Is my wife being unrealistic about her expectations of my work life balance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your wife is unrealistic. Perhaps she is crazy with hormones or bored with the 3 month old. She shouldn't be expecting you to "check in" when working for five hours. It sounds like she wants you to socialize with her. She needs mom-friends.

I don’t know. My husband doesn’t WAH, but he would text me and ask how I was doing if he knew I had a stressful day at work or at home.
If you have time to read a text, you have time to send one.

I do think that one or the other of them should have gotten out of the house. Maybe over to the in-laws empty house.

And absolutely agree that it sounds like she needs some friends!

[Anonymous]

Wow! Horrible expectations from a mom who is still recovering from childbirth, isolated, has young kids.

What a stupid society and culture.

Congratulations on doing better on your career and having a job. Your household needs to outsource chores , grandparents need to step up, you also need a part time baby sitter/nanny.

[Anonymous]

You have a 3 month old. Which means your wife is working basically 24 hours a day and is exhausted all the time. “I helped out” tells me that you don’t feel full ownership of the situation with the kids and the house, and that’s what she’s reacting to.

The snow day thing may seem unreasonable, but she’s reacting to this: there was a family disruption and her day got 1000% harder and your day stayed basically the same. Ask yourself how often that happens.

You not ending work at a consistent time shows you’re prioritizing yourself over your wife and your kid - regularly. As someone with a big fancy job who was there to pick up my kids on time 100% of the time, I know it’s possible to end work on time consistently. You just say “oops gotta run Fred - kid pickup time! Call you tomorrow!”

Also, ask yourself how much harder your life has gotten when the second kid came 3 months ago. Your wife’s life got a lot harder. Are you doing at least 50% of the household chores - including keeping track of all of the crap that goes into that? From your post, doesn’t sound like it.

Your wife is feeling resentful. I recommend caring that she feels that way.

[Anonymous]

Your own work-life balance seems to be great since you are away from taking care of young kid and a baby for at least 8 hours a day. You don't need any help or intervention and you cannot possibly help out at home any more.

However, the problem is that your wife has no work-life balance. However, it is not really a problem, it is an expense. You just need to spend money to replace the help you are no longer providing. Spend money for - cleaners, a part time nanny, therapist etc.

[Anonymous]

Your wife is struggling because you have two young children, and you are doing a little less than before.

I don’t think anyone is being “unreasonable” but I also don’t understand how you could add a baby and do less, and then be baffled that your wife has noticed and cares. I’m not even saying it’s not the right arrangement for you both, but how could it just happen with no consequences? That’s a very weird expectation to me.

Your wife is not handling this right, and you not working is not necessarily a good solution, but I get where she’s coming from. If I were her and you were as baffled as you seem to be in this post, I would be full of rage. And postpartum, rage is bigger and badder than usual. So maybe don’t play the dumb card so hard.

[Anonymous]

Could this be about how you’re communicating op? I agree with others that at least hearing your side (understanding we haven’t heard her perspective, but it sounded like you are reasonable and tried to present this fairly and fully) that she is not giving you quite enough grace here. But is likely overwhelmed postpartum. And that snow day was probably not a “you did something wrong” situation and more a this really sucked for both of us situation. Being home with a newborn and four year old is rough. And your situation sounded impossible as well.

So this is why I’m wondering about the communication, have you really talked through the changes in your job? Having a convo and being like hey im worried how this might impact us because im having trouble doing xyz thing that i used to do and then be really clear why: work feels very different now, the pace is different than im used to sweetie im expected to be on a lot of meetings so i want to work together and think about how we can adjust so you still feel supported.

and when you had that hard snow day did you explain that morning exactly what was going on - I have that suite presentation tomorrow so I need to be on x meeting, this is so rough let’s game plan so you’re ok. But like really explain the work situation - I have the csuite meeting, I need to prepare the presentation and if I miss xyz meetings I won’t have the info to properly present.

I’m sharing all this because I kind of recognize myself in your wife. I think because my husband works remote and has been so involved sometimes honestly my expectations of him can be too high. I also have a flexible job where I can truly “call out” most of the time if needed. Before he would just say he needed to do something but I didn’t understand why it was so time sensitive and I would get frustrated. Now he spends a lot more time actually telling me what’s going on at work - hey x just came in from a client which means I really need to get this to x colleague so we can have this up for them by the morning, would it work for you to handle x and then I’ll be upstairs at y? Honestly I should just trust him because he is very involved and does so much. But it has really helped for him to let me in a little. When I understand the situation it’s like oh yeah of course - go get get that done. He’s also explained why coverage doesn’t work as well at his work. Like hey I could have Sam cover this but then xyz woudl happen so it would be easier for me to just do it. It really helps me to hear his decision making that is balancing work and our family. Again not saying I’m in the right, he deserves trust (and I think I do give him that now) but he has found this helps a lot so he does it automatically now and it works way better. I work too so I get it when he explains, like oh of course you need to handle that, makes sense.

[Anonymous]

You’re both wrong. If you have a hard stop at 5, you need to stop at 5, JUST LIKE EVERY MOM IN THE WORLD WHO WORKS AND DOES DAYCARE PICK UP. Why is that hard to understand?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow! Horrible expectations from a mom who is still recovering from childbirth, isolated, has young kids.

What a stupid society and culture.

Congratulations on doing better on your career and having a job. Your household needs to outsource chores , grandparents need to step up, you also need a part time baby sitter/nanny.

No.

[Anonymous]

You both need to figure out how to take care of two children. The way I’m reading this, you never have both children at the same time, OP. And your wife’s only time without the kids is when she is driving to pick up your four year old at daycare. No wonder she is itching to go!

[Anonymous]

DP here.

My DH has always been a better planner than me.
He believes in having more man-power and making sure that people don't get burned out. He made sure that my parents were with us (for 6 months - 1 year) each time we had our babies. He paid for household help, masseuse, my parents plane tickets and insurance, their living and social expenditure, babysitters, part time cook etc. We budgeted for it because having care after a childbirth or with small kids is culturally an expenditure and socially an obligation for the close relatives in many Asian culture. If grandparents are available, willing, healthy and live nearby, they pitch in. But, if they are not nearby, then the couple will buy these services.

This is not a relationship discussion. It is a common sense discussion that does not seem to happen in this country/culture.

Your biggest personal achievement is to have happy family and kids who are raised well. You are working so hard to make money so that your family can thrive. This means that you are in need of more helping hands when kids are so little. Please pay for these services and devote time in training and setting up these service providers.

[Anonymous]

Why can’t anyone take the baby with them when they are getting the older child to and from daycare? It sounds like neither of you regularly take care of both kids solo. No wonder she was stressed!!!

I would say that dad takes the baby and the preschooler in the mornings while mom showers and eats breakfast and feels normal for a couple of hours. Then mom takes the baby and the four year old in the afternoons. That way she can get to the school on time and dad has a little bit of time to decompress at the end of the workday.

You guys have two kids now. You both need to be able to take care of two kids on your own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could this be about how you’re communicating op? I agree with others that at least hearing your side (understanding we haven’t heard her perspective, but it sounded like you are reasonable and tried to present this fairly and fully) that she is not giving you quite enough grace here. But is likely overwhelmed postpartum. And that snow day was probably not a “you did something wrong” situation and more a this really sucked for both of us situation. Being home with a newborn and four year old is rough. And your situation sounded impossible as well.

So this is why I’m wondering about the communication, have you really talked through the changes in your job? Having a convo and being like hey im worried how this might impact us because im having trouble doing xyz thing that i used to do and then be really clear why: work feels very different now, the pace is different than im used to sweetie im expected to be on a lot of meetings so i want to work together and think about how we can adjust so you still feel supported.

and when you had that hard snow day did you explain that morning exactly what was going on - I have that suite presentation tomorrow so I need to be on x meeting, this is so rough let’s game plan so you’re ok. But like really explain the work situation - I have the csuite meeting, I need to prepare the presentation and if I miss xyz meetings I won’t have the info to properly present.

I’m sharing all this because I kind of recognize myself in your wife. I think because my husband works remote and has been so involved sometimes honestly my expectations of him can be too high. I also have a flexible job where I can truly “call out” most of the time if needed. Before he would just say he needed to do something but I didn’t understand why it was so time sensitive and I would get frustrated. Now he spends a lot more time actually telling me what’s going on at work - hey x just came in from a client which means I really need to get this to x colleague so we can have this up for them by the morning, would it work for you to handle x and then I’ll be upstairs at y? Honestly I should just trust him because he is very involved and does so much. But it has really helped for him to let me in a little. When I understand the situation it’s like oh yeah of course - go get get that done. He’s also explained why coverage doesn’t work as well at his work. Like hey I could have Sam cover this but then xyz woudl happen so it would be easier for me to just do it. It really helps me to hear his decision making that is balancing work and our family. Again not saying I’m in the right, he deserves trust (and I think I do give him that now) but he has found this helps a lot so he does it automatically now and it works way better. I work too so I get it when he explains, like oh of course you need to handle that, makes sense.

DP. This post made me laugh. I always joke with my husband that he only shares with me on a “need to know basis” like we are in some kind of spy situation . We both work at the same place, so it’s not so much about work, but other things. Like why he needs an MRI. Why his aunt called our house multiple times last night.
I wonder if it’s a male thing because my teenage boys are starting to do this too.

[Anonymous]

Don’t cave. I caved and my career went in the toilet. To make matters worse, my wife still gets mad at me for working too much and not doing enough around the house.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you opted to take a new role with a lot less flexibility during a really challenging time. I hope you were clear with your spouse about what that would entail, what the trade offs would be and why it was worth it. Lots of people, mostly women, but some men turn down promotions to keep really flexible roles when that’s best for their family and you opted not to do that. I’m not saying you should have turned it down, not at all, but changing the balance when your 2nd is a couple months old is a really tough thing and depends on the family a lot. I hope your plan wasn’t just “my wife figures it all out” because I still have a good amount of work life balance (for me).

[Anonymous]

If I could suggest one subtle communication switch:

Snow days.

Try not to say “I can’t because of work thing xyz.”

Because if your wife was out of town or dead, you would figure it out, right? You don’t mean you would leave your four year old home alone while you went to the meeting.

So try saying “I think I should do work xyz and you should handle the snow day solo. It’s going to suck for you, but if I bail on this meeting, I’m going to take a huge hit on performance.” Because that’s accurate. Then see if you have any ideas to help at all, like “I could order in dinner, and I can definitely sign off by 5:30.” Or “Maybe I could take them Saturday morning and you could get some solo time.” or whatever. Or maybe your wife’s cups are full, and she just says “no problem, I’ve got it.” But you have a three month old and you seem quite selfish, so I think her cups probably aren’t.