Holding my boundary. Let him be mad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I’ll be solo with dd for a week, and yes, I work. I’m tact I make more f-ing money than him.

If I don’t stand up for myself , my time, and my boundaries, he will walk all over me.

Sounds like you both have built up a huge amount of resentment. This is not about him needing a nap and you refusing to help him.

That being said, in a healthy relationship he would have given you a heads up "DW, I'm beat and mentally exhausted, do you mind putting Larla down this time?" and you helping out your partner and hoping he'd do the same in a similar situation would say "Sure, np. I still need to do XYZ so when you're feeling better can you tag back in for a bit?"

Op here. 10000% if he had said hey I’m super tired do you mind handling lunch and nap- I would’ve said yes.
It’s the assumption. The expectation.

Did you tell him that?

[Anonymous]

I find this thread so interesting. In most threads everyone likes on the husband that doesn’t do enough around the house, with the kids, etc. And all studies show this is the case, even more so when the woman is the breadwinner (like OP seems to be). For some reason , people have taken what appear to be legitimate complaints about the lack of a real partner and turned them into “bad mother who doesn’t deserve to have kids.” I don’t get it.

Sure, there is all kinds of advice about extending grace, not scorekeeping, etc, that would be excellent advice if the husband wasn’t a jackass, but it sounds like he is one. And the OP sounds like she is past the point of no return on this marriage. So what might have worked three years ago isn’t going to work now.

Once you are at the point where you wish your husband’s plane would crash on his biz trip so he never came home (which is what this sounds like), you really just need to find a divorce lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find this thread so interesting. In most threads everyone likes on the husband that doesn’t do enough around the house, with the kids, etc. And all studies show this is the case, even more so when the woman is the breadwinner (like OP seems to be). For some reason , people have taken what appear to be legitimate complaints about the lack of a real partner and turned them into “bad mother who doesn’t deserve to have kids.” I don’t get it.

Sure, there is all kinds of advice about extending grace, not scorekeeping, etc, that would be excellent advice if the husband wasn’t a jackass, but it sounds like he is one. And the OP sounds like she is past the point of no return on this marriage. So what might have worked three years ago isn’t going to work now.

Once you are at the point where you wish your husband’s plane would crash on his biz trip so he never came home (which is what this sounds like), you really just need to find a divorce lawyer.

“Piles on” — not likes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sweet lord don’t have any more kids. We have 3 kids and both of us were up at 6:45 this morning so we could get to an 8am game for our middle child. One of us got up to get her there and the other one got up to get the other 2 kids ready and meet them at the game.

I can’t imagine tit for tat every weekend.

+100. We've been parents for 15 years and we've never had a ridgid weekly slot of alone time, ever. He had guys nights and I had girls nights and we had date nights with sitters, but never this "I don't have to be a parent from x time to y time every single week." Sounds really strange to me.

Hmm…so if something that works for you doesn’t work for another family, it’s strange? Interesting.

Doesn't sound like OP's plan is working for her either...unless she enjoys the animosity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find this thread so interesting. In most threads everyone likes on the husband that doesn’t do enough around the house, with the kids, etc. And all studies show this is the case, even more so when the woman is the breadwinner (like OP seems to be). For some reason , people have taken what appear to be legitimate complaints about the lack of a real partner and turned them into “bad mother who doesn’t deserve to have kids.” I don’t get it.

Sure, there is all kinds of advice about extending grace, not scorekeeping, etc, that would be excellent advice if the husband wasn’t a jackass, but it sounds like he is one. And the OP sounds like she is past the point of no return on this marriage. So what might have worked three years ago isn’t going to work now.

Once you are at the point where you wish your husband’s plane would crash on his biz trip so he never came home (which is what this sounds like), you really just need to find a divorce lawyer.

My marriage came back from that point. I know that's weird, but it did. My husband legitimately stepped up. The answer was my being far more selfish and willing to leave. And I'm a much more fun wife now that I sleep enough and go to the gym regularly and generally take care of myself, and he gets to enjoy that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel sad for your daughter.

Not me. I love that OP is setting such a great example for her daughter. Her daughter can’t appreciate that yet, but hopefully she will. I agree with you, OP.

Same.

I also model the importance of me time with our kids (two daughters) but I don't do it by fighting with my husband in front of them. They see how important it is for both of us to have time to ourselves to see our friends, engage in our hobbies, relax, etc. But at least we're modeling to them a healthy productive way of providing me time for both people without building resentment.

[Anonymous]

It actually sounds like 50/50 custody would work well for them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find this thread so interesting. In most threads everyone likes on the husband that doesn’t do enough around the house, with the kids, etc. And all studies show this is the case, even more so when the woman is the breadwinner (like OP seems to be). For some reason , people have taken what appear to be legitimate complaints about the lack of a real partner and turned them into “bad mother who doesn’t deserve to have kids.” I don’t get it.

Sure, there is all kinds of advice about extending grace, not scorekeeping, etc, that would be excellent advice if the husband wasn’t a jackass, but it sounds like he is one. And the OP sounds like she is past the point of no return on this marriage. So what might have worked three years ago isn’t going to work now.

Once you are at the point where you wish your husband’s plane would crash on his biz trip so he never came home (which is what this sounds like), you really just need to find a divorce lawyer.

My marriage came back from that point. I know that's weird, but it did. My husband legitimately stepped up. The answer was my being far more selfish and willing to leave. And I'm a much more fun wife now that I sleep enough and go to the gym regularly and generally take care of myself, and he gets to enjoy that.

OP has not mentioned one redeeming quality about her husband at any point. It's all negative. It's hard to imagine what she saw in him in the first place. What is there to come back from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sweet lord don’t have any more kids. We have 3 kids and both of us were up at 6:45 this morning so we could get to an 8am game for our middle child. One of us got up to get her there and the other one got up to get the other 2 kids ready and meet them at the game.

I can’t imagine tit for tat every weekend.

You can’t imagine parents agreeing to have a couple of hours to themselves each week (obviously not at the same time as a game) and one parent insisting that the other stick to the arrangement they made? Really?

DP, no I cannot imagine being that rigid for the gym and a shower just because it was "MY 4 HOURS!". If my agreed to personal time was being disrespected on a regular basis, then we would have a discussion. I wouldn't be so rigid though, I'd give him the grace that I want in return. Life happens, especially as you have more kids and it becomes more complicated.

Yes, life does “happen,” so when you choose to take her to your parents’ house in the morning and come home tired, you be a parent, suck it up and do what you agreed to do (lunch and nap). It’s OK that you’re tired while you do it. Welcome to parenthood.

Op here. This. When he his tired he turns to ME to take things off his plate. When I’m tired I figure out how to better manage my plate.

This is so sad. When I'm tired I ask my husband for help. The other day I had a terrible day at work and had a headache and just wanted to crawl into a hole. He had also worked all day, been up since the same time I had, and still offered to handle dinner and put the kids to sleep so I could just go to bed and do whatever I needed to do to feel better. I can't imagine being married to someone that I couldn't turn to when I was down. Isn't that kind of the point of being married? If you don't get that from your husband, why bother being married to them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is he tired FROM?

Op here. Tired from poor sleep habits, not exercising, not eating well, drinking too much, just an unhealthy lifestyle.
I have leaned into and become somewhat obsessed with exercise, meditation and working on myself lately. As frustrations and resentments and challenges have built with dh, I have really turned towards self improvement and how to make myself feel good.
Part of this includes my mental and emotional health. I meet regularly with a therapist. I have a lot more confidence now and I am speaking up and standing up for myself in ways that my younger self did not. Course correction, if you will.

So you're planning to leave him then, yes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find this thread so interesting. In most threads everyone likes on the husband that doesn’t do enough around the house, with the kids, etc. And all studies show this is the case, even more so when the woman is the breadwinner (like OP seems to be). For some reason , people have taken what appear to be legitimate complaints about the lack of a real partner and turned them into “bad mother who doesn’t deserve to have kids.” I don’t get it.

Sure, there is all kinds of advice about extending grace, not scorekeeping, etc, that would be excellent advice if the husband wasn’t a jackass, but it sounds like he is one. And the OP sounds like she is past the point of no return on this marriage. So what might have worked three years ago isn’t going to work now.

Once you are at the point where you wish your husband’s plane would crash on his biz trip so he never came home (which is what this sounds like), you really just need to find a divorce lawyer.

My marriage came back from that point. I know that's weird, but it did. My husband legitimately stepped up. The answer was my being far more selfish and willing to leave. And I'm a much more fun wife now that I sleep enough and go to the gym regularly and generally take care of myself, and he gets to enjoy that.

OP has not mentioned one redeeming quality about her husband at any point. It's all negative. It's hard to imagine what she saw in him in the first place. What is there to come back from?

All I can tell you is that my marriage was in, if anything, a worse place and it got better. And that it didn't get better because I got more accommodating.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Dh and I have always split Saturday. He gets up with dd and has her for the am, lunch and puts her down for nap. I have dd after naptime thru dinner and bed. I get a free am, dh gets a free afternoon.

Dh took dd to his moms house this morning. They walked in the door around noon. He announced that he was exhausted, dd needed lunch and a nap and he was going to relax. I was standing in a towel with wet hair from the shower after a great workout. Sat am is My time.

I said, cool dd, excited to play with you after nap! Maybe we can go to the museum.
Dh: “wait you’re not handling lunch and nap?”
Me: “why would I, it’s Sat am?”
Dh: shooting me dirty looks glares.

This is not the first time he’s done this. To me this says, He believes his time to be more important. He can walk in the door and just throw everything on me bc- I’m the mom? I let this dynamic go on for a long time and slowly I’ve started implementing boundaries. If I didn’t speak up for myself, I’d do 100% of the cooking cleaning and childcare. If I don’t speak up for myself, he would never wash a dish. Spill something on the counter and leave it.

As predicted, he sent me a rambling nasty text message of how unloved and unappreciated he felt. And that dd (who is 3) also felt unloved by the cold welcome. He said I need to stop being competitive selfish and petty about childcare.

Now what do you think his reaction would be if I walked in the door and announced I was tired and our daughter needed to eat and sleep. He would say to me exactly what I said to him. That this chunk of time is his free time. He’s a hypocrite.

If he had asked or communicated a change in schedule I would have more likely than not been accommodating. But walking in the door like that? No way.

What makes it more absurd is that he’s about to leave tomorrow for a week long work trip. I’ll be solo with dd for a week, and yes, I work. I’m tact I make more f-ing money than him.

If I don’t stand up for myself , my time, and my boundaries, he will walk all over me.

It was afternoon. Per your agreement, it was you time to take over.

Did you not read directly before you bolded? It literally says her dh handles lunch and naptime and the op
Handles dinner time and bed.

This is exactly why rigid agreements don’t work. How do they handle days that are off-schedule, which are inevitable? Who gets the “extra work”? It’s healthy to be flexible in your time to account for life’s surprises, to speak to your spouse with respect, and to not hold salaries over anyone’s head. OP and her spouse sound like they’re harboring a whole lot of resentment and both would need to mage changes.

Why are people doing all these mental cartwheels to find edge case examples of why dedicated alone time can’t work?? There’s truly no evidence here that OP isn’t flexible *when necessary.*

You have had a 3 year old, yes? They are pretty unpredictable. I'm just not going to look at my kid and say it's not my shift to deal with her and see ya later. The dishes can always wait.

I’m the PP and I’m not OP. I have 3 kids including a 20 month old and I think you’re being intentionally stupid. OP and her husband should have no problem at all doing single parent shifts like this.

But they do have a problem. They sound like a shit team and don't work well together. If you actually have 3 kids you know how easy managing one is.

What I see is that it’s easy enough for OP to manage one but she wants some alone time, and it’s apparently impossible for her husband to match her. What am I missing?

Because humans are predictable machines that never get sick or have a hard day or need a hand? Why get married at all if it's everyone for themselves? On that particular morning she had her alone time. She just doesn't seem to like her husband all that much.

What’s so hard about having a free morning at your mom’s house?

What's so hard about just getting divorced? Then you can have 3-4 days a week of free time with no chance someone will shirt their duty. Seems like a much better deal for OP since she can't stand her husband anyway.

Man what is your point with this?? OP’s husband needs to fix his marriage to make it one less full of resentment and contempt. You bringing up divorce feels like some sort of blackmail. OP doesn’t deserve a fair marriage because the only alternative is divorce?? There is an obvious better alternative. The only problem is that her husband has to choose it.

This marriage is obviously doomed. Why bother?

It’s as doomed as he makes it. He can pull his head out of his rear at any time.

Have you had a lot of success telling people they need to change or else? Because that pretty much never works.

I agree. And OP is obviously open to suggestions. What do you think would help someone see they’re taking advantage of their wife and not doing their fair share?

Nothing. I think the writing is on the wall with this one and I pretty much never think that when I read about relationship issues. Some just can't be fixed.

Well my marriage came back from exactly OP’s situation.

Op here. Can you share what steps you took and actionable changes both of you made?
What’s also somewhat laughable here is that dh has angrily said to me a few times that he feels I make unilateral decisions re DD. He feels cut out as if I parent alone.

SO STEP THE F UP.
When it’s your time solo, OWN IT. Do the things.
It increasingly appears that he wants a say, but doesn’t actually want to do the hard work. It’s starting to feel controlling, and again, like he’s compensating for the money thing.

I posted before about all the commonalities.

One thing that helped a little was giving him whole domains, like beginning to end laundry. Collect, wash, dry, fold, sort, manage sizes. He didn’t do it well, and kind of maddeningly increased the outsourcing for it by getting a laundry service, but it reduced the conflict. But like I also said before, if it doesn’t connect to profit, pleasure, or prestige, he’ll likely keep dropping the ball. So it helps to pick things that are an actual priority for him too, especially if they relate to his own sense of pleasure or prestige, like the Christmas cards seemed to.

We actually end up getting into small disagreements every yr about the Xmas cards. Bc it’s “my domain” but he insists on being hyper involved. Vetoes pics, doesn’t like the layout, doesn’t like the font etc.

I asked him if he wanted to take over next year. He said no way.
But he wants to reap the benefit from it while micromanaging and doing very little of the actual work. That sums up a lot.

I think you should revisit this. Tell him you’re going to drop it if he doesn’t take it over, and then really do drop it. Do this with whatever you can that he does seem to be invested in. I agree that this might fit well with a “Fair Play” cards sit-down.

As the spouse who does the Christmas cards (because my spouse couldn't care less) - do the ones you want to do and have them sent directly from the company (Tiny Prints does this - it's actually a huge time saver as well) so that they don't come to your house. If he wants cards, he can make his own. Don't tell him about yours. This would drive me crazy. Either participate or don't!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t have more kids.

alternatively, you could have said, ok if you are really tired I will do lunch and nap and the you ca do dinner and bedtime. Does that sound good and would you rather do lunch and nap as planned?

Yep,

Also, noon is not morning! It is the beginning of the afternoon!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find this thread so interesting. In most threads everyone likes on the husband that doesn’t do enough around the house, with the kids, etc. And all studies show this is the case, even more so when the woman is the breadwinner (like OP seems to be). For some reason , people have taken what appear to be legitimate complaints about the lack of a real partner and turned them into “bad mother who doesn’t deserve to have kids.” I don’t get it.

Sure, there is all kinds of advice about extending grace, not scorekeeping, etc, that would be excellent advice if the husband wasn’t a jackass, but it sounds like he is one. And the OP sounds like she is past the point of no return on this marriage. So what might have worked three years ago isn’t going to work now.

Once you are at the point where you wish your husband’s plane would crash on his biz trip so he never came home (which is what this sounds like), you really just need to find a divorce lawyer.

My marriage came back from that point. I know that's weird, but it did. My husband legitimately stepped up. The answer was my being far more selfish and willing to leave. And I'm a much more fun wife now that I sleep enough and go to the gym regularly and generally take care of myself, and he gets to enjoy that.

OP has not mentioned one redeeming quality about her husband at any point. It's all negative. It's hard to imagine what she saw in him in the first place. What is there to come back from?

All I can tell you is that my marriage was in, if anything, a worse place and it got better. And that it didn't get better because I got more accommodating.

Are you the person who keeps mentioning the pride, power, pleasure shtick? You still haven't said exactly what you did to turn things around. And I know my husband would die laughing if I told him he only did things that connected to those things. As if he derives that must joy from laundry, dishes, garbage, wiping butts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:This is the saddest thread I've ever read on UCUM.

My Mom is dying. She never passed us on to anyone. Both Mom and Dad just showed us unconditional love.
I don't think she ever had any free time until her 3rd child
was in kindergarten.

I’m very sorry for what you’re going through.
There are no prizes for being a martyr.
Not having Any free time for years is not something to boast.

NP hard agreeing with the PP you quoted. This is so sad that both parents treat their child like a chore. I have four kids and get some free time here or there but don’t really mind because I love being with my kids. That’s why I had them. I’m truly shocked that parents would be keeping score like this. It’s your daughter! Either or both of you can get her some food and a nap. Just be normal. It’s not that hard. SMH at a parent who throws a fit because she only got her allotted 3 hours free from her child instead of 4. So sad PP thinks making lunch for a 3 year old is dying like a “martyr.”

Seriously OP must have trouble functioning in life. She sounds like someone who is triggered by micro aggressions, gossips at work, and complains to anyone who listens about how life with one child is SO HARD. Please get a grip and do not have any more children. That goes for your DH, too.

Another mommy martyr! Man they’re out in full form today. You can spot them a mile away with “it’s SO SAD…” bs.

Another person accusing someone being a mommy martyr! If you compare spending an extra 20 minutes with your daughter to make her a sandwich and put her to bed to DYING, you shouldn’t be a parent. Especially after you’ve had hours all to yourself. If you and your husband both clock in and out of your jobs as parents like you’re working at Walmart, you shouldn’t be a parent. People, get real. Parenting has its ups and downs but it’s not that hard to manage one child. Some people are just too self-centered to be parents and, apparently, to even be married.

NP.

You're missing the point that the issue is not what needed to be done for their daughter. The issue is OP's husband just expecting her to do it.

FWIW I think OP is going about this the wrong way by allowing a ton of resentment to build up, but anyone harping on "how could you not care enough about your darling daughter to be willing to feed her!" are totally off base with the real issue.