DH Can’t Stand Having Two Kids… 2 Years Later

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately your mistake was having them so far apart in age. Hopefully you will feel that less acutely as time goes on. I agree this would have my very much questioning my marriage though

This I think is a huge part of it. He probably saw how "freeing" a 5 year-old is and then he had to start all over. It might have been a bit less painful if they were closer in age.

OP, could you have the grandparents watch one child at a time? Just a little break from two from time to time might help.

This could be part of it. I really wanted my second, and I felt this way.

That said it's a bit cruel to call it a mistake. Maybe they had secondary infertility. Maybe they couldn't afford two in day care simultaneously. Maybe they were dealing with other life stuff, like a sick parent, and didn't have the bandwidth for another baby. It's hitting below the belt to tell people they timed their kids wrong. I would have loved a smaller age gap myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately your mistake was having them so far apart in age. Hopefully you will feel that less acutely as time goes on. I agree this would have my very much questioning my marriage though

This I think is a huge part of it. He probably saw how "freeing" a 5 year-old is and then he had to start all over. It might have been a bit less painful if they were closer in age.

OP, could you have the grandparents watch one child at a time? Just a little break from two from time to time might help.

This could be part of it. I really wanted my second, and I felt this way.

That said it's a bit cruel to call it a mistake. Maybe they had secondary infertility. Maybe they couldn't afford two in day care simultaneously. Maybe they were dealing with other life stuff, like a sick parent, and didn't have the bandwidth for another baby. It's hitting below the belt to tell people they timed their kids wrong. I would have loved a smaller age gap myself.

It probably would have come to this level of stress either way, though. I'm the PP with one kid who feels similar to OP's DH sometimes even with just one. I would have been mega stressed with two close in age. I'm stressed just visiting relatives with two under 3 years old!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He doesn't yell or swear,.consider yourself lucky and leave him be! He's allowed to have his feelings.

Most dads are crap parents. I see it all the time.

Yeah, but the problem is that he’s also a crap partner. He’s miserable to be around. He whines all the time. Yeah, raising little kids is hard. But it doesn’t get easier with nonstop complaining.

I can see that. It's all hard AF. I've begun to resent all the work and noise and interruptions, too. I complain about it less than H, but if he is yelling and angry at the kids it actually makes me more likely to yell and be angry too. I try to give him lots of time off to golf or whatever, but sometimes he just chooses to sit around and be miserable.

I'm just saying it's a common problem.

In your house or are you generalizing? This is not a common problem in general.

Are you kidding? A group of moms voted a Governor in just because they hated seeing their children 24/7 for a year or more.

If anything, I think the pandemic forced a lot of parents to come to a public recognition that they only enjoy parenting if it’s a 2 hour or less daily commitment.

+1,000,000

It's almost unfathomable how many people keep missing the point of the pandemic and childcare. It's not that most parents don't want to be around their kids, it's that we don't want to be forced to work AND watch our kids AND oversee their "education" simultaneously, all while Sanctimonious Sarah over here tells us we should "enjoy these moments."

I still think this DH is a glassbowl.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Wow, this blew up. DH and I read the responses together.

A few clarifications

(1) His parents are dead and mine struggle to handle a toddler due to bad health / physical shape. Maybe in a couple of years.
(2) I did not bully him into having the 2nd kid, it seemed like a reasonable compromise to us both at the time. We were too cerebral and mathematical in thinking about it, clearly.
(3) Both kids love him, there are lots of hugs and kisses and jumping all over him when he walks thru the door. However, we agree that soon enough they will pick up on the resentment so we can't keep going on like this.
(4) What about solo time on weekends? What about evenings?

Here, we get to what DH and I realized is the crux of the issue. We are just too overloaded.

Before, I used to freelance part-time and had more time and energy. I was the primary parent, and there was plenty of couple time in the evenings. Recently, I got a dream job which has turned out to be nearly full-time. It is nonprofit and it is exactly what I always dreamed of doing since I was a kid. I can't tell you how much I love it after a decade of putting his career first.

But there is no money. So, it means that I have to work more but we can't afford more childcare and household help. I don't have time during the day for errands, cooking, etc. I am also picking up the slack by working in the evenings (our childcare is part-time). And, my DH has had to take on household and parenting 50/50. And he hates that.

We try to teach the kids to be more polite but we are both too exhausted to parent as well as we should. I mean, the older one can entertain herself for hours and regularly does that - reading or going outside to play with neighbors. But the toddler is 2. So there's no getting around the neediness there.

Maybe we should have somehow predicted that this would happen, but we were the first of our friends to get married, much less have kids, and young women are doused in this go-getter "you can have it all" nonsense since middle school. So, we honestly thought we could both have careers we loved and kids and the help we needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately your mistake was having them so far apart in age. Hopefully you will feel that less acutely as time goes on. I agree this would have my very much questioning my marriage though

This I think is a huge part of it. He probably saw how "freeing" a 5 year-old is and then he had to start all over. It might have been a bit less painful if they were closer in age.

OP, could you have the grandparents watch one child at a time? Just a little break from two from time to time might help.

This could be part of it. I really wanted my second, and I felt this way.

That said it's a bit cruel to call it a mistake. Maybe they had secondary infertility. Maybe they couldn't afford two in day care simultaneously. Maybe they were dealing with other life stuff, like a sick parent, and didn't have the bandwidth for another baby. It's hitting below the belt to tell people they timed their kids wrong. I would have loved a smaller age gap myself.

OP. We have talked about this, and I'm not sure. I saw how miserable all my friends with 2 under 2 were. We really loved those 5 years to enjoy our first. We were aiming for 4 year difference but had some infertility issues.

I think if we'd had them 2 years apart, we would be struggling for, say, 4 years until the youngest turned 4. And now, we're on track to be struggling for 4 years until the youngest turns 4. So, there's not a real difference. Plus, the older one is easier now, I kind of shudder at the idea of two helpless kids at once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's on you. He only wanted 1.

he compromised and said two. It's on him, too. Did she trick him into getting pregnant?

He might have said, " Let me think about another kid," and OP took this it as a green light. The point is that she knew when they got married that he only wanted one.

Then he should have gotten a vasectomy. Sex leads to babies. Or did you fail 8th grade health?

Wouldn’t be a problem if op would have listened to the “I only want one child” and not married him as that’s telling her that it’s not a match.

Remember ladies: it's always the woman's fault. Always. Men bear absolutely no responsibility for anything that ever happens to them.

He was upfront and told her. She didn’t listen and neither do you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Wow, this blew up. DH and I read the responses together.

A few clarifications

(1) His parents are dead and mine struggle to handle a toddler due to bad health / physical shape. Maybe in a couple of years.
(2) I did not bully him into having the 2nd kid, it seemed like a reasonable compromise to us both at the time. We were too cerebral and mathematical in thinking about it, clearly.
(3) Both kids love him, there are lots of hugs and kisses and jumping all over him when he walks thru the door. However, we agree that soon enough they will pick up on the resentment so we can't keep going on like this.
(4) What about solo time on weekends? What about evenings?

Here, we get to what DH and I realized is the crux of the issue. We are just too overloaded.

Before, I used to freelance part-time and had more time and energy. I was the primary parent, and there was plenty of couple time in the evenings. Recently, I got a dream job which has turned out to be nearly full-time. It is nonprofit and it is exactly what I always dreamed of doing since I was a kid. I can't tell you how much I love it after a decade of putting his career first.

But there is no money. So, it means that I have to work more but we can't afford more childcare and household help. I don't have time during the day for errands, cooking, etc. I am also picking up the slack by working in the evenings (our childcare is part-time). And, my DH has had to take on household and parenting 50/50. And he hates that.

We try to teach the kids to be more polite but we are both too exhausted to parent as well as we should. I mean, the older one can entertain herself for hours and regularly does that - reading or going outside to play with neighbors. But the toddler is 2. So there's no getting around the neediness there.

Maybe we should have somehow predicted that this would happen, but we were the first of our friends to get married, much less have kids, and young women are doused in this go-getter "you can have it all" nonsense since middle school. So, we honestly thought we could both have careers we loved and kids and the help we needed.

I’m a sympathetic PP who blames intensive parenting for a lot of this. I think it’s great that you and your DH are trying to figure this out. My youngest of 3 is a new 2 and I agree that it’s a hard age. So many opinions, so little ability.

I would try and rework the budget to have more childcare time. Is the older headed to K? I would even cut back a bit on retirement and college savings so you can get thru this time with your sanity intact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Wow, this blew up. DH and I read the responses together.

A few clarifications

(1) His parents are dead and mine struggle to handle a toddler due to bad health / physical shape. Maybe in a couple of years.
(2) I did not bully him into having the 2nd kid, it seemed like a reasonable compromise to us both at the time. We were too cerebral and mathematical in thinking about it, clearly.
(3) Both kids love him, there are lots of hugs and kisses and jumping all over him when he walks thru the door. However, we agree that soon enough they will pick up on the resentment so we can't keep going on like this.
(4) What about solo time on weekends? What about evenings?

Here, we get to what DH and I realized is the crux of the issue. We are just too overloaded.

Before, I used to freelance part-time and had more time and energy. I was the primary parent, and there was plenty of couple time in the evenings. Recently, I got a dream job which has turned out to be nearly full-time. It is nonprofit and it is exactly what I always dreamed of doing since I was a kid. I can't tell you how much I love it after a decade of putting his career first.

But there is no money. So, it means that I have to work more but we can't afford more childcare and household help. I don't have time during the day for errands, cooking, etc. I am also picking up the slack by working in the evenings (our childcare is part-time). And, my DH has had to take on household and parenting 50/50. And he hates that.

We try to teach the kids to be more polite but we are both too exhausted to parent as well as we should. I mean, the older one can entertain herself for hours and regularly does that - reading or going outside to play with neighbors. But the toddler is 2. So there's no getting around the neediness there.

Maybe we should have somehow predicted that this would happen, but we were the first of our friends to get married, much less have kids, and young women are doused in this go-getter "you can have it all" nonsense since middle school. So, we honestly thought we could both have careers we loved and kids and the help we needed.

I’m a sympathetic PP who blames intensive parenting for a lot of this. I think it’s great that you and your DH are trying to figure this out. My youngest of 3 is a new 2 and I agree that it’s a hard age. So many opinions, so little ability.

I would try and rework the budget to have more childcare time. Is the older headed to K? I would even cut back a bit on retirement and college savings so you can get thru this time with your sanity intact.

+1. The root of a lot of parental stress in this area is people under-budgeting for childcare. I am a crazy "FIRE" retire-early saver but I cut my 401k contributions so we could swing full-time daycare plus babysitting for date nights/occasional weekend fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Wow, this blew up. DH and I read the responses together.

A few clarifications

(1) His parents are dead and mine struggle to handle a toddler due to bad health / physical shape. Maybe in a couple of years.
(2) I did not bully him into having the 2nd kid, it seemed like a reasonable compromise to us both at the time. We were too cerebral and mathematical in thinking about it, clearly.
(3) Both kids love him, there are lots of hugs and kisses and jumping all over him when he walks thru the door. However, we agree that soon enough they will pick up on the resentment so we can't keep going on like this.
(4) What about solo time on weekends? What about evenings?

Here, we get to what DH and I realized is the crux of the issue. We are just too overloaded.

Before, I used to freelance part-time and had more time and energy. I was the primary parent, and there was plenty of couple time in the evenings. Recently, I got a dream job which has turned out to be nearly full-time. It is nonprofit and it is exactly what I always dreamed of doing since I was a kid. I can't tell you how much I love it after a decade of putting his career first.

But there is no money. So, it means that I have to work more but we can't afford more childcare and household help. I don't have time during the day for errands, cooking, etc. I am also picking up the slack by working in the evenings (our childcare is part-time). And, my DH has had to take on household and parenting 50/50. And he hates that.

We try to teach the kids to be more polite but we are both too exhausted to parent as well as we should. I mean, the older one can entertain herself for hours and regularly does that - reading or going outside to play with neighbors. But the toddler is 2. So there's no getting around the neediness there.

Maybe we should have somehow predicted that this would happen, but we were the first of our friends to get married, much less have kids, and young women are doused in this go-getter "you can have it all" nonsense since middle school. So, we honestly thought we could both have careers we loved and kids and the help we needed.

I’m a sympathetic PP who blames intensive parenting for a lot of this. I think it’s great that you and your DH are trying to figure this out. My youngest of 3 is a new 2 and I agree that it’s a hard age. So many opinions, so little ability.

I would try and rework the budget to have more childcare time. Is the older headed to K? I would even cut back a bit on retirement and college savings so you can get thru this time with your sanity intact.

+1. The root of a lot of parental stress in this area is people under-budgeting for childcare. I am a crazy "FIRE" retire-early saver but I cut my 401k contributions so we could swing full-time daycare plus babysitting for date nights/occasional weekend fun.

It depends on what OP means "there is no money." If there really is no money, they need to suck it up short term until her dream job pays enough to fill the gap for childcare - a job that takes up way more time, but doesn't pay enough for the cost of working, is not long term sustainable. But if there IS technically enough money, they just choose to prioritize other things like savings, I agree that's worth reevaluating.

[Anonymous]

So you “compromised” on a kid he initially didn’t want, and then took a job that reduced the amount of parenting you could do, without making any allowance for increased childcare, and your husband’s reaction to that is unpleasant for you?

Ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Wow, this blew up. DH and I read the responses together.

A few clarifications

(1) His parents are dead and mine struggle to handle a toddler due to bad health / physical shape. Maybe in a couple of years.
(2) I did not bully him into having the 2nd kid, it seemed like a reasonable compromise to us both at the time. We were too cerebral and mathematical in thinking about it, clearly.
(3) Both kids love him, there are lots of hugs and kisses and jumping all over him when he walks thru the door. However, we agree that soon enough they will pick up on the resentment so we can't keep going on like this.
(4) What about solo time on weekends? What about evenings?

Here, we get to what DH and I realized is the crux of the issue. We are just too overloaded.

Before, I used to freelance part-time and had more time and energy. I was the primary parent, and there was plenty of couple time in the evenings. Recently, I got a dream job which has turned out to be nearly full-time. It is nonprofit and it is exactly what I always dreamed of doing since I was a kid. I can't tell you how much I love it after a decade of putting his career first.

But there is no money. So, it means that I have to work more but we can't afford more childcare and household help. I don't have time during the day for errands, cooking, etc. I am also picking up the slack by working in the evenings (our childcare is part-time). And, my DH has had to take on household and parenting 50/50. And he hates that.

We try to teach the kids to be more polite but we are both too exhausted to parent as well as we should. I mean, the older one can entertain herself for hours and regularly does that - reading or going outside to play with neighbors. But the toddler is 2. So there's no getting around the neediness there.

Maybe we should have somehow predicted that this would happen, but we were the first of our friends to get married, much less have kids, and young women are doused in this go-getter "you can have it all" nonsense since middle school. So, we honestly thought we could both have careers we loved and kids and the help we needed.

Good for you for talking it through with your husband. Needing to work every evening is hard on a relationship, no doubt about it! Can you ask your work to reduce your hours? I did this when my oldest was born bent DH was working a lot and I resented being the primary parent and working full time. For various reasons it has helped as the kids get older and one has multiple weekly appointments. There was no equivalent part time version of my job but I asked and they didn’t want to lose me so they let me take a reduction in workload. For me it helps a lot so when I’m out for 90 minutes for appointments I don’t have to work to make up the time after the kids are asleep. Anyway I think people assume there are fewer options than there really are. It really doesn’t hurt to ask. Otherwise agree to stop contributing to your retirement account or whatever it takes for 3 years to get enough child care. Your relationship is worth it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Wow, this blew up. DH and I read the responses together.

A few clarifications

(1) His parents are dead and mine struggle to handle a toddler due to bad health / physical shape. Maybe in a couple of years.
(2) I did not bully him into having the 2nd kid, it seemed like a reasonable compromise to us both at the time. We were too cerebral and mathematical in thinking about it, clearly.
(3) Both kids love him, there are lots of hugs and kisses and jumping all over him when he walks thru the door. However, we agree that soon enough they will pick up on the resentment so we can't keep going on like this.
(4) What about solo time on weekends? What about evenings?

Here, we get to what DH and I realized is the crux of the issue. We are just too overloaded.

Before, I used to freelance part-time and had more time and energy. I was the primary parent, and there was plenty of couple time in the evenings. Recently, I got a dream job which has turned out to be nearly full-time. It is nonprofit and it is exactly what I always dreamed of doing since I was a kid. I can't tell you how much I love it after a decade of putting his career first.

But there is no money. So, it means that I have to work more but we can't afford more childcare and household help. I don't have time during the day for errands, cooking, etc. I am also picking up the slack by working in the evenings (our childcare is part-time). And, my DH has had to take on household and parenting 50/50. And he hates that.

We try to teach the kids to be more polite but we are both too exhausted to parent as well as we should. I mean, the older one can entertain herself for hours and regularly does that - reading or going outside to play with neighbors. But the toddler is 2. So there's no getting around the neediness there.

Maybe we should have somehow predicted that this would happen, but we were the first of our friends to get married, much less have kids, and young women are doused in this go-getter "you can have it all" nonsense since middle school. So, we honestly thought we could both have careers we loved and kids and the help we needed.

Good for you for talking it through with your husband. Needing to work every evening is hard on a relationship, no doubt about it! Can you ask your work to reduce your hours? I did this when my oldest was born bent DH was working a lot and I resented being the primary parent and working full time. For various reasons it has helped as the kids get older and one has multiple weekly appointments. There was no equivalent part time version of my job but I asked and they didn’t want to lose me so they let me take a reduction in workload. For me it helps a lot so when I’m out for 90 minutes for appointments I don’t have to work to make up the time after the kids are asleep. Anyway I think people assume there are fewer options than there really are. It really doesn’t hurt to ask. Otherwise agree to stop contributing to your retirement account or whatever it takes for 3 years to get enough child care. Your relationship is worth it!

+1 good suggestion. Also consider flexing work hours; my core hours are earlier in the day than a typical 9-5. I work a lot but it is at convenient times for my family/life balance (I start at 6:30am)

[Anonymous]

OP, you need to rework your budget to afford the childcare you need. That is one of the main lessons of the pandemic: childcare matters. Full stop.

You can't work without childcare, OP. If your dream job doesn't pay enough so that your family can afford childcare, you and your DH both need to rethink your jobs. That it's what you've always wanted since you were a kid is fantastic, but it also sounds in direct conflict with the realities of your life with two kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately your mistake was having them so far apart in age. Hopefully you will feel that less acutely as time goes on. I agree this would have my very much questioning my marriage though

This I think is a huge part of it. He probably saw how "freeing" a 5 year-old is and then he had to start all over. It might have been a bit less painful if they were closer in age.

OP, could you have the grandparents watch one child at a time? Just a little break from two from time to time might help.

This could be part of it. I really wanted my second, and I felt this way.

That said it's a bit cruel to call it a mistake. Maybe they had secondary infertility. Maybe they couldn't afford two in day care simultaneously. Maybe they were dealing with other life stuff, like a sick parent, and didn't have the bandwidth for another baby. It's hitting below the belt to tell people they timed their kids wrong. I would have loved a smaller age gap myself.

It probably would have come to this level of stress either way, though. I'm the PP with one kid who feels similar to OP's DH sometimes even with just one. I would have been mega stressed with two close in age. I'm stressed just visiting relatives with two under 3 years old!

Yeah but the thing is having 2 close in age is "mega stressful" in the beginning but that super stressful period that is the first few years--baby, toddler, preschool years--is over faster when your kids are close in age. If you space your kids out, it's just like resetting the clock each time and adding more years to the really intense, difficult parenting that is the early years. And if you space them out, you are older yourself while doing it so that makes it more exhausting.

I am the first to admit that having our kids close together was really, really hard for the first 3-4 years. We essentially had 2 babies since our older one was still in diapers, still in a crib, etc when the younger one was born. But once the younger one was about 3-4, it got so much easier. And since they're close in age they play well together, can do a lot of the same activities, are interested in a lot of the same things which makes going places w/ them or having them play on their own for a bit is much easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you need to rework your budget to afford the childcare you need. That is one of the main lessons of the pandemic: childcare matters. Full stop.

You can't work without childcare, OP. If your dream job doesn't pay enough so that your family can afford childcare, you and your DH both need to rethink your jobs. That it's what you've always wanted since you were a kid is fantastic, but it also sounds in direct conflict with the realities of your life with two kids.

Also rethink where you live. Maybe it means getting fully remote/remote-first jobs so you can live in a cheaper part of the DC area with a bigger yard for your kids to run around in and cheaper local daycares. Maybe it means moving the opposite: moving closer in to the city so you shorten your commute and can cut down to one car and save money, plus having a smaller house with less overwhelming household chores. (That's what I did and I'm very happy -- plus we get to feel much more youthful and dynamic with a walkable lifestyle.)