My DH does not understand what it's like to be the primary parent

[Anonymous]

I just give him more tasks and it work for us. I manage everything for the kids (as most of you do) from school, health, friends, nanny, food, clothes, presents, camps, extracurricular, etc. If they need help, the kids come to me. EEVERYTHING. That said, DH does drop off and pick up for 2 of our 3 kids and I only do 1 pick up. DH wakes up at night when kids need something (one of my kids wakes up all the time and is still little). He will put the youngest to bed at night and nap time on weekends, etc. DH also cooks often (possibly more than I do)…
I feel that it evens out a lot…. Even though the mental load is all mine and I never feel appreciated.

[Anonymous]

I hear you, OP. A couple strategies that might help a little:

Be more proactive with telling your kids to wait. They don’t need to have every little request attended to immediately. So, you also learn to stretch out the time between request and jumping into help.

Also when you need uninterrupted blocks of time, tell everyone you are going into x room or will be in the computer or wherever, and you are not to be disturbed until 5 unless someone is bleeding. Tell kids all requests are going to dad. If there’s a door where you are, shut it. If not, put headphones on. Then retrain them all by responding to every interruption with - is it 5? Repeat as necessary. Will take a while because you are retraining them (and retraining yourself not to hop up for everything immediately), but you’ll get there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you have more than one child? I mean besides your spouse?

Yes, we have two (plus DH, haha). A big part of the problem is that they will both come to me and get annoyed while I'm helping the other one. Like I'll be helping Kid 1 with something and Kid 2 will start just harassing me about needing something else, and in the meantime my DH is off in the background, seemingly oblivious to this. And he doesn't seem to get that being harassed by Kid 2 while I'm trying to finish something with Kid 1 is stressful! It makes me feel a bit crazed.

He wants me to always come to him directly when this happens and make a custom request ("I am helping Larlo with this stuck zipper but Larla can't reach the peanut butter, can you help her with that?") and I feel like he should just be a little more in tune to things that are happening right around him and consider just saying "Hey Larla, Mom's in the middle of something -- can I help you?"

Instead what will happen is I'll ask him to do it, he'll act aggrieved at the interruption, and then two minutes later when I've finally dealt with Kid 1's zipper, DH will pop his head and say "Do you know where the peanut butter is, I can't find it."

Aaaaaaaaargh. I cannot.

It’s weird to have other people post my exact thoughts for me.

YESSSSS. I feel this DEEP in my soul. And part of the problem is of course he doesn't know where the peanut butter is because you are the one shopping and putting groceries away. For me, this happens ALL THE TIME. And not with peanut butter, because obviously that is something that can have a set place in the pantry, but with a million other things: sports uniforms, he has no idea if they are clean or dirty or unwashed or just unfolded because laundry is 100% me. If I am out at lunchtime, than more likely than not kids will not have eaten lunch when I come back at 2pm. DH's "rest" time is paramount and must not be disturbed but I can be disturbed at any time, during any task. I don't know what the solution is.

[Anonymous]

This is called parenting. If they went to dad, you'd complain about that too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why y’all marry these men.

When I married him, he was a self-sufficient adult who owned a home, was great at his job, planned dates for us, did his own laundry, etc. I never expected to be in this situation, and even when we had one kid he was pretty good. But something about the second kid... he just checks out a lot now. I have no idea what red flags I supposedly missed. I don't know what I could have done to prevent this beyond aggressively forcing him to take on childcare duties when they were babies. Should I have forced him to take a solo paternity leave, would that have helped? But then how do you even do that, it was not an option for us.

I think he hit a limit on parenting and we didn't know what that limit was going to be until we exceeded it. He was doing fine up until then.

+1 It's hard to know what kind of parent someone will be before they have kids.

Also, I've said it many times, most men should not have children because they don't want the actual responsibility of raising a child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is called parenting. If they went to dad, you'd complain about that too.

If they went to dad all the time, dad would be complaining all the dam* time, or say, "go ask your mom". Or they'd be MIA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I completely relate. It’s all me. Exhausted.

Big woo! All children go to their mother first. Frequently, if the mother isn't home, they will say they'll wait until mommy gets home. It seems to me that far too many women have babies without discussing with their husband that child rearing is a team effort and how you divvy up duties. If they don't agree, then do not have children not be prepared to be the primary, if not only, caregiver. Men do not change their habits and the sooner you understand this, the better off you will be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I completely relate. It’s all me. Exhausted.

Big woo! All children go to their mother first. Frequently, if the mother isn't home, they will say they'll wait until mommy gets home. It seems to me that far too many women have babies without discussing with their husband that child rearing is a team effort and how you divvy up duties. If they don't agree, then do not have children not be prepared to be the primary, if not only, caregiver. Men do not change their habits and the sooner you understand this, the better off you will be.

once again.. it's hard to tell what kind of parent the person will turn out to be before they actually become a parent.

But, ITA, most men should not have children. They don't want to change their lifestyle after having kids.

[Anonymous]

Leave the house! Even for short amount of time but often so dh can leqrn to deal with everyone. And also do not immediately jump to all requests if you are busy and said you need uninterrupted time. They will figure it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Leave the house! Even for short amount of time but often so dh can leqrn to deal with everyone. And also do not immediately jump to all requests if you are busy and said you need uninterrupted time. They will figure it out.

No, they won't. Th3 house will still be a mess, probably, an even bigger mess. More whining kds. You chose motherhood. Welcome to hell for the next 28 years.

[Anonymous]

It seems like the obvious answer is that your DH needs to limit his video game and phone usage. He can have 2 hours a day uninterrupted, and meanwhile you can have 2 hours a day uninterrupted (not for bills, but for your own fun). The rest of the day he has to do non-addictive, non-immersive things (phone doesn’t count) so that he is not mentally checked out whenever the kids come to him. He can be on his phone after bedtime. What’s so interesting to do on the phone for that long anyway? (I realize the irony but I take 15-min phone breaks twice a day to check FB and DCUM and that satisfies me)

The fact that so many posters are agreeing with OP makes me sad for society.

[Anonymous]

yes, of course, he is the assistant parent. most men are.

[Anonymous]

“I need to do X for one hour. Can you feed them lunch and then….?”

And anytime I am interrupted, I am adding an additional hour!

[Anonymous]

I can totally relate, OP. I’m a mom of 4, 3 elementary school aged and one toddler.

I used to really struggle with my husbands incompetence similar to this until the pandemic happened and I lost my mind for a bit there. Yelling at the kids a lot (I never used to yell), drinking way too much, crying all the time. I’m better now, but that experience of me losing the thread for awhile there really caused my husband to figure shiz out. Furthermore, he realized just how much I do around the house when all he does is go to work and come home and cook/put kids to bed the one night of week I work late.

So, yeah, I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Maybe you should lose your mind for a bit so it scares him and he has to step up?

But honestly though, you shouldn’t have to suffer like this. Talk to him openly and set some boundaries. It’s not working for you, and you matter too. Just as much as he does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why y’all marry these men.

When I married him, he was a self-sufficient adult who owned a home, was great at his job, planned dates for us, did his own laundry, etc. I never expected to be in this situation, and even when we had one kid he was pretty good. But something about the second kid... he just checks out a lot now. I have no idea what red flags I supposedly missed. I don't know what I could have done to prevent this beyond aggressively forcing him to take on childcare duties when they were babies. Should I have forced him to take a solo paternity leave, would that have helped? But then how do you even do that, it was not an option for us.

I think he hit a limit on parenting and we didn't know what that limit was going to be until we exceeded it. He was doing fine up until then.

NP, but same here. My DH gave zero indication he would be so uninvolved as a parent. In fact, we had to go through IVF to have them, and he was super involved in that whole process. Then the reality of actual parenting hit, and he changed. Our second was born during the pandemic, and he's totally checked out now.
Had I known I would be 95% responsible for the children, the house, etc...I never would have married him. Looking back, the only clue I had was that his father was also like this, and left everything up to DH's mom, too. I wish I had seen more of that dynamic at play before we married, but I wasn't around FIL much until later.