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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone think it's odd that Op has time for typing all these paragraphs. And it could have been explained in one or two.

At midnight on a Saturday? No, I don't think it's odd. How busy are you usually at that time?

With a 3 month old? Why isn’t OP sleeping now to get in enough rest for the inevitable wake up? Or is OP not planning on handling it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all need a nanny, cleaning lady, mother's helper...

I had a cleaning lady, mother's helper, part time cook when kids were little even when I was a SAHM.

Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s nuts that in 2025, the sahm position is that taking care of two young kids, one of whom goes to daycare, is beyond the capacity of the stay at home parent, and this can only be reasonably managed with childcare.

I am fascinated and disgusted that some women have not only convinced their husbands that there is so much value in the work done by a stay at home mom that they shouldn’t work out of the house, but also that their husbands should go out of pocket to pay for childcare and house cleaners while their wives perform this apparently imperative function. (I understand ops wife is on maternity leave and planning to go back to work, so it’s not exactly the situation here. But there are lots of posters suggesting that op is expecting too much of her to watch two kids on a day when she is not working - so same sentiment).

+1,000. And no, I’m neither male nor am “incel,” and yes, I’m a mom to multiple kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s nuts that in 2025, the sahm position is that taking care of two young kids, one of whom goes to daycare, is beyond the capacity of the stay at home parent, and this can only be reasonably managed with childcare.

I am fascinated and disgusted that some women have not only convinced their husbands that there is so much value in the work done by a stay at home mom that they shouldn’t work out of the house, but also that their husbands should go out of pocket to pay for childcare and house cleaners while their wives perform this apparently imperative function. (I understand ops wife is on maternity leave and planning to go back to work, so it’s not exactly the situation here. But there are lots of posters suggesting that op is expecting too much of her to watch two kids on a day when she is not working - so same sentiment).

you’re fascinated and disgusted that a woman wants support caring for two small children one of whom is an infant possibly breastfeeding? And you then wonder why women are declining to have lots of babies? Come on.

I’m a woman and find it this strange. The older kid is in full day daycare most days. I have no issue with women opting out of having kids, but I do think it’s odd to try and opt out of the ones you do have.

Yup. And women “had lots of babies” when I was a kid, and my mom, and her mom, without “needing” full-time nannies, regular house cleaners and private cooks. Weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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?

I sympathize with OP but I do agree with this part. Both my husband and I have been responsible for leaving work at a particular time to get our kids and there is no gray area there. You log off when you need to and go get your kids.

Now we both work from home, so while our agreement is that we all meet with the kids in the kitchen at 5:30 to make dinner and feed the dogs if everyone is at home (our kids are older now), one of us not showing up for that isn't that big of a deal so we're pretty understanding if something came up. But picking kids up from daycare is no joke and you don't have the room to be 5-10 minutes late. If I were you, I would apologize for that and make a bigger effort going forward. Her taking the 3-month old isn't an option - that's a lot of work to get the baby ready and in the car - so you need to honor your commitment to a 5 pm stop time even if it means you do log on later.

It absolutely is. Parents do it every day. She (and apparently you) don’t want to do it, but it is indeed an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of empathy missing from these replies. This is a hard time for both of you. Yes your wife is not being reasonable, AND she's going through a very difficult period of life and, in my marriage at least, we give each other grace.

Maternity leave with my second was one of the toughest stretches of my entire life. I would get to the end of the day and just cry myself to sleep for an hour then wake up and do it all again. Add in a snow day with a 4 yo and an exceptionally busy day for my husband and I probably also could have said something unreasonable or snarky. Thank god my husband let those kinds of comments roll off his back, stepped up where he could, and overall maintained better perspective than I was able to at that point in time.

Have you ever spent five hours straight stuck inside with both of your kids? Five hours flies when you're busy at work but your wife was probably crawling up the walls and watching seconds tick by. It doesn't make her "right" it just means she was struggling.

OP, my advice to you is that the "reasonableness" of her comment isn't really the lens to look at it through. You are a team with a shared problem: you are both operating at full capacity, so any unexpected burden, e.g. a snow day, puts one or both of you over the edge. I'd try to tackle that part of the problem together. Where can you throw money at things? Where can you each let go of a little bit of expectations? (E.g. she wants the 4 yo picked up at a specific time, you want to get all of your emails sent before you leave the office. Neither one is necessary, you are both choosing a battle).

Fwiw my husband and I both work for west Coast companies and it's NOT easy. We say constantly that one or both of us should quit but we have golden handcuffs. I'm grateful we can each relate to the problem at least, it must be hard to be juggling the pressure of trying to log off at what is effectively 2 pm for your colleagues, and feeling push back at home if you can't get off until 2:15. It sounds like your wife will be going back to work soon - have you guys started to talk about your routine then? Maternity leave is short and hard, so I would spend less energy trying to draw out these arguments and more time trying to anticipate the next phase, which will last a lot longer.

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding.

Wow.

[Anonymous]

I think it important to note that OP’S WIFE IS NOT A SAHM. She is on maternity leave (sounds like she is on month 3 of a 4 month leave, as OP said she is returning to work in one month). I don’t understand why people are speaking as if the wife stays home- she does not.

That is why older kid is in preschool.. It is used for childcare. Normally parents would not pull the older child out of childcare during a maternity leave- as the spot may be lost.

The wife is probably trying to establish precedent in terms of the division of labor, given she is returning to work FT in one month. With a lot of men/dads of young kids….it is all too easy to fall into the “mom works FT but does the majority of childcare also” trap. Better to be firm and set boundaries in the beginning (and ultimately better for the marriage as well). Now is she going overboard? Maybe. But we only have the husband’s side of the story here. Many will exaggerate & claim to do a whole lot of childcare and household chores while the wife might have a different take.

I do agree that it is ridiculous (very bizarre) that the infant cannot be brought along for preschool drop off and pickup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your wife is a lunatic. It may be because of the hormones and being lonely, but she’s being crazy nonetheless.

Working 5-10 extra minutes after 5pm every day, and having a 5 hour block of commitment (in lieu of flying to the west coast for four days) once a quarter does not make for a “less flexible job doing a stressful time” as another poster suggested.

Your wife is currently on mat leave and should be able to figure out two kids for one day. You already do morning drop off normally.

There is a zero percent change your wife is going back to work, just to warn you. She can’t handle a single snow day with two kids, so she sure isn’t going to handle balancing two kids and a job. Plan accordingly. And know that all the help you hire now she’ll insist on keeping when she continues to stay home.

+1. She is completely off base and can't handle two kids. And she does not work. Not a good sign.

He also can’t handle two kids. He leaves the baby at home while taking the older child to daycare, and he can’t watch a three month old for 10 minutes while he finishes up something with work.
They are both a little nutty.

Why would you bring an infant into daycare to grab the older one if you don’t have to? It’s a zillion percent easier to do drop off and pick up solo. When I was on mat leave with my second, I always jumped to do the daycare run because I had a second to breathe and listen to my own music on on one end of the drive.

Because then you can let your spouse have some time alone and vice versa.

And it’s not that hard. Everyone I know has some kind of baby wearing thing and a car seat that snaps into a stroller.

[Anonymous]

She is way off base. She is still home on maternity leave and you are trying to work, got a new management role, and trying to make a good impression on your boss. Unless she's ready to make a go of it on her income so you can be a SAHP, she needs to let you actually do your job. She should be grateful as many do not have nearly as much support as you offer. If it comes down to doing your job vs. folding laundry, it's a no brainer. She sounds needy and annoying. FWIW, I'm a woman and a C-Suite exec for a national company that is also based on the west coast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you need to see your wife's perspective. She's postpartum and sleep deprived and you should be more understanding. Stop thinking of what you do as "helping out"-- that means you see the household and the kids as primarily her responsibility. Think of it as doing a fair share and being a good parent, which is both of your responsibility. Her day was disrupted and made much more difficult, and you just shrugged and left her to it? Yeah, that's not being a good husband.

She wants to pick up the 4yo at a consistent time because she's tired of being functionally alone at home with a baby. And because she wants to start the evening routine, because there's dinner and whatever else such as bath, and then she has to nurse, and then bedtime which can be difficult, and then it isn't very long until she has to wake up in the night. It's almost as if-- get this-- there are two shifts in the day and at 5 PM she's starting her second shift.

She's thinking about going back to work. She's thinking how will all the household and parenting stuff get done-- that's why she's sensitive with you about household chores. Are you thinking about these things? Because you should be. If you're constantly claiming that you can't stop work on time, does she also get to work late and have you pick up the slack? Does she also get to go on multi-day work trips? Because it seems like you're claiming a lot of priority and flexibility for yourself here, and it doesn't even occur to you that this is a two-way street.

This is ridiculous. 15 minutes one way or the other in picking up the 4 year old isn't going to make a difference. Especially if that 15 minutes is between 5:00 - 5:30. When my children were little, we picked them up anywhere between 5:00 and 6:30 depending on what our loads were at work and what traffic is like. It's fine, you just adjust your schedule. You mothers who never had children before Covid have totally unrealistic expectations for life with two working parents. It's absurd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you need to see your wife's perspective. She's postpartum and sleep deprived and you should be more understanding. Stop thinking of what you do as "helping out"-- that means you see the household and the kids as primarily her responsibility. Think of it as doing a fair share and being a good parent, which is both of your responsibility. Her day was disrupted and made much more difficult, and you just shrugged and left her to it? Yeah, that's not being a good husband.

She wants to pick up the 4yo at a consistent time because she's tired of being functionally alone at home with a baby. And because she wants to start the evening routine, because there's dinner and whatever else such as bath, and then she has to nurse, and then bedtime which can be difficult, and then it isn't very long until she has to wake up in the night. It's almost as if-- get this-- there are two shifts in the day and at 5 PM she's starting her second shift.

She's thinking about going back to work. She's thinking how will all the household and parenting stuff get done-- that's why she's sensitive with you about household chores. Are you thinking about these things? Because you should be. If you're constantly claiming that you can't stop work on time, does she also get to work late and have you pick up the slack? Does she also get to go on multi-day work trips? Because it seems like you're claiming a lot of priority and flexibility for yourself here, and it doesn't even occur to you that this is a two-way street.

+1. Refusing to even try to coordinate a defined stopping time to hand off childcare is basically saying that OP is more important than his wife. Obviously OP needs some flexibility in case something comes up at 4:55, but it’s not actually hard to have a hard stop at a specific time. OP dismissing this conveys an attitude that his job comes first and hers second. I realize that she’s on maternity leave but I think the attitude still rankles and will likely still be there when she returns to work.

Now it seems possible that with coworkers on the West coast, it may not be feasible to stop work at 5pm ET when things are still in full swing there. In that case OP needs to be a big boy and have a discussion with his wife about how to coordinate.

I'm sorry but this is insane. Have you EVER had a job? Never in my life have I left work at the EXACT SAME TIME EVERY SINGLE DAY. That is just an unreasonable expectation. OP wasn't saying he signs off anywhere between 5:00pm - 7:00pm, I think he said between 5:00 and 5:15. I mean COME ON. His wife can wait 15 minutes. She can also TAKE the infant with her to pick up the preschooler, which is what I did for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of empathy missing from these replies. This is a hard time for both of you. Yes your wife is not being reasonable, AND she's going through a very difficult period of life and, in my marriage at least, we give each other grace.

Maternity leave with my second was one of the toughest stretches of my entire life. I would get to the end of the day and just cry myself to sleep for an hour then wake up and do it all again. Add in a snow day with a 4 yo and an exceptionally busy day for my husband and I probably also could have said something unreasonable or snarky. Thank god my husband let those kinds of comments roll off his back, stepped up where he could, and overall maintained better perspective than I was able to at that point in time.

Have you ever spent five hours straight stuck inside with both of your kids? Five hours flies when you're busy at work but your wife was probably crawling up the walls and watching seconds tick by. It doesn't make her "right" it just means she was struggling.

OP, my advice to you is that the "reasonableness" of her comment isn't really the lens to look at it through. You are a team with a shared problem: you are both operating at full capacity, so any unexpected burden, e.g. a snow day, puts one or both of you over the edge. I'd try to tackle that part of the problem together. Where can you throw money at things? Where can you each let go of a little bit of expectations? (E.g. she wants the 4 yo picked up at a specific time, you want to get all of your emails sent before you leave the office. Neither one is necessary, you are both choosing a battle).

Fwiw my husband and I both work for west Coast companies and it's NOT easy. We say constantly that one or both of us should quit but we have golden handcuffs. I'm grateful we can each relate to the problem at least, it must be hard to be juggling the pressure of trying to log off at what is effectively 2 pm for your colleagues, and feeling push back at home if you can't get off until 2:15. It sounds like your wife will be going back to work soon - have you guys started to talk about your routine then? Maternity leave is short and hard, so I would spend less energy trying to draw out these arguments and more time trying to anticipate the next phase, which will last a lot longer.

Snow day. OP's wifey should've taken those kids out to play in the snow. Yes, even the baby. Typical helpless millennial momma. I don't know how our species will survive.

[Anonymous]

I read this entire thing and (1) OP never came back, so clearly this was a troll post and (2) y'all were making up a lot of shit about conversations fake OP did and did not have with his wifey and (3) I believed this, I 100% believe that some helpless 32 year old mommy can't handle her two children all by herself because hubs has been there for her this whole time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I struggled with work life balance early in my career, but things have improved since I started working 100% remote for a company based on the west coast.There’s a flexible culture around time off, which has been great to spend more time with our two kids (4yrs, 3 months). As a result, I never work/take my laptop with me on vacations or work on weekends. Sometimes I’ll work in the evenings to catch up on stuff, but I’ll do that when wife/kids have gone to sleep. I have to travel to our home office once a quarter for 4 days at a time for planning meetings, but I usually schedule my flights to minimize impact to family life (leave late Sunday afternoon, return Thursday night or Friday am on red eye). Another plus is that I’m able to attend daytime events at our 4 yr olds school, which is really meaningful to me.

DW is still on maternity leave for another month with the 3 month old, while our four year olds preschool is a 5 min drive.

Due to most of my coworkers being west coast based, mornings are slow, so I’ll take the 4 year old to preschool. At 5 PM, DW leaves to pick 4 yo up, and I take over with 3 mo old. However, it’s not uncommon to have lots of requests and meeting in the afternoon, so sometimes I won’t sign off until like 5:05 or 5:10, which bothers DW because she likes to pick up 4 yo at a consistent time.

I recently moved into a management role, which has me much busier during the day, in and out of lots of meetings, and doing admin work in my downtime. As a result, a lot of days, I’ll only have time for a quick lunch, which means I don’t have the time to do the household tasks I was able to do before (folding laundry, dishes, etc) When I come down and eat quickly, DW always remarks something like “you want to spend some time with your kid?”

However, things came to a head this week with DW and I regrading work life balance. Our quarterly planning meeting was this past week. Due to my new role, I was told that I only needed to be involved in one days worth of meetings. It didn’t make sense to travel cross country for one day, so fortunately I could join remotely. Unfortunately, the one day would involve two presentations that I’d be giving to different csuite members, so I felt it necessary to spend a great deal of time preparing these presentations.

Of course, the day I was scheduled to give these presentations, the shit hit the fan on the home and work front. Our 4 year olds school had a snow day so she was home, which is always a challenge. ILs are local and they’d normally help in this situation, but they were out of town. I helped out with the kids for about an hour in the morning, but then lots of work related fires had to be put out, which resulted being called into meeting, which then dovetailed into my presentations for the csuite. I basically didn’t leave my desk for 5 straight hours, which, I can’t stress enough, is incredibly rare, even in my new position. Along the way in this madness, DW texted me “we’re all doing great down here, thanks for checking in!”

A day later, DW tells me that she feels that I have an unhealthily work life balance, and I’m not prioritizing our family’s needs over work. She pointed out that she would drop everything at work if it was a snow day, so why shouldn’t I do the same. I see her point, but at the same time, this was an impossibly unusual circumstance, and I can’t just not attend a meeting where I’m presenting to the csuite.

I guess I just don’t know what she is expecting of me. Yes, I can work harder to ensure that I log off by 5, but at the end of the day, I think my situation is really great. I know many other people in much worse situations (having to go into an office, lots of travel, regularly working on vacations). I’m truly trying to understand my wife here, but I just don’t understand how one very bad day, along with signing off 5-10 minutes after 5 pm equates to not prioritizing my family over work. Am I totally off base here?

Your wife is a selfish, spoiled brat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I struggled with work life balance early in my career, but things have improved since I started working 100% remote for a company based on the west coast.There’s a flexible culture around time off, which has been great to spend more time with our two kids (4yrs, 3 months). As a result, I never work/take my laptop with me on vacations or work on weekends. Sometimes I’ll work in the evenings to catch up on stuff, but I’ll do that when wife/kids have gone to sleep. I have to travel to our home office once a quarter for 4 days at a time for planning meetings, but I usually schedule my flights to minimize impact to family life (leave late Sunday afternoon, return Thursday night or Friday am on red eye). Another plus is that I’m able to attend daytime events at our 4 yr olds school, which is really meaningful to me.

DW is still on maternity leave for another month with the 3 month old, while our four year olds preschool is a 5 min drive.

Due to most of my coworkers being west coast based, mornings are slow, so I’ll take the 4 year old to preschool. At 5 PM, DW leaves to pick 4 yo up, and I take over with 3 mo old. However, it’s not uncommon to have lots of requests and meeting in the afternoon, so sometimes I won’t sign off until like 5:05 or 5:10, which bothers DW because she likes to pick up 4 yo at a consistent time.

I recently moved into a management role, which has me much busier during the day, in and out of lots of meetings, and doing admin work in my downtime. As a result, a lot of days, I’ll only have time for a quick lunch, which means I don’t have the time to do the household tasks I was able to do before (folding laundry, dishes, etc) When I come down and eat quickly, DW always remarks something like “you want to spend some time with your kid?”

However, things came to a head this week with DW and I regrading work life balance. Our quarterly planning meeting was this past week. Due to my new role, I was told that I only needed to be involved in one days worth of meetings. It didn’t make sense to travel cross country for one day, so fortunately I could join remotely. Unfortunately, the one day would involve two presentations that I’d be giving to different csuite members, so I felt it necessary to spend a great deal of time preparing these presentations.

Of course, the day I was scheduled to give these presentations, the shit hit the fan on the home and work front. Our 4 year olds school had a snow day so she was home, which is always a challenge. ILs are local and they’d normally help in this situation, but they were out of town. I helped out with the kids for about an hour in the morning, but then lots of work related fires had to be put out, which resulted being called into meeting, which then dovetailed into my presentations for the csuite. I basically didn’t leave my desk for 5 straight hours, which, I can’t stress enough, is incredibly rare, even in my new position. Along the way in this madness, DW texted me “we’re all doing great down here, thanks for checking in!”

A day later, DW tells me that she feels that I have an unhealthily work life balance, and I’m not prioritizing our family’s needs over work. She pointed out that she would drop everything at work if it was a snow day, so why shouldn’t I do the same. I see her point, but at the same time, this was an impossibly unusual circumstance, and I can’t just not attend a meeting where I’m presenting to the csuite.

I guess I just don’t know what she is expecting of me. Yes, I can work harder to ensure that I log off by 5, but at the end of the day, I think my situation is really great. I know many other people in much worse situations (having to go into an office, lots of travel, regularly working on vacations). I’m truly trying to understand my wife here, but I just don’t understand how one very bad day, along with signing off 5-10 minutes after 5 pm equates to not prioritizing my family over work. Am I totally off base here?

Your wife is a selfish, spoiled brat.

This. She actually expected that because it was a snow day, you should drop your presentation? Does she want you to quit? You need to ask her this. Honestly, this crap makes me just shocked at the younger generations’ work ethic. Like this is insane. You have a JOB that you presumably need, yes? It’s not just a minor inconvenience or a vanity hobby? Insane gen x women are like this, so hellbent on getting full equality for even the most banal happenings and then are surprised when their partner ends up being underemployed and they are broke. Ask her if she wants to be broke and what the plan is. She’s a nut, though and an incompetent one, and I’d be terrified about her return to work.