I hate “guy trips”

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I love these posts. They make me feel so much better about my marriage and my life.

My wife actively encourages me to take trips and doesn’t care if I come back tired or hungover. She takes trips and sometimes arrives home in the same condition. I’ll go hunting, golf, boating, or skiing and she’ll go to some resort or city somewhere with her friends. We do the same sorts of trips together and with friends.

It sounds like you guys are just miserable and that’s the problem. Not the trips.

+1

DW sort of pokes fun of me for being banged up after a Vegas weekend or whatever, but it’s all in good humor and she is mostly nurturing. Even if there’s some “tsk tsk” element to it. She like when I go have fun.

I do the same for her — though she doesn’t really drink, so it’s just a matter of managing the kids/house… which, guess what ladies, ain’t rocket science.

Reading the OP made me want to jump out a window. I can almost hear her screaching from my couch.

Op here - obviously I know it’s not rocket science to manage our kids/house. I will add though while you and the dads who have “big jobs” get to focus all your energy on work all day I got to work AND make breakfast, lunch and dinner for 5 people, walk the dog 3 miles, do laundry, schedule dentist appointments, schedule pre and post operative appointments for one kid, take one kid to tutoring, drop off and pick up 3 kids.

So yea my second job, being a default parent, isn’t the same number of hours and isn’t paid the same as my husbands I would argue that I am also contributing to my household.

I also have said multiple times I don’t care if he goes on guy trips. I just get annoyed when he gets home and is exhausted and cannot also contribute to our home life. We don’t have the luxury to just sit home and recuperate from a long weekend. Our kids don’t care that we are tired. Our jobs don’t care that we are tired. Our dog doesn’t care we are tired. We have to suck it up and do the grind every day.

No one says you aren't contributing. Your way of arguing makes it hard to side with you in this.

First, you do that think that so many people do on this forum, and add in all sorts of one-off tasks to make it sound like you are more busy than you are. Dentist and doctor appointments? How many times a year do you do that? Making breakfast? Why not just put out some cereal and milk? Plus, the number of people you're making meals for doesn't really multiply the amount of time unless you are making bespoke meals (in which case, that's dumb). Your dog isn't going to die if he misses his 3 mile walk a few days a year. The effect of this kind of post is that it makes you sound unreasonable.

Does your husband get bitter and resentful toward you when he's working way more hours at a more stressful job for the other 50 weeks a year? My guess is that you live a much more comfortable lifestyle because your husband works like crazy. He even took calls on his trip! And you can't just cover for him for a couple of days after he gets back?

I don't know, OP. You can see all the negative reactions to your post. Does it cause you to rethink your position at all? It sounds like you are dug in on your resentfulness, and you sound self-centered and little weak/lazy.

Most women with three young children either have partners who help out more, are not working full-time, or have significant paid or family help. It is incredibly reasonable to be overwhelmed by this.

So if most other women in this situation can solve their problems why can't OP solve hers?

They have perfect spouses

Um, no. What a misogynistic viewpoint that a woman is nothing but her circumstances. Unless a woman's spouse is perfect she destined to be unhappy like OP? Are you kidding me?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love these posts. They make me feel so much better about my marriage and my life.

My wife actively encourages me to take trips and doesn’t care if I come back tired or hungover. She takes trips and sometimes arrives home in the same condition. I’ll go hunting, golf, boating, or skiing and she’ll go to some resort or city somewhere with her friends. We do the same sorts of trips together and with friends.

It sounds like you guys are just miserable and that’s the problem. Not the trips.

+1

DW sort of pokes fun of me for being banged up after a Vegas weekend or whatever, but it’s all in good humor and she is mostly nurturing. Even if there’s some “tsk tsk” element to it. She like when I go have fun.

I do the same for her — though she doesn’t really drink, so it’s just a matter of managing the kids/house… which, guess what ladies, ain’t rocket science.

Reading the OP made me want to jump out a window. I can almost hear her screaching from my couch.

Op here - obviously I know it’s not rocket science to manage our kids/house. I will add though while you and the dads who have “big jobs” get to focus all your energy on work all day I got to work AND make breakfast, lunch and dinner for 5 people, walk the dog 3 miles, do laundry, schedule dentist appointments, schedule pre and post operative appointments for one kid, take one kid to tutoring, drop off and pick up 3 kids.

So yea my second job, being a default parent, isn’t the same number of hours and isn’t paid the same as my husbands I would argue that I am also contributing to my household.

I also have said multiple times I don’t care if he goes on guy trips. I just get annoyed when he gets home and is exhausted and cannot also contribute to our home life. We don’t have the luxury to just sit home and recuperate from a long weekend. Our kids don’t care that we are tired. Our jobs don’t care that we are tired. Our dog doesn’t care we are tired. We have to suck it up and do the grind every day.

No one says you aren't contributing. Your way of arguing makes it hard to side with you in this.

First, you do that think that so many people do on this forum, and add in all sorts of one-off tasks to make it sound like you are more busy than you are. Dentist and doctor appointments? How many times a year do you do that? Making breakfast? Why not just put out some cereal and milk? Plus, the number of people you're making meals for doesn't really multiply the amount of time unless you are making bespoke meals (in which case, that's dumb). Your dog isn't going to die if he misses his 3 mile walk a few days a year. The effect of this kind of post is that it makes you sound unreasonable.

Does your husband get bitter and resentful toward you when he's working way more hours at a more stressful job for the other 50 weeks a year? My guess is that you live a much more comfortable lifestyle because your husband works like crazy. He even took calls on his trip! And you can't just cover for him for a couple of days after he gets back?

I don't know, OP. You can see all the negative reactions to your post. Does it cause you to rethink your position at all? It sounds like you are dug in on your resentfulness, and you sound self-centered and little weak/lazy.

Most women with three young children either have partners who help out more, are not working full-time, or have significant paid or family help. It is incredibly reasonable to be overwhelmed by this.

So if most other women in this situation can solve their problems why can't OP solve hers?

I think OP should outsource like crazy and if her husband is resistant, she should do it anyway. But that's a completely separate question from whether it's lazy to be overwhelmed by this.

You mean OP’s husband should outsource the half of the household stuff he’s not doing right? He can be the one to do the super easy outsourcing that everyone on here seems to think solves all your problems.

He's not here and me thinking he sucks doesn't help OP. And some outsourcing is easy. Laundry, meals, and getting someone to clean your house are easy. I'm not sure about dog walking. The nanny part is harder. But so is what she's doing now.

Not OP but we have tried 3 different laundry services and they have all sucked. If you are allergic to fragrances and your clothes come back either smelling like perfume or faintly burnt you have to rewash everything. If you have a great laundry service please share.

OP should find a nanny/house manager. When our kids went to school our nanny wanted to stay on with us full-time but the kids weren't home most of the day so during those hours she handled groceries, meal prep, all laundry except my husband's and my clothes (but she did our bed and towels), she walked the dogs and would even take them to the vet, she even got my car inspection done once. She was basically our third spouse (except, you know, the bedroom part). She would help with changing out too-small clothes, take stuff to Goodwill, handle Amazon returns, you name it, she probably did it. That's a way to solve many of OP's problems, including laundry. Then your clothes get washed in your house with your products and then it's also all put away (which is the worst part for me).

How much did you pay for this?

We paid her her normal hourly rates that she got when she was nannying. She didn't work as many hours as before but we guaranteed her the number of hours per week that she needed. So she made less than she did when the kids not in full-time school, but she also happened to get married at this time and was fine with a slightly reduced income with more flexible hours. I didn't care if she ran her own errands while running mine as long as everything got done that week.