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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

My read on that was that she wanted him to shoot her a text that said, “Just checking in. How are things going?”

Just implying that he thought or cared about her at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

My read on that was that she wanted him to shoot her a text that said, “Just checking in. How are things going?”

Just implying that he thought or cared about her at all.

That’s clearly not what she was fishing for at all.

Regardless, why would she need a check in during the work day? Conversely, why wasn’t the dh checking in on OP on his big day of presenting for the c suite? Seems like his day was a bigger day than hers. Long story short is she needs to grow up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

My read on that was that she wanted him to shoot her a text that said, “Just checking in. How are things going?”

Just implying that he thought or cared about her at all.

Op plainly said that his wife said that she would’ve dropped everything for a snow day and so she expected he would too. Given that they apparently need two adults at all times for two small children and had no business having another child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

My read on that was that she wanted him to shoot her a text that said, “Just checking in. How are things going?”

Just implying that he thought or cared about her at all.

That’s clearly not what she was fishing for at all.

Regardless, why would she need a check in during the work day? Conversely, why wasn’t the dh checking in on OP on his big day of presenting for the c suite? Seems like his day was a bigger day than hers. Long story short is she needs to grow up

It doesn’t sound to me like she knew about that. We know about it because we are getting his point of view.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

OP’s wife is not Gen X. Gen X women are hitting menopause not giving birth 3 months ago.

[Anonymous]

It is really hard juggling a newborn and toddler. Really really hard.

What are your plans when the wife goes back to work?

I would bring in nanny earlier.

DH is a surgeon so he worked out of the house. We had our kids when he was in residency so he was working 80 hours. When he walked in the door, he took the baby.

OP, you should take the baby from 5pm to bedtime at a bare minimum AND clean up, cook, etc every night. Give your wife a small break. You should also hire help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is really hard juggling a newborn and toddler. Really really hard.

What are your plans when the wife goes back to work?

I would bring in nanny earlier.

DH is a surgeon so he worked out of the house. We had our kids when he was in residency so he was working 80 hours. When he walked in the door, he took the baby.

OP, you should take the baby from 5pm to bedtime at a bare minimum AND clean up, cook, etc every night. Give your wife a small break. You should also hire help.

Delusional.

[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.

If she's on maternity leave it IS primarily her responsibility.

Signed, a woman who has been on maternity leave before

[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.

Have you ever had a job?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is really hard juggling a newborn and toddler. Really really hard.

What are your plans when the wife goes back to work?

I would bring in nanny earlier.

DH is a surgeon so he worked out of the house. We had our kids when he was in residency so he was working 80 hours. When he walked in the door, he took the baby.

OP, you should take the baby from 5pm to bedtime at a bare minimum AND clean up, cook, etc every night. Give your wife a small break. You should also hire help.

Delusional.

Absolutely ridiculous. I have 4 kids, and maternity leaves have been by far the easiest stretches of my post college life. I wonder if the dw has some type of post-partum depression b/c this is not normal at all. If not, I'd be at the end of my rope because she sounds absolutely narcissistic and overly needy. She isn't looking for help w/ the children (of which she already receives an excessive amount) - she was looking for attention for herself. OP, you sound incredibly kind and thoughtful. Your set up is ridiculously generous as far as when you're home, what you contribute, etc. Your wife sounds like a nightmare. Don't let her walk all over you and push for more or make everything about herself. I don't know how you will last in this without being continually beaten down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Why should he? He's working, she's on maternity leave. When my husband went back to work and I was still home with our twins I moved to the guest room to sleep so he could get a solid night of sleep since he had to go to work all day. Of course I was tired by the time he came home and he did then pick up and take over with the kids/dogs/house, but I was aware of the fact that he hadn't been sitting at a spa all day.

He should feel full ownership because they are his children and it’s his house. And not caring that your wife is stressed caring for a newborn is not exactly the route to marital bliss.

You're missing the point. My husband is just as responsible for our kids and our house and our dogs as I am. However, if he's busy with work, I step up. If I'm busy with work, he steps up. If one of us is sick, or gone, or whatever, the other one fills in. But OP is currently working a new job full time and his wife is on maternity leave. She's more responsible for the kids and the house right now because she is not working. Her job is literally to take care of the kids and the house. Why should she not be doing that for 8-10 hours a day by herself while OP is working his job 8-10 hours a day by himself?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

He has a West Coast job that allows him AM flexibility so I’m not sure why this would be the comparison.

Fine then they should decide that OP does mornings and his wife does evenings. But if OP says he'll do evenings so she can leave at 5 then he needs to be off at 5. My point is that waiting around for him to finish something for 5-10 minutes is annoying. And having to pivot and take the baby at the last minute is annoying. If OP said he'll be done at 5 then he needs to be done at 5. But having his wife be fully responsible in the evenings is also an option.

I actually agree with most of what OP wrote and I think his wife is in the wrong (although understandably she's stressed, etc.), but I think he's underestimating how annoying it is to consistently be 5-10 minutes late. So either show up or drop the rope completely on that.

[Anonymous]

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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.

Oh, so asking for some help from the other parent of your infant and preschooler is “opting out” of childcare? GTFO.

Yes, complaining about the spouse giving a presentation to the c-suite on the first day you have to take care of both kids solo is pathetic. Embarrassingly so.

if he failed to even communicate and work out a plan with her - and just silently expected her to do it all - then yes, he’s being a sh*tty user. The message is “you are my nanny and I control the division of labor in the household.”

If OP had taken a moment to be RESPECTFUL of his wife and coordinate the day, then he wouldn’t be here right now.

You are kidding right? The plan is the parent who is not working that day takes care of the kids. It was 5 hours, not even a full work day.

Yeah no, your wife is not your nanny. If that’s the plan, you discuss it with her.

She. Is. On. Maternity. Leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a woman and I think your wife is totally off base. Maybe she's tired of being home for three months with a newborn (likely she's not sleeping through the night yet?) and is staring down the end of her maternity leave, so perhaps she's not thinking straight.

Your situation seems pretty ideal to me. I am often at my desk for 5 straight hours (or more!) so I think your job is incredibly flexible. Does she want to go back to work? Does she work outside of the house or does she telework like you?

Okay, Pickmesha

WTF does that even mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is really hard juggling a newborn and toddler. Really really hard.

What are your plans when the wife goes back to work?

I would bring in nanny earlier.

DH is a surgeon so he worked out of the house. We had our kids when he was in residency so he was working 80 hours. When he walked in the door, he took the baby.

OP, you should take the baby from 5pm to bedtime at a bare minimum AND clean up, cook, etc every night. Give your wife a small break. You should also hire help.

OP is working from 9-5, as is his wife.
Why should OP solely cover "second shift" from 5pm to bedtime? They should be equal participants in the second shift work.