It took six months for my husband to notice. |
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My uninvolved work addict, screen addict husband hit the wall and ignored us all after kid 2.
Then we all ignored him back, he flailed around a couple times a week when he tried to do something, then eventually accused everyone of not supporting him and left. At least by then the kids were in middle school and could tak better care of themselves and call a spade a spade. He takes them to dinner occasionally and a summer vacation. Continues to buy them whatever they whine for. Otherwise he’s too busy & important with work, per him. Once age 14 the kids can choose where to live here. |
OP. This is exactly right. I missed the obvious. He quit a long time ago. |
There is a t-shirt at one of those tacky beach shops that makes me laugh. It says something like, "When I say I'm going to do something, you don't need to remind me every 6 months." |
He quit family life. Which includes the kids spouse, home responsibilities. Perhaps he never did any of that. You didn’t notice until there was more. Plus maybe he’s a net negative in the house - slob, rude, careless, breaking things, lies or hides things. |
Sounds good. He definitely already opted out of adulting. |
| He quits you you quit him. Don't do any of this fawning crap. |
I'm not OP and this is how our schedule works (although not rigidly with a calendar, we just anticipate that we'll trade off days and then discuss what each week looks like), but I get the feeling that OP and others are married to men who would just...not read your calendar and just not care. |
What? My house growing up was comfortable and fun and our house now is as well. I don't nag my husband because we both participate and can have conversations about what needs to be done and then we divide and conquer. We discussed what kind of a life we wanted to have before we got married and then we executed it. Together. When we were dating we saw each other's houses - we knew how the other one lived. Obviously kids compound the problem but neither of us has been shocked about how the other one lives. My husband knows I'm more Type A than he is, so I've relaxed some of my standards and he's upped some of his. I know my husband is better at researching options for things, so he takes on the brunt of that work. He knows I'm better at keeping the calendar organized, so I do that (but we obviously both follow it). In other words, we figured out who we both were, what we both wanted, if we could achieve it, and then we did. So yeah, our house is comfortable and fun (which I feel like I can say with confidence knowing that our kids and their friends describe it exactly that way), due to BOTH of us. |
And they weren't like this when you were dating? When you stayed over at their place they didn't freak out about you leaving your toothbrush sitting on the side of the sink? |
This is brilliant, by the way. We had this growing up because both my parents worked pretty intense jobs that required travel so we had a lot of help so that they didn't spend time on things like laundry or mowing the lawn and instead we spent a lot of time as a family. My husband and I have a scaled-down version of this now, not because one of us is a slacker, but because we're both busy and we prioritize spending our time with our kids and the family and this lets us do that by focusing only on work while they're at school. |
It seeded during Covid and seems to be in the blooming stage. |
Agree. Don’t prop up or accommodate dysfunction, cut them out. |
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"And they weren't like this when you were dating? When you stayed over at their place they didn't freak out about you leaving your toothbrush sitting on the side of the sink?"
No, he was not like this when we were dating. Yes, he didn't freak about [insert items x, y, and z.] In all seriousness, thank you for letting me let this out here. Thoughts appreciated. |
The bolded is the key, IMO. I see SO MANY women on this board who think that their (usually higher) standards are absolutely non-negotiable. I’m sure there are men who do nothing, but there are a LOT of extremely rigid, controlling women in these dysfunctional marriages, too. |