to eat and sleep. He would say to me exactly what I said to him. That this chunk of time is his free time. He’s a hypocrite.

If he had asked or communicated a change in schedule I would have more likely than not been accommodating. But walking in the door like that? No way.

What makes it more absurd is that he’s about to leave tomorrow for a week long work trip. I’ll be solo with dd for a week, and yes, I work. I’m tact I make more f-ing money than him.

If I don’t stand up for myself , my time, and my boundaries, he will walk all over me.

It was afternoon. Per your agreement, it was you time to take over.

Did you not read directly before you bolded? It literally says her dh handles lunch and naptime and the op
Handles dinner time and bed.

This is exactly why rigid agreements don’t work. How do they handle days that are off-schedule, which are inevitable? Who gets the “extra work”? It’s healthy to be flexible in your time to account for life’s surprises, to speak to your spouse with respect, and to not hold salaries over anyone’s head. OP and her spouse sound like they’re harboring a whole lot of resentment and both would need to mage changes.

Why are people doing all these mental cartwheels to find edge case examples of why dedicated alone time can’t work?? There’s truly no evidence here that OP isn’t flexible *when necessary.*

Because many people truly believe that women should do more in the home, and that a woman’s success is marked by how much of herself she gave for her family.

DP - it’s this. Yes, even many women truly believe this - that women’s worth is defined by how much they martyr themselves. Look at how working mothers were treated during the pandemic: simultaneously as the scum of the earth and also the glue that holds everything together. And nothing makes those people more angry than a woman holding firm on a reasonable boundary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your daughter deserves better parents.

Yup! Though the abdiction of parental reponibility and toxic home life that she will see now, the daughter will perpetuate in future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rigidity becomes necessary when a more causal approach leads to being chronically taken advantage of.

+1

OP, would Fair Play help?

I’ve seen this mentioned a lot on this board. I think I’ll buy it.
About a year ago or so, I suggested we write down our individual loads. Like the things we own related to home kid family finances etc. we each drafted up our list and shared it.
Mine was probably 3x longer?
After he read mine, he went back to “edit” his list. He added random bs to make his list as long as mine. It was legit laughable. I’m talking about things like “manage Netflix and Hulu passwords”
“Call customer service representatives when internet is down”
“Filled out birth certificate paperwork”

Then he said the whole exercise was a farce.
A part of me hopes he doesn’t come back from this work trip. I think this often. I am not the best version of myself when he’s around. I have stayed quiet for so long to kept the peace and not risk an argument, at the expense of my inner turmoil. Today in his text rage he said that I act like taking care of “my daughter” is unbearable. Sometimes I wonder if I’m on a hidden camera show. Did I not see all these red flags before marriage? I’ve ignored my “knowing” for so long. I know I married the wrong person for me. I feel stuck.

Calling Comcast involves being on hold for 5-30 minutes and maybe going through Level One support before you get someone that can help you.

Resetting passwords? Sometimes 30 seconds (still needs a place on to do list) other times involves sitting around waiting ten minutes for the reset email, etc.

Filling out birth certificate paperwork is also work too, even if (1) it only take 5 minutes and (2) you don’t think it’s real work.

If you’re including things like “did three loads of dishes” (each of which takes maybe ten minutes), he can include things like that.

Hi dh! Lol. Op here. Let me clarify the point of the exercise was to list out current ongoing mental load items. Not things like filling our baby’s birth certificate application 3 years ago.

Ok then. You have a terrible husband. Work around that or divorce him.

Nowhere in the post I’m replying to did you say, “He included stuff from years ago.” You just said “he added random bs.”

I said he added birth certificate application . I thought that was implied it was a one time thing done years ago, since our child is 3. But I guess I could have Been more clear

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dh and I have always split Saturday. He gets up with dd and has her for the am, lunch and puts her down for nap. I have dd after naptime thru dinner and bed. I get a free am, dh gets a free afternoon.

Dh took dd to his moms house this morning. They walked in the door around noon. He announced that he was exhausted, dd needed lunch and a nap and he was going to relax. I was standing in a towel with wet hair from the shower after a great workout. Sat am is My time.

I said, cool dd, excited to play with you after nap! Maybe we can go to the museum.
Dh: “wait you’re not handling lunch and nap?”
Me: “why would I, it’s Sat am?”
Dh: shooting me dirty looks glares.

This is not the first time he’s done this. To me this says, He believes his time to be more important. He can walk in the door and just throw everything on me bc- I’m the mom? I let this dynamic go on for a long time and slowly I’ve started implementing boundaries. If I didn’t speak up for myself, I’d do 100% of the cooking cleaning and childcare. If I don’t speak up for myself, he would never wash a dish. Spill something on the counter and leave it.

As predicted, he sent me a rambling nasty text message of how unloved and unappreciated he felt. And that dd (who is 3) also felt unloved by the cold welcome. He said I need to stop being competitive selfish and petty about childcare.

Now what do you think his reaction would be if I walked in the door and announced I was tired and our daughter needed to eat and sleep. He would say to me exactly what I said to him. That this chunk of time is his free time. He’s a hypocrite.

If he had asked or communicated a change in schedule I would have more likely than not been accommodating. But walking in the door like that? No way.

What makes it more absurd is that he’s about to leave tomorrow for a week long work trip. I’ll be solo with dd for a week, and yes, I work. I’m tact I make more f-ing money than him.

If I don’t stand up for myself , my time, and my boundaries, he will walk all over me.

It was afternoon. Per your agreement, it was you time to take over.

Did you not read directly before you bolded? It literally says her dh handles lunch and naptime and the op
Handles dinner time and bed.

This is exactly why rigid agreements don’t work. How do they handle days that are off-schedule, which are inevitable? Who gets the “extra work”? It’s healthy to be flexible in your time to account for life’s surprises, to speak to your spouse with respect, and to not hold salaries over anyone’s head. OP and her spouse sound like they’re harboring a whole lot of resentment and both would need to mage changes.

What if the child has explosive diarrhea or vomits everywhere when it's "your watch" and creates a huge mess? Is it just "sucks to be you, babe!" as you watch the other person clean up a huge mess and tend to a sick child? So glad my spouse and I can work as a team. I can remember having just one kid and thinking this was a big deal but then we had 3 and it was pretty much all hands on deck until the youngest was at least 4 and we just rolled with it.

Of course I would help. We were “flexible” on hands on deck for the first 2 years or so. And then I looked up one day and realized flexibility meant me doing basically all of the cleaning child care AND making more money.

You know, that's your big problem. You have no respect for your DH because he is a beta and low earning to boot. Maybe divorce that POS. You must be feeling horrible having a kid with that loser, no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rigidity becomes necessary when a more causal approach leads to being chronically taken advantage of.

+1

OP, would Fair Play help?

I’ve seen this mentioned a lot on this board. I think I’ll buy it.
About a year ago or so, I suggested we write down our individual loads. Like the things we own related to home kid family finances etc. we each drafted up our list and shared it.
Mine was probably 3x longer?
After he read mine, he went back to “edit” his list. He added random bs to make his list as long as mine. It was legit laughable. I’m talking about things like “manage Netflix and Hulu passwords”
“Call customer service representatives when internet is down”
“Filled out birth certificate paperwork”

Then he said the whole exercise was a farce.
A part of me hopes he doesn’t come back from this work trip. I think this often. I am not the best version of myself when he’s around. I have stayed quiet for so long to kept the peace and not risk an argument, at the expense of my inner turmoil. Today in his text rage he said that I act like taking care of “my daughter” is unbearable. Sometimes I wonder if I’m on a hidden camera show. Did I not see all these red flags before marriage? I’ve ignored my “knowing” for so long. I know I married the wrong person for me. I feel stuck.

Is he wrong? I am reading the same too. Your kid is a burden on you both.

You should divorce then. Maybe divorce will make you richer, happier. Maybe you are a hot prospect in the dating world?

[Anonymous]

Very nice cautionary tale about how to destroy a marriage and a kid's childhood!

WPP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dh and I have always split Saturday. He gets up with dd and has her for the am, lunch and puts her down for nap. I have dd after naptime thru dinner and bed. I get a free am, dh gets a free afternoon.

Dh took dd to his moms house this morning. They walked in the door around noon. He announced that he was exhausted, dd needed lunch and a nap and he was going to relax. I was standing in a towel with wet hair from the shower after a great workout. Sat am is My time.

I said, cool dd, excited to play with you after nap! Maybe we can go to the museum.
Dh: “wait you’re not handling lunch and nap?”
Me: “why would I, it’s Sat am?”
Dh: shooting me dirty looks glares.

This is not the first time he’s done this. To me this says, He believes his time to be more important. He can walk in the door and just throw everything on me bc- I’m the mom? I let this dynamic go on for a long time and slowly I’ve started implementing boundaries. If I didn’t speak up for myself, I’d do 100% of the cooking cleaning and childcare. If I don’t speak up for myself, he would never wash a dish. Spill something on the counter and leave it.

As predicted, he sent me a rambling nasty text message of how unloved and unappreciated he felt. And that dd (who is 3) also felt unloved by the cold welcome. He said I need to stop being competitive selfish and petty about childcare.

Now what do you think his reaction would be if I walked in the door and announced I was tired and our daughter needed to eat and sleep. He would say to me exactly what I said to him. That this chunk of time is his free time. He’s a hypocrite.

If he had asked or communicated a change in schedule I would have more likely than not been accommodating. But walking in the door like that? No way.

What makes it more absurd is that he’s about to leave tomorrow for a week long work trip. I’ll be solo with dd for a week, and yes, I work. I’m tact I make more f-ing money than him.

If I don’t stand up for myself , my time, and my boundaries, he will walk all over me.

It was afternoon. Per your agreement, it was you time to take over.

Did you not read directly before you bolded? It literally says her dh handles lunch and naptime and the op
Handles dinner time and bed.

This is exactly why rigid agreements don’t work. How do they handle days that are off-schedule, which are inevitable? Who gets the “extra work”? It’s healthy to be flexible in your time to account for life’s surprises, to speak to your spouse with respect, and to not hold salaries over anyone’s head. OP and her spouse sound like they’re harboring a whole lot of resentment and both would need to mage changes.

Why are people doing all these mental cartwheels to find edge case examples of why dedicated alone time can’t work?? There’s truly no evidence here that OP isn’t flexible *when necessary.*

You have had a 3 year old, yes? They are pretty unpredictable. I'm just not going to look at my kid and say it's not my shift to deal with her and see ya later. The dishes can always wait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rigidity becomes necessary when a more causal approach leads to being chronically taken advantage of.

+1

OP, would Fair Play help?

I’ve seen this mentioned a lot on this board. I think I’ll buy it.
About a year ago or so, I suggested we write down our individual loads. Like the things we own related to home kid family finances etc. we each drafted up our list and shared it.
Mine was probably 3x longer?
After he read mine, he went back to “edit” his list. He added random bs to make his list as long as mine. It was legit laughable. I’m talking about things like “manage Netflix and Hulu passwords”
“Call customer service representatives when internet is down”
“Filled out birth certificate paperwork”

Then he said the whole exercise was a farce.
A part of me hopes he doesn’t come back from this work trip. I think this often. I am not the best version of myself when he’s around. I have stayed quiet for so long to kept the peace and not risk an argument, at the expense of my inner turmoil. Today in his text rage he said that I act like taking care of “my daughter” is unbearable. Sometimes I wonder if I’m on a hidden camera show. Did I not see all these red flags before marriage? I’ve ignored my “knowing” for so long. I know I married the wrong person for me. I feel stuck.

Oh god. This comment felt like a time traveling message from myself. I remember when we did this OP. It ended with me crying and both of us shouting.

In hindsight I think it made him defensive and angry because he really did know how bad it was and his ego couldn’t stand being the villain of the story. So whenever I tried to open communication about how to make things fairer it landed us in conflict.

Anyway our oldest is now 10 and our marriage is now very happy. We worked through it and I’m glad we didn’t give up on us back then.

Op here. Yes!! 100% he got defensive and didn’t want to admit to the imbalance. He literally went back and “found” all these things to add to his list to “match” mine in number of items. It was absurd. Managing Hulu and Netflix passwords? Gtfo. He has an email saved with them.

Same PP here. And if he staunchly refuses to admit things are unfair, it’s literally impossible to come closer to fairness. AND if he feels like he’s already doing his best, he thinks he doesn’t have any ability to do more, even if it isn’t fair.

This led to my husband eventually picking at me for taking things on like, say, Easter baskets or small birthday parties, saying they’re pointless and I shouldn’t bother, which made me feel like I was losing my mind that these things were on his “optional” list.

And like you I was doing all this while making a healthy salary, not some part time low stress mommy job.

There’s no magic bullet solution but like I said, we did grit our teeth through this chapter and things are great now. I think a factor is that DH got a promotion that gave him more control over/stability in his work life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dh and I have always split Saturday. He gets up with dd and has her for the am, lunch and puts her down for nap. I have dd after naptime thru dinner and bed. I get a free am, dh gets a free afternoon.

Dh took dd to his moms house this morning. They walked in the door around noon. He announced that he was exhausted, dd needed lunch and a nap and he was going to relax. I was standing in a towel with wet hair from the shower after a great workout. Sat am is My time.

I said, cool dd, excited to play with you after nap! Maybe we can go to the museum.
Dh: “wait you’re not handling lunch and nap?”
Me: “why would I, it’s Sat am?”
Dh: shooting me dirty looks glares.

This is not the first time he’s done this. To me this says, He believes his time to be more important. He can walk in the door and just throw everything on me bc- I’m the mom? I let this dynamic go on for a long time and slowly I’ve started implementing boundaries. If I didn’t speak up for myself, I’d do 100% of the cooking cleaning and childcare. If I don’t speak up for myself, he would never wash a dish. Spill something on the counter and leave it.

As predicted, he sent me a rambling nasty text message of how unloved and unappreciated he felt. And that dd (who is 3) also felt unloved by the cold welcome. He said I need to stop being competitive selfish and petty about childcare.

Now what do you think his reaction would be if I walked in the door and announced I was tired and our daughter needed to eat and sleep. He would say to me exactly what I said to him. That this chunk of time is his free time. He’s a hypocrite.

If he had asked or communicated a change in schedule I would have more likely than not been accommodating. But walking in the door like that? No way.

What makes it more absurd is that he’s about to leave tomorrow for a week long work trip. I’ll be solo with dd for a week, and yes, I work. I’m tact I make more f-ing money than him.

If I don’t stand up for myself , my time, and my boundaries, he will walk all over me.

It was afternoon. Per your agreement, it was you time to take over.

Did you not read directly before you bolded? It literally says her dh handles lunch and naptime and the op
Handles dinner time and bed.

This is exactly why rigid agreements don’t work. How do they handle days that are off-schedule, which are inevitable? Who gets the “extra work”? It’s healthy to be flexible in your time to account for life’s surprises, to speak to your spouse with respect, and to not hold salaries over anyone’s head. OP and her spouse sound like they’re harboring a whole lot of resentment and both would need to mage changes.

Why are people doing all these mental cartwheels to find edge case examples of why dedicated alone time can’t work?? There’s truly no evidence here that OP isn’t flexible *when necessary.*

You have had a 3 year old, yes? They are pretty unpredictable. I'm just not going to look at my kid and say it's not my shift to deal with her and see ya later. The dishes can always wait.

I’m the PP and I’m not OP. I have 3 kids including a 20 month old and I think you’re being intentionally stupid. OP and her husband should have no problem at all doing single parent shifts like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rigidity becomes necessary when a more causal approach leads to being chronically taken advantage of.

+1

OP, would Fair Play help?

I’ve seen this mentioned a lot on this board. I think I’ll buy it.
About a year ago or so, I suggested we write down our individual loads. Like the things we own related to home kid family finances etc. we each drafted up our list and shared it.
Mine was probably 3x longer?
After he read mine, he went back to “edit” his list. He added random bs to make his list as long as mine. It was legit laughable. I’m talking about things like “manage Netflix and Hulu passwords”
“Call customer service representatives when internet is down”
“Filled out birth certificate paperwork”

Then he said the whole exercise was a farce.
A part of me hopes he doesn’t come back from this work trip. I think this often. I am not the best version of myself when he’s around. I have stayed quiet for so long to kept the peace and not risk an argument, at the expense of my inner turmoil. Today in his text rage he said that I act like taking care of “my daughter” is unbearable. Sometimes I wonder if I’m on a hidden camera show. Did I not see all these red flags before marriage? I’ve ignored my “knowing” for so long. I know I married the wrong person for me. I feel stuck.

Oh god. This comment felt like a time traveling message from myself. I remember when we did this OP. It ended with me crying and both of us shouting.

In hindsight I think it made him defensive and angry because he really did know how bad it was and his ego couldn’t stand being the villain of the story. So whenever I tried to open communication about how to make things fairer it landed us in conflict.

Anyway our oldest is now 10 and our marriage is now very happy. We worked through it and I’m glad we didn’t give up on us back then.

Op here. Yes!! 100% he got defensive and didn’t want to admit to the imbalance. He literally went back and “found” all these things to add to his list to “match” mine in number of items. It was absurd. Managing Hulu and Netflix passwords? Gtfo. He has an email saved with them.

Same PP here. And if he staunchly refuses to admit things are unfair, it’s literally impossible to come closer to fairness. AND if he feels like he’s already doing his best, he thinks he doesn’t have any ability to do more, even if it isn’t fair.

This led to my husband eventually picking at me for taking things on like, say, Easter baskets or small birthday parties, saying they’re pointless and I shouldn’t bother, which made me feel like I was losing my mind that these things were on his “optional” list.

And like you I was doing all this while making a healthy salary, not some part time low stress mommy job.

There’s no magic bullet solution but like I said, we did grit our teeth through this chapter and things are great now. I think a factor is that DH got a promotion that gave him more control over/stability in his work life.

Op here. Wow. Holiday cards is on my list. When we sat down to talk about the lists, dh did exactly that. He said Xmas cards were optional and my choice to take on. Never mind that he is EXTREMELY opinionated each year on what pictures we use and specifically asks me to order extra cards for him to send to business contacts, distant relatives of his etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rigidity becomes necessary when a more causal approach leads to being chronically taken advantage of.

+1

OP, would Fair Play help?

I’ve seen this mentioned a lot on this board. I think I’ll buy it.
About a year ago or so, I suggested we write down our individual loads. Like the things we own related to home kid family finances etc. we each drafted up our list and shared it.
Mine was probably 3x longer?
After he read mine, he went back to “edit” his list. He added random bs to make his list as long as mine. It was legit laughable. I’m talking about things like “manage Netflix and Hulu passwords”
“Call customer service representatives when internet is down”
“Filled out birth certificate paperwork”

Then he said the whole exercise was a farce.
A part of me hopes he doesn’t come back from this work trip. I think this often. I am not the best version of myself when he’s around. I have stayed quiet for so long to kept the peace and not risk an argument, at the expense of my inner turmoil. Today in his text rage he said that I act like taking care of “my daughter” is unbearable. Sometimes I wonder if I’m on a hidden camera show. Did I not see all these red flags before marriage? I’ve ignored my “knowing” for so long. I know I married the wrong person for me. I feel stuck.

Is he wrong? I am reading the same too. Your kid is a burden on you both.

You should divorce then. Maybe divorce will make you richer, happier. Maybe you are a hot prospect in the dating world?

So you don’t think OP’s husband is at least equally acting like she’s unbearable? Because I don’t see how that isn’t pure projection on his part. He’s so unable to parent he first ditched her with his mom and then his wife! It seems like he can’t bear an hour long stretch with his daughter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dh and I have always split Saturday. He gets up with dd and has her for the am, lunch and puts her down for nap. I have dd after naptime thru dinner and bed. I get a free am, dh gets a free afternoon.

Dh took dd to his moms house this morning. They walked in the door around noon. He announced that he was exhausted, dd needed lunch and a nap and he was going to relax. I was standing in a towel with wet hair from the shower after a great workout. Sat am is My time.

I said, cool dd, excited to play with you after nap! Maybe we can go to the museum.
Dh: “wait you’re not handling lunch and nap?”
Me: “why would I, it’s Sat am?”
Dh: shooting me dirty looks glares.

This is not the first time he’s done this. To me this says, He believes his time to be more important. He can walk in the door and just throw everything on me bc- I’m the mom? I let this dynamic go on for a long time and slowly I’ve started implementing boundaries. If I didn’t speak up for myself, I’d do 100% of the cooking cleaning and childcare. If I don’t speak up for myself, he would never wash a dish. Spill something on the counter and leave it.

As predicted, he sent me a rambling nasty text message of how unloved and unappreciated he felt. And that dd (who is 3) also felt unloved by the cold welcome. He said I need to stop being competitive selfish and petty about childcare.

Now what do you think his reaction would be if I walked in the door and announced I was tired and our daughter needed to eat and sleep. He would say to me exactly what I said to him. That this chunk of time is his free time. He’s a hypocrite.

If he had asked or communicated a change in schedule I would have more likely than not been accommodating. But walking in the door like that? No way.

What makes it more absurd is that he’s about to leave tomorrow for a week long work trip. I’ll be solo with dd for a week, and yes, I work. I’m tact I make more f-ing money than him.

If I don’t stand up for myself , my time, and my boundaries, he will walk all over me.

It was afternoon. Per your agreement, it was you time to take over.

Did you not read directly before you bolded? It literally says her dh handles lunch and naptime and the op
Handles dinner time and bed.

This is exactly why rigid agreements don’t work. How do they handle days that are off-schedule, which are inevitable? Who gets the “extra work”? It’s healthy to be flexible in your time to account for life’s surprises, to speak to your spouse with respect, and to not hold salaries over anyone’s head. OP and her spouse sound like they’re harboring a whole lot of resentment and both would need to mage changes.

Why are people doing all these mental cartwheels to find edge case examples of why dedicated alone time can’t work?? There’s truly no evidence here that OP isn’t flexible *when necessary.*

You have had a 3 year old, yes? They are pretty unpredictable. I'm just not going to look at my kid and say it's not my shift to deal with her and see ya later. The dishes can always wait.

I’m the PP and I’m not OP. I have 3 kids including a 20 month old and I think you’re being intentionally stupid. OP and her husband should have no problem at all doing single parent shifts like this.

But they do have a problem. They sound like a shit team and don't work well together. If you actually have 3 kids you know how easy managing one is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Rigidity becomes necessary when a more causal approach leads to being chronically taken advantage of.

+1

OP, would Fair Play help?

I’ve seen this mentioned a lot on this board. I think I’ll buy it.
About a year ago or so, I suggested we write down our individual loads. Like the things we own related to home kid family finances etc. we each drafted up our list and shared it.
Mine was probably 3x longer?
After he read mine, he went back to “edit” his list. He added random bs to make his list as long as mine. It was legit laughable. I’m talking about things like “manage Netflix and Hulu passwords”
“Call customer service representatives when internet is down”
“Filled out birth certificate paperwork”

Then he said the whole exercise was a farce.
A part of me hopes he doesn’t come back from this work trip. I think this often. I am not the best version of myself when he’s around. I have stayed quiet for so long to kept the peace and not risk an argument, at the expense of my inner turmoil. Today in his text rage he said that I act like taking care of “my daughter” is unbearable. Sometimes I wonder if I’m on a hidden camera show. Did I not see all these red flags before marriage? I’ve ignored my “knowing” for so long. I know I married the wrong person for me. I feel stuck.

Oh god. This comment felt like a time traveling message from myself. I remember when we did this OP. It ended with me crying and both of us shouting.

In hindsight I think it made him defensive and angry because he really did know how bad it was and his ego couldn’t stand being the villain of the story. So whenever I tried to open communication about how to make things fairer it landed us in conflict.

Anyway our oldest is now 10 and our marriage is now very happy. We worked through it and I’m glad we didn’t give up on us back then.

Op here. Yes!! 100% he got defensive and didn’t want to admit to the imbalance. He literally went back and “found” all these things to add to his list to “match” mine in number of items. It was absurd. Managing Hulu and Netflix passwords? Gtfo. He has an email saved with them.

Same PP here. And if he staunchly refuses to admit things are unfair, it’s literally impossible to come closer to fairness. AND if he feels like he’s already doing his best, he thinks he doesn’t have any ability to do more, even if it isn’t fair.

This led to my husband eventually picking at me for taking things on like, say, Easter baskets or small birthday parties, saying they’re pointless and I shouldn’t bother, which made me feel like I was losing my mind that these things were on his “optional” list.

And like you I was doing all this while making a healthy salary, not some part time low stress mommy job.

There’s no magic bullet solution but like I said, we did grit our teeth through this chapter and things are great now. I think a factor is that DH got a promotion that gave him more control over/stability in his work life.

Op here. Wow. Holiday cards is on my list. When we sat down to talk about the lists, dh did exactly that. He said Xmas cards were optional and my choice to take on. Never mind that he is EXTREMELY opinionated each year on what pictures we use and specifically asks me to order extra cards for him to send to business contacts, distant relatives of his etc.

How’d I know!

There are two things I have read on DCUM that helped me. The first is a “I’ll do my best, she’ll do the rest” mentality. It was so true in my case and I bet yours too. He really thinks he’s doing all he can and is willing to just drop everything else.

The second is, men are motivated only by profit, prestige, and pleasure. That helped me predict what he was just never going to take on. Funny enough I see that in your cards. He is getting some of all 3 out of your Christmas cards so he does have opinions on it. Try to reshuffle some tasks that fall into those categories to his side of the ledger.

Anyway, good luck. I have a lot more I could say but I’m not sure how helpful they would be.

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Anonymous wrote:Dh and I have always split Saturday. He gets up with dd and has her for the am, lunch and puts her down for nap. I have dd after naptime thru dinner and bed. I get a free am, dh gets a free afternoon.

Dh took dd to his moms house this morning. They walked in the door around noon. He announced that he was exhausted, dd needed lunch and a nap and he was going to relax. I was standing in a towel with wet hair from the shower after a great workout. Sat am is My time.

I said, cool dd, excited to play with you after nap! Maybe we can go to the museum.
Dh: “wait you’re not handling lunch and nap?”
Me: “why would I, it’s Sat am?”
Dh: shooting me dirty looks glares.

This is not the first time he’s done this. To me this says, He believes his time to be more important. He can walk in the door and just throw everything on me bc- I’m the mom? I let this dynamic go on for a long time and slowly I’ve started implementing boundaries. If I didn’t speak up for myself, I’d do 100% of the cooking cleaning and childcare. If I don’t speak up for myself, he would never wash a dish. Spill something on the counter and leave it.

As predicted, he sent me a rambling nasty text message of how unloved and unappreciated he felt. And that dd (who is 3) also felt unloved by the cold welcome. He said I need to stop being competitive selfish and petty about childcare.

Now what do you think his reaction would be if I walked in the door and announced I was tired and our daughter needed to eat and sleep. He would say to me exactly what I said to him. That this chunk of time is his free time. He’s a hypocrite.

If he had asked or communicated a change in schedule I would have more likely than not been accommodating. But walking in the door like that? No way.

What makes it more absurd is that he’s about to leave tomorrow for a week long work trip. I’ll be solo with dd for a week, and yes, I work. I’m tact I make more f-ing money than him.

If I don’t stand up for myself , my time, and my boundaries, he will walk all over me.

It was afternoon. Per your agreement, it was you time to take over.

Did you not read directly before you bolded? It literally says her dh handles lunch and naptime and the op
Handles dinner time and bed.

This is exactly why rigid agreements don’t work. How do they handle days that are off-schedule, which are inevitable? Who gets the “extra work”? It’s healthy to be flexible in your time to account for life’s surprises, to speak to your spouse with respect, and to not hold salaries over anyone’s head. OP and her spouse sound like they’re harboring a whole lot of resentment and both would need to mage changes.

What if the child has explosive diarrhea or vomits everywhere when it's "your watch" and creates a huge mess? Is it just "sucks to be you, babe!" as you watch the other person clean up a huge mess and tend to a sick child? So glad my spouse and I can work as a team. I can remember having just one kid and thinking this was a big deal but then we had 3 and it was pretty much all hands on deck until the youngest was at least 4 and we just rolled with it.

Of course I would help. We were “flexible” on hands on deck for the first 2 years or so. And then I looked up one day and realized flexibility meant me doing basically all of the cleaning child care AND making more money.

You know, that's your big problem. You have no respect for your DH because he is a beta and low earning to boot. Maybe divorce that POS. You must be feeling horrible having a kid with that loser, no?

Op here. Dh always preached feminism and that he saw no problem with being a house husband/his dream wouid be to be a stay at home dad etc. professed no issue with traditional values that men must make money and women stay at home. YET when he lost his job, had a long period of unemployment and I became the breadwinner, in turn asking him to pick up extra load at home/ I think his theory of feminism and a stay at home dad became a reality he didn’t actually like or want. He did eventually find a job but has made less than me for 6 years now. I think it bothers him. I do think if he went back to the high earning status he had before things might be different. Not sure if better, but I think he feels emasculated. Frankly, if I have to put up with a jerk and someone not willing to pull weight at home, I’d MUCH prefer dh be making much better money and feeling financially secure and able to outsource some things. Basically I don’t think I’d put up as much of a fuss about doing 90% of the housework if he were making more money.

Man or woman. You can’t be making less money AND doing less work at home.