Way to get past my resentment towards lazy DH, knowing he will not change?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have an engaged dh, so maybe I shouldn’t weigh in. But I wouldn’t discount divorce. My parents divorced and it was good for us. My dad treated my mom poorly and I’m glad we didn’t have that as our model for a marriage all throughout our childhood. At least you’ll have the law on your side when it comes to things like co-parenting. You’re doing 100% already, wouldn’t you like some down time when the kids are at dads house? You could have time to yourself and not be resentful.

Op here. I fantasize about it all the time but worry what coparenting with DH would look like and fear it would be harder than this, but I don’t really know. Is divorce the answer?

I just want to be less angry.

[Anonymous]

PP here who mentioned a chore chart and said I have these tendencies.

The one thing that really lit a fire under me was my MIL (who - contrary to stereotypes - I have a good relationship with) pointing out that I need to get my crap together. She did it in a flattering way almost: "You're an accomplished, capable person. I know you can handle the tasks of day-to-day life."

Does he have a close friend or family member who could give him a come-to-Jesus talk?

I really didn't change until someone I love and respect OTHER than my partner said something.

[Anonymous]

Oh and maybe go back to a demanding job, OP. Counterintuitive but your "easy" flexible job is probably forcing you into the default-parent/household manager zone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP this time will pass, faster than you think. I know it's hard when you are in the thick of it.

I would outsource all you can.

Remember being a single mom means you still have all the responsibility and no help. And you can't control how your irresponsible ex parents on his time so, find a way to make it work.

Op here. I agree I just don’t know what to do about the rage I feel all the time. Rage and exhaustion.

I am new to this thread, but, it’s been a few years since I outsourced everything we could afford. I also remind myself to be thankful for what he does do. The time distance, plus aging of kids, who are now tweens and teens (both with relatively minor/moderate special needs - all falling on me) has absolutely smoothed out the rage I had. I drank a lot, a glass of wine 3-5 times a week, to blunt things. I don’t need the wine to be able to do that now. But, in addition to the rage subsiding, so have all the other feelings. There is nothing really left. We live in the house together, we contribute to savings together. We don’t have much of a relationship beyond that. He stopped sitting with us at dinner after he started cooking his own food for health reasons. I don’t know if we’ll stay together once the kids are gone and we can downsize the house. It’s not bad; it’s stable and it’s fine. So, I’m not sure there is really a benefit in splitting up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH probably has ADHD and might be on the spectrum and might even be depressed but he is unwilling to get help for any of those things, despite my urging.

The problem is I truly need his help with our two young kids and household, and he continually drops the ball on things, and I am full of resentment.

I have done:
-individual and couples therapy
-antidepressants
-getting a less demanding job myself so I have more time to do household/kid stuff
-helping DH get a less demanding job, which he landed but which has not resulted in him doing any extra work
-getting one of our healthy parents to move close to us to help with kids
-outsourcing and automating as much as we possibly can. We have childcare 7 days a week.

Is there any way I can stop being an angry, resentful shrew every waking minute of the day? I have of course considered divorce but I am unsure it will actually help my stress level, because then I will be coparenting with an unreliable, disorganized, disengaged person. I worry the logistics will get more complicated and I will end up actually having more on my plate if we divorce.

I am just so tired and overwhelmed. I cannot do it all, and I cannot count on DH. I am so tired.

I would seriously consider divorce, maybe in a few years when both kids are in school, but for now I think you drop the rope with him and prioritize. It sounds like you have two other adults helping with childcare so what are examples of things you are doing that you would like your husband to do?

Op here. Recently I was flying across the country for a funeral in my family. I planned to take our oldest child with me. The morning we were supposed to depart, our child got into an accident and badly injured himself. I took him to the ER and the ER prescribed antibiotics. We were running super late and it was down to the wire whether we’d make it to our flight on time. I didn’t have time to go to the pharmacy so asked DH to see if we could get the antibiotic prescription filled when we arrived. DH agreed to handle it.

DH’s version of “handling it” was to send me the name of a target near my hotel. I thought this meant he had called them to verify that they had the medication and would take the prescription from another state. I was wrong. I get to the target and it doesn’t even have a pharmacy. It’s 8 PM and I was on my own with our kid and ended up having to call around while sitting on a bench outside target trying to find a pharmacy that was nearby and open and had the medication. It took 9 phone calls and three uber rides but I finally got it.

Oh gosh I'm sorry, OP. This is a nightmare. The one person who is supposed to be strong enough to lean on. This is why so many parents of special needs kids divorce. Have you reached out to parent groups that deal specifically with special needs? I know a great one that provides supports for the parents of adult children with special needs, but I don't know any that deal specifically with young children and their unique needs and parenting stresses.

And finally, if your husband possibly has ADHD, is he willing to go to get diagnosed and medicated? That could make a huge difference. My teen with ADHD is a completely different person when he's on a stimulant. He isn't perfect, but he's very functional.

[Anonymous]

That sounds really annoying and I would be resentful too. My question is, what do you currently want from him (since it seems like you have A LOT of help at this point)? I'm sort of confused about why you're still so busy if you have childcare 7 days a week, 2 non-demanding jobs, and parents nearby.

[Anonymous]

I would not rely on him for anything. If you split that will be the scenario, so implement it now. If you split there will be less money for childcare, think of the status quo as max outsourcing. Embrace that and stop trying to change him or his abilities. Divorce is brutal financially and especially hard on special needs kids. I would try to hold on for another few years if you can. Have a visual image of dropping the rope on your end and do it for your own mental health and physical well being. Simply handling things yourself will be less effort and mroe effective. That you have childcare and involved family is amazing. Try to be grateful for the ways you are supported and don't focus on the rest, I know it is not easy but it is the only way to move forward for your own well being. With DH's neurological abilities and lack of interventions, couples therapy is not likey to pay off, did not for me, either. Divorce really was incredibly hard on my kid with anxiety and attention issues. If you can, give them a solid single home, at least for as long as you can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What exactly is he dropping the ball on? How old are your children? Can you outsource?

Op here. A recent example is, through therapy we went through the exercise of making a spreadsheet of all the work we have to do in a month and dividing up who does what. My list is much longer than his, but I was like, please just tell me what things you will handle and then handle them without my involvement. One item on his list is our car-registering it, maintaining it, etc.

Last weekend, I had to go out of town for 2 days and as I got in the car to leave on my road trip, I realized the car had not had an oil change in 14 months. When I asked DH about it he got very defensive and said he has been very busy.

His list has 3 things on it, mine probably has 40. And he can’t even do the 3 things.

And what did the therapist point out about the disparity in your lists? Was there any acknowledgement from your husband as to the disparity?

Based on this and the antibiotic example below he sounds pretty thoughtless.

I guess I'd do a couple of things if I was in your shoes:

1) tell him that him dropping the ball is pi$$ing you off and making you not want to stay married. Just put it out there. Don't ask him to change, don't nag, just tell him the truth.

2) stop relying on him for things that affect you - like an oil change for the car - and decide which of the kid things he's supposed to handle can fall through the cracks; and

3) stop doing anything for him. Don't do his laundry. Don't buy toiletries for him. If you're the cook then you do what's easiest for you. Tell him you can't do it all and aren't going to. And then don't.

[Anonymous]

OP, I was you. In summary DH prioritized his non-work time for himself and I prioritized my non-work time to getting All the Shit Done. He felt entitled to relax in down time because of how hard he worked and how much money he made, and I felt abandoned to do all the parenting and household caretaking that wasn’t financial.

I would go to him, practically begging for more support, and he would make an effort for a few weeks and it would return to normal. Finally he came right out and said he is too ambitious to spend time on what I wanted him to engage in, and I thought it was over.

I completely disengaged emotionally from him, we talked only about the barest of logistics. He then had a major professional setback and his worth as a provider and (in his mind) a man plummeted. Okay Heb he turned to me for support in that I wasn’t there, literally and figuratively. Then, and only then, did he realize how messed up our dynamics were and how serious I was.

Long story shorter, we’ve been in couples therapy for a year (which it seems you have tried) and it has been better. However, it’s still painful to me how much he diminished me in our marriage for years.

I guess my suggestion is to make a very clear statement — “I need you to participate more in X and Y, even if that means you need to seek medical and psychological care for yourself as I have. If you don’t I don’t think we will able to stay married.” Then, you disengage, do the 180 as they say in infidelity, because 1) it’ll prepare you for what it could be like to be without him and 2) he may finally see that this is a real, serious, and persistent problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have an engaged dh, so maybe I shouldn’t weigh in. But I wouldn’t discount divorce. My parents divorced and it was good for us. My dad treated my mom poorly and I’m glad we didn’t have that as our model for a marriage all throughout our childhood. At least you’ll have the law on your side when it comes to things like co-parenting. You’re doing 100% already, wouldn’t you like some down time when the kids are at dads house? You could have time to yourself and not be resentful.

Op here. I fantasize about it all the time but worry what coparenting with DH would look like and fear it would be harder than this, but I don’t really know. Is divorce the answer?

I just want to be less angry.

Divorce was the answer for me. My ex cheated on me while I was pregnant so that's what triggered the divorce, but I wanted to leave him long before that and just needed a big event to push me to do it. Coparenting with someone who is lazy and has ADHD is really hard but not impossible. I needed an extremely detailed parenting agreement where no stone was left unturned, and then I had to enforce a few instances of contempt before it stuck. I have to set up reminders on an app for everything. And it took me years to fully accept the situation and almost always take the highroad when all the inevitable BS arises in coparenting. I can't tell you how relieved I am to be out of the marriage. The resentment I had while we were married took 10 years from my life and was literally killing me. I was a shadow of myself. I'm now 8.5 years removed and life is much, much better. My kid is doing pretty darn good, too!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What exactly is he dropping the ball on? How old are your children? Can you outsource?

Op here. A recent example is, through therapy we went through the exercise of making a spreadsheet of all the work we have to do in a month and dividing up who does what. My list is much longer than his, but I was like, please just tell me what things you will handle and then handle them without my involvement. One item on his list is our car-registering it, maintaining it, etc.

Last weekend, I had to go out of town for 2 days and as I got in the car to leave on my road trip, I realized the car had not had an oil change in 14 months. When I asked DH about it he got very defensive and said he has been very busy.

His list has 3 things on it, mine probably has 40. And he can’t even do the 3 things.

Doesn't your car TELL you when it needs oil change? 14 months may be meaningless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That sounds really annoying and I would be resentful too. My question is, what do you currently want from him (since it seems like you have A LOT of help at this point)? I'm sort of confused about why you're still so busy if you have childcare 7 days a week, 2 non-demanding jobs, and parents nearby.

Op here. We have one parent nearby, and he’s awesome but all he does is drive our child to school and pick him up. The other childcare is a full time nanny who works the same hours that I work and not a minute more. Then we have a weekend babysitter from 9-1 on Saturday and Sunday.

I know it’s a lot more help than most people have. My job is less demanding than my previous job but is still pretty high stress. I don’t work outside 40-45 hours but during those hours I have to work and it’s hard to take time off.

I just wish I could feel like anything was just handled. Nothing gets done without me being the enforcer. So even just the nighttime routine-dinner/bath/bedtime/dishes. He only does what I insist that he do and I have to insist every night for each task.

Part of my stress is also the admin tasks of coordinating doctors appointments and therapies for our SN child and fighting insurance, etc. DH handles none of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What exactly is he dropping the ball on? How old are your children? Can you outsource?

Op here. A recent example is, through therapy we went through the exercise of making a spreadsheet of all the work we have to do in a month and dividing up who does what. My list is much longer than his, but I was like, please just tell me what things you will handle and then handle them without my involvement. One item on his list is our car-registering it, maintaining it, etc.

Last weekend, I had to go out of town for 2 days and as I got in the car to leave on my road trip, I realized the car had not had an oil change in 14 months. When I asked DH about it he got very defensive and said he has been very busy.

His list has 3 things on it, mine probably has 40. And he can’t even do the 3 things.

Op- I’ve been there and my husband has changed. About 2 years ago (prepandemic) I really blew up at him at a holiday when I had explicitly asked him to do x y z while I did everything else and he did not do those things. A switch flipped and I went nuclear. I kicked him out of our room and he slept on the couch for about a week. I did not talk to him. I did not help him with a damn thing. I let him do a lot of the childcare when he was home. I would have left him if I didn’t have a 6 month old baby, and I still mean that. Like, my life could have gone in an entirely new direction after that if it wasn’t for the baby being so young and not sleeping through the night yet.

I think this scared him enough that he changed. It wasn’t thought out but it was the natural response to all his BS and all the work I was doing. Take that into consideration as you plan your next steps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What exactly is he dropping the ball on? How old are your children? Can you outsource?

Op here. A recent example is, through therapy we went through the exercise of making a spreadsheet of all the work we have to do in a month and dividing up who does what. My list is much longer than his, but I was like, please just tell me what things you will handle and then handle them without my involvement. One item on his list is our car-registering it, maintaining it, etc.

Last weekend, I had to go out of town for 2 days and as I got in the car to leave on my road trip, I realized the car had not had an oil change in 14 months. When I asked DH about it he got very defensive and said he has been very busy.

His list has 3 things on it, mine probably has 40. And he can’t even do the 3 things.

Doesn't your car TELL you when it needs oil change? 14 months may be meaningless.

Op here. Our car is older. Maybe new cars do this? Ours doesn’t. The last time the oil got changed was 14 months and 15,000 miles ago.

[Anonymous]

He sounds like a loser. How entitled is he that he can’t get 3 things done on his list? I’m guessing he can at work—somehow. I couldn’t stay married to him.