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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

OP here. And yes, leaving the house is key. I'm struggling a bit finding place to go sometimes though. It was easier pre-Covid but now its harder and more awkward to spend hours at a coffee shop. I can, it's just less pleasant than it was a couple years ago. I also put a lot of effort into making the house nice and functional during Covid and part of me gets frustrated when I have to leave to do things like pay bills or work on a project or read. I spent time setting up our home office and creating comfortable spots to do these things during Covid when we couldn't go anywhere, and it sucks to have to leave to go sit in an uncomfortable chair in a too-cold coffee shop to pay bills when I have a nice desk with a pleasant window and my slippers and my favorite tea at home.

I know that now I'm must whining/venting. But it does feel good to be validated here and know I'm not the only one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

How was she to know that's how he would be? If you don't have helpful suggestions move along.

[Anonymous]

Pick certain topics to be Dad Things. Things you truly do not carr about. In my house that is Minecraft and all other games. I know no passwords, I have literally zero to do with it, and they know it. Never once have I assisted them in any way, so they don't ask. If Dad is not home, they don't get to play.

OP, it is the intermittent nature of your help that confuses them. They aren't mature enough to discern when you are busy. So pick certain things to never ever help with. Not even once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

OP here. And yes, leaving the house is key. I'm struggling a bit finding place to go sometimes though. It was easier pre-Covid but now its harder and more awkward to spend hours at a coffee shop. I can, it's just less pleasant than it was a couple years ago. I also put a lot of effort into making the house nice and functional during Covid and part of me gets frustrated when I have to leave to do things like pay bills or work on a project or read. I spent time setting up our home office and creating comfortable spots to do these things during Covid when we couldn't go anywhere, and it sucks to have to leave to go sit in an uncomfortable chair in a too-cold coffee shop to pay bills when I have a nice desk with a pleasant window and my slippers and my favorite tea at home.

I know that now I'm must whining/venting. But it does feel good to be validated here and know I'm not the only one.

Go in a room with a door, lock it, and do not come out for any reason. You have to draw a former boundary. Prepare for tantrums (from your DH) as your family adjusts to this. It's better in the long run for your kids to learn some boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Go on a month long sabbatical. Leave it all to him. Its the only way.

[Anonymous]

Ha! We just got a cat who was having issues. Guess who worked with cat therapist to figure out issues and guess who is now the cats mom?

I call her my 4th child.

I find being direct works best, like: “I need to do X for one hour. Can you feed them lunch and then….?”

[Anonymous]

My first piece of advice is a mind shift change. Assuming you’re not talking about babies or toddlers, but elementary aged kids or older, I’m not convinced that your way is “better” here. He’s essentially blowing them off. Well, maybe they’ll just figure it out themselves (rather than being directed on how they can do it themselves, which is different.) Maybe they’ll get creative. Maybe they’ll learn a little patience, or do without whatever it is they wanted. I don’t think always addressing their needs when you’re in the middle of another task (even if it’s just downtime) is the right path. So you definitely need to get past your “I just want him to respond to the kids faster.” That’s not how he’s gonna do it, and that’s not necessarily better anyway. Give up on that.

However, it is reasonable that you not be interrupted. You have very effectively trained your children to come to you. You even say in your post that if dad doesn’t get what they need fast enough, they come to you, and you do it because “you can’t focus anyway.” So yeah, of course you’re gonna get interrupted! Stop doing that! You need to retrain them.

You need a clear delineation between when you are “on call” and when your husband is. Split days? Sunday-Tuesday, kids bother dad. Wednesday-Saturday they bother you. Or mornings/evenings. Whatever makes sense, but you and your husband need to decide on an even divide of “shifts” for this stuff.

While you’re retraining I think a visual barrier is important at least for a while. You’re not going to be able to start with both of you sitting in the living room. I would recommend a big red stop sign made out of construction paper that you put on the room you’re in. Your bedroom or the office you set up are probably your best options to start. And you tell the kids - unless the house is on fire or dad is severely injured, they are NOT to knock or come in. Never. If they do knock, don’t answer. If they come in, you read them the riot act. Do not even address whatever they’re asking about. It’s simply “I have told you not to bother me when that sign is up. Go to your room for 10 minutes” or wherever consequence works for you guys. But there should ABSOLUTELY be a consequence.

It will absolutely be more annoying for the first week or two, but if you push past that, uninterrupted bliss is waiting for you!

Meanwhile, let your husband deal with them however he’s going to deal with them. No micromanaging! If they don’t get a snack and get hangry, he’ll have to deal with it. They won’t starve.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the PP in creating times when you are not to be interrupted, even with visual cues. Though I wouldn't say "don't bother me" but reframe it as "I need to focus on my tasks for an hour." Maybe use an example of when you've interrupted the kids while they've been playing or doing games and they got annoyed...to help them start to understand. I think kids/anyone will stick with the status quo so it's up to you to create boundaries, and show your kids how important boundaries are to everyone.

[Anonymous]

I agree that ignoring kids as they get older isn’t such a bad thing. All this intense parenting leads to a whole low of incompetent, anxious kids. Once kids are 4, they can usually fix their own snack of some kind and find the TV show they like. I say this as a parent of a child that will cognitively be a baby forever. People don’t give their kids nearly enough credit. If there is ever some miracle drug that would make my kid a four year old cognitively, she would be able to live in a supervised situation but would not need 24-7 care. Let’s pretend my neurotypical 9 year old got stuck cognitively at this age. She would literally be able to live entirely on her own, make her own meals, use public transportation and get a job (at a grocery store, answering phones, etc) once she was 18. She would likely have some sort of limited financial supervision. Kids can figure a whole lot out on their own.

That said, I still get the pain of being the parent they come to first on the stuff they know we won’t both ignore. My nine year old does this for certain things — like homework help. My best strategy is to really divide up roles and responsibilities. Like, I have NOTHING to do with piano lessons unless my husband explicitly asks me to help in some way. I have NOTHING to do with basketball or bike riding, etc.

[Anonymous]

"If you come near me, you will get a chore to do" works well for me.

OP, you have to be willing to ride out their fussing and tantrums and have a very crabby DH for a while. Like 6-8 weeks.

[Anonymous]

OP, sometimes people are single parents even when married

[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.

YESSSSS. I feel this DEEP in my soul. And part of the problem is of course he doesn't know where the peanut butter is because you are the one shopping and putting groceries away. For me, this happens ALL THE TIME. And not with peanut butter, because obviously that is something that can have a set place in the pantry, but with a million other things: sports uniforms, he has no idea if they are clean or dirty or unwashed or just unfolded because laundry is 100% me. If I am out at lunchtime, than more likely than not kids will not have eaten lunch when I come back at 2pm. DH's "rest" time is paramount and must not be disturbed but I can be disturbed at any time, during any task. I don't know what the solution is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, sometimes people are single parents even when married

I'm a married parent who functions as a single parent in some ways, because my DH has major health issues and does literally nothing that contributes to the kids or the household.

I'll bet some money (not much, single parent income) that OP's DH works and contributes a lot that way. You don't get to claim single parent status because you don't like the fact that when your kids, who have a snack drawer they are too lazy to use, as Dad to get them a snack and he refuses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha! We just got a cat who was having issues. Guess who worked with cat therapist to figure out issues and guess who is now the cats mom?

I call her my 4th child.

I find being direct works best, like: “I need to do X for one hour. Can you feed them lunch and then….?”

Never enough laughing on this board. 🤣🤣

[Anonymous]

If you can find time to read or listen to Eve Rodsky’s “Fair Play” which addresses all the tasks related to keeping a household running.
I listened to it and my husband bought the cards because I told him that I didn’t feel like our parenting was in equitable situation.

She breaks it down into CPE, conceive, plan and execute- all the things, like making appointments, planning bday parties, etc.

https://www.fairplaylife.com/about-the-book

I think it saved my marriage and sanity and hugely growing sense of resentment that I was ON POINT FOR EVERY THING!!

If we don’t talk about this our kids will be having the same challenges once they are parents.

It has to stop somewhere.