Anonymous wrote:My guess is he did stuff early in the relationship and you always corrected him, pointed out how it wasn't done "your way" which equal the only correct way.
OMG how many women have to explain that’s not at all what happened.
I have never in my life complained about H’s cooking. He’s a fantastic cook. But he still refuses to cook unless I do 90% of the work. He waltzes in to a fully stocked kitchen, selected recipe, trashes the place, pats himself on the back for “doing dinner”, then wanders away from stacks of dirty dishes, spills all over the counter and floor, trash everywhere to let the magic fairies clean up and replenish the groceries.
Are you cleaning up the mess? You can’t. You leave it all there. That’s the only way they learn.
On my first maternity leave I told my husband he was in charge of cooking. I told him this means he buys the groceries, cleans up etc. Not asking me what’s for dinner expecting me to hand him a list for the store. He learned.
They can get a law degree, but you have to list all of the things that encompass "cooking." It's so ridiculous.
Anonymous wrote:Some of this is just how hard kids are. Dh and I both were hard working, very clean and loved to cook. 3 kids, tons of promotions later, much larger house and we just cannot keep up. I do 5x more than I did before and Dh is still doing the same. He can’t juggle the way I can. I can’t fault him. He’s wonderful, great father, great husband. I still feel like I’m drowning. Women just can’t have it all. I feel lied to.
I’m constantly shocked at how messy my life and house is. No matter how early I start shoving everyone out the door, we’re always late. The playroom is always messy, there’s constantly food all over the floor
I do a ton more and try not to feel upset about it. I will say that I WANT more than Dh does though. I need the great vacations, wonderful holidays, parties that we throw. and the kids really want that stuff too. Like the kids want birthday parties, decorated house for Christmas, mom showing up to volunteer at their classes all the time.
That's why I stopped at two kids and severely limited the decorating and vacations. We take one vacation a year, I don ' have the energy to plan a trip to a Caribbean resort or Europe.
I also work and I outsource as much as I possibly can (nanny, regular housecleaning, grocery delivery, laundry service, restaurant delivery of healthy food) and I still feel the same way. Although for vacations, just go to Beaches or Club Med. All you have to do is show up. There is no expectation that working parents volunteer at school - kids will forget you ever did it by the time they are adults. There are things you can do to ease your burden, but it doesn't ever feel like it's enough...
Anonymous wrote:Adding a childfree couple perspective - we both make about the same, but I have the more demanding (time and stresswise) job - I go in to the office every day and he is still WFH. Although we have a lot less to handle (no kid stuff), the bulk of the household labor and mental load still falls on me. He either doesn't 'see' stuff, half-asses it (intentionally?) or assumes things will work out so does not anticipate and preempt things (he characterizes this as being an optimist, but I think it's often just laziness).
He's a decent guy and will do better for a while when I point out the imbalance to him, but quickly slides back into letting me handle it.
I think PP who likened this to frogs in a pot was spot-on. We got married in grad school when we were basically living like monks with very little to do besides focus on our degrees. But as life got complicated I gradually took on more and more that he was not stepping up to handle.
I still see us as being married for life and in a cold assessment I am still personally better off being married to him than leaving. But I have basically given in to a low-grade resentment and I have no idea whether it's even worth it or possible to fix at this point.
Imagine if you did have kids, or what about eldercare? Yes, it's low grade or higher resentment.
Anonymous wrote:Best decision I made in our marriage was to stay at home starting when our first of three was born. I saw the way things were going fairly early on and recognized that although I could “have it all” with a career - it was going to come at a cost trying to balance everything. Still happily married nearly 20 years later.
It only works if you don't value having a career. I do, so I didn't quit. I just didn't do things on the second shift that had no value to me, and outsourced a lot. Of course, I did only have two children, which helps a lot with domestic workload.
Anonymous wrote:I quit my job in basically that situation. It came down to one or the other and he was never going to make the professional changes. We were both in biglaw.
I don't get this Biglaw starts at 215k these days. So both of you were making atleast 500k, no.
With 100k in house help, you can pretty much outsource 75% of stuff. Why quit?
Things you can not outsource:
Mental accounting of you children. So, who reads the school emails and puts the necessary dates in the calendar? Who lines up day camps for the days they are off school? Who notices it's book fair week and puts money in the backpack? Who remembers the 5 year old needs a snack packed EVERY day? Who keeps track of what size clothing each of the kids wears? Who cleans out the drawers? Who buys the new clothes? Who makes sure they fit? Who figures out what to do with outgrown clothing? Who pays attention to summer camp registration? When it that? What weeks are we going on vacation? What week is their favorite camp held that they don't want to miss? When is the sign up for basketball? Do they need a well visit scheduled? Dentist? When was the last time we had a date night, I should book a sitter. Christmas is looming, time to start tracking what things the kids like and would enjoy. Time to book the special events and start planning visits and doing the gift buying.
AND ON AND ON.
You can outsource laundry and cleaning, sure. Food shopping, sort of. Cooking, maybe if you are very rich. But their is day to day minutia of running a house and having children that is NOT outsourceable, that often falls to moms. We are not better at this, but culturally we have been conditioned to do it. I just had a dad this morning, who is a lawyer, tell me he can't keep up with the school emails. It is not that hard to read the school emails! Do you ignore emails from co-workers? No, you read them, pull out what you need and delete. These are the same skills.
If you could outsource all of this, you are acknowledging that doing these things is A JOB, correct? A job that should pay money, right? So why is it only the mom's job? Men are capable, they just opt out. Women are screaming at the top of their lungs that they can't do it all and are desperate for help. And many men (not all!) will go rake the yard and then ask for a pat on the back. Do you see how that didn't address a single piece of the daily minutia?
Yes! All of that.
The only counterpoint to consider, and it doesn't make it easier on the mom, is, is the dad doing things not listed.
Notably, all things house and car and finances, if they do them. Trash, poking squeaky hinges, lightbulbs, breaking appliances, clogged drains, yard, landscaping, crumbling masonry, taxes and insurance and investment management, paperwork and budgets, oil changes and fixing squeaky brakes, bringing in repeairpeople, killing a wasp nest in the yard, fixing paint or wiring himself when he can.... To the extent he does this, this is also a lot of mental a d physical load, including managing any external service providers.
Also electronics and computer and network management.
The unfortunate thing is, however, that many men have no knowledge or ability to do a lot of these things themselves or competently hire people to do them, so it falls on the wife again, or they do one thing once and call it an achievement, and it falls by the wayside or mom has to do it when she has time.
It probably depends on a case by case basis whether a wife acknowledges that contribution from husband or he just doesn't add anything.
Anonymous wrote:I quit my job in basically that situation. It came down to one or the other and he was never going to make the professional changes. We were both in biglaw.
I don't get this Biglaw starts at 215k these days. So both of you were making atleast 500k, no.
With 100k in house help, you can pretty much outsource 75% of stuff. Why quit?
Things you can not outsource:
Mental accounting of you children. So, who reads the school emails and puts the necessary dates in the calendar? Who lines up day camps for the days they are off school? Who notices it's book fair week and puts money in the backpack? Who remembers the 5 year old needs a snack packed EVERY day? Who keeps track of what size clothing each of the kids wears? Who cleans out the drawers? Who buys the new clothes? Who makes sure they fit? Who figures out what to do with outgrown clothing? Who pays attention to summer camp registration? When it that? What weeks are we going on vacation? What week is their favorite camp held that they don't want to miss? When is the sign up for basketball? Do they need a well visit scheduled? Dentist? When was the last time we had a date night, I should book a sitter. Christmas is looming, time to start tracking what things the kids like and would enjoy. Time to book the special events and start planning visits and doing the gift buying.
AND ON AND ON.
You can outsource laundry and cleaning, sure. Food shopping, sort of. Cooking, maybe if you are very rich. But their is day to day minutia of running a house and having children that is NOT outsourceable, that often falls to moms. We are not better at this, but culturally we have been conditioned to do it. I just had a dad this morning, who is a lawyer, tell me he can't keep up with the school emails. It is not that hard to read the school emails! Do you ignore emails from co-workers? No, you read them, pull out what you need and delete. These are the same skills.
If you could outsource all of this, you are acknowledging that doing these things is A JOB, correct? A job that should pay money, right? So why is it only the mom's job? Men are capable, they just opt out. Women are screaming at the top of their lungs that they can't do it all and are desperate for help. And many men (not all!) will go rake the yard and then ask for a pat on the back. Do you see how that didn't address a single piece of the daily minutia?
Yes! All of that.
The only counterpoint to consider, and it doesn't make it easier on the mom, is, is the dad doing things not listed.
Notably, all things house and car and finances, if they do them. Trash, poking squeaky hinges, lightbulbs, breaking appliances, clogged drains, yard, landscaping, crumbling masonry, taxes and insurance and investment management, paperwork and budgets, oil changes and fixing squeaky brakes, bringing in repeairpeople, killing a wasp nest in the yard, fixing paint or wiring himself when he can.... To the extent he does this, this is also a lot of mental a d physical load, including managing any external service providers.
Also electronics and computer and network management.
The unfortunate thing is, however, that many men have no knowledge or ability to do a lot of these things themselves or competently hire people to do them, so it falls on the wife again, or they do one thing once and call it an achievement, and it falls by the wayside or mom has to do it when she has time.
It probably depends on a case by case basis whether a wife acknowledges that contribution from husband or he just doesn't add anything.
I’m a lesbian, and I do all that stuff, and it’s definitely less than the daily household grind. My wife does do more of that, but it would be completely unbalanced if she were to do all of it herself. I’d say she spends 100% of her time on house work, and I spend 70% of my time on housework and 30% on those occasional tasks. It just isn’t the same unless you are, I don’t know, single-handedly rehabbing a Victorian.
Anonymous wrote:I quit my job in basically that situation. It came down to one or the other and he was never going to make the professional changes. We were both in biglaw.
I don't get this Biglaw starts at 215k these days. So both of you were making atleast 500k, no.
With 100k in house help, you can pretty much outsource 75% of stuff. Why quit?
Things you can not outsource:
Mental accounting of you children. So, who reads the school emails and puts the necessary dates in the calendar? Who lines up day camps for the days they are off school? Who notices it's book fair week and puts money in the backpack? Who remembers the 5 year old needs a snack packed EVERY day? Who keeps track of what size clothing each of the kids wears? Who cleans out the drawers? Who buys the new clothes? Who makes sure they fit? Who figures out what to do with outgrown clothing? Who pays attention to summer camp registration? When it that? What weeks are we going on vacation? What week is their favorite camp held that they don't want to miss? When is the sign up for basketball? Do they need a well visit scheduled? Dentist? When was the last time we had a date night, I should book a sitter. Christmas is looming, time to start tracking what things the kids like and would enjoy. Time to book the special events and start planning visits and doing the gift buying.
AND ON AND ON.
You can outsource laundry and cleaning, sure. Food shopping, sort of. Cooking, maybe if you are very rich. But their is day to day minutia of running a house and having children that is NOT outsourceable, that often falls to moms. We are not better at this, but culturally we have been conditioned to do it. I just had a dad this morning, who is a lawyer, tell me he can't keep up with the school emails. It is not that hard to read the school emails! Do you ignore emails from co-workers? No, you read them, pull out what you need and delete. These are the same skills.
If you could outsource all of this, you are acknowledging that doing these things is A JOB, correct? A job that should pay money, right? So why is it only the mom's job? Men are capable, they just opt out. Women are screaming at the top of their lungs that they can't do it all and are desperate for help. And many men (not all!) will go rake the yard and then ask for a pat on the back. Do you see how that didn't address a single piece of the daily minutia?
Yes! All of that.
The only counterpoint to consider, and it doesn't make it easier on the mom, is, is the dad doing things not listed.
Notably, all things house and car and finances, if they do them. Trash, poking squeaky hinges, lightbulbs, breaking appliances, clogged drains, yard, landscaping, crumbling masonry, taxes and insurance and investment management, paperwork and budgets, oil changes and fixing squeaky brakes, bringing in repeairpeople, killing a wasp nest in the yard, fixing paint or wiring himself when he can.... To the extent he does this, this is also a lot of mental a d physical load, including managing any external service providers.
Also electronics and computer and network management.
The unfortunate thing is, however, that many men have no knowledge or ability to do a lot of these things themselves or competently hire people to do them, so it falls on the wife again, or they do one thing once and call it an achievement, and it falls by the wayside or mom has to do it when she has time.
It probably depends on a case by case basis whether a wife acknowledges that contribution from husband or he just doesn't add anything.
I’m a lesbian, and I do all that stuff, and it’s definitely less than the daily household grind. My wife does do more of that, but it would be completely unbalanced if she were to do all of it herself. I’d say she spends 100% of her time on house work, and I spend 70% of my time on housework and 30% on those occasional tasks. It just isn’t the same unless you are, I don’t know, single-handedly rehabbing a Victorian.
I agree. Those things are occasional and not the same as the daily household stuff.
I had a year that my husband was dealing with a major illness, and I was on my own financially supporting the family and taking care of four kids 6 & under. I hired out most of my chores (cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, evening childcare while I was at work late) and all of his chores (household repairs, car stuff, lawn mowing, hanging Christmas lights, spring/fall clean-up, dead animal removal…long story, taxes). My chores cost about $25k to hire out to a daily housekeeper and occasional babysitter. His cost about $5k to hire out (despite paying a higher hourly wage). It just isn’t the same.
Anonymous wrote:Best decision I made in our marriage was to stay at home starting when our first of three was born. I saw the way things were going fairly early on and recognized that although I could “have it all” with a career - it was going to come at a cost trying to balance everything. Still happily married nearly 20 years later.
Sorry that you shortchanged yourself so that your DH could “have it all.” Not want I want for myself or for my daughters.
NP. I worked when my kids were little, but so what if PP stayed home? If she's happy she had more time with her babies, then more power to her. You made more money but why do you feel the need to tear someone else down bc they didn't?
Because PP thinks what kids want is money and not time with their parents. FWIW I think it would be a great world if both parents who wanted to could work 25-30 hours per week and actually spend time with their families. I don't think it's a bad lesson for little humans to learn that there is more to life than work (especially the mostly meaningless work most of us on this board do that enriches other people), and that your life is not your job. Your identity is not your job. If it is, you have bigger issues.
You must have young kids. I was lucky to spend an hour at most per school day with my teens, and it had nothing to do with me working and everything to do with their school day, homework, sports and other activities and social life.
Anonymous wrote:I’m about to. We had a talk about it last night and H threw a fit saying I don’t appreciate the one time he cleaned up the yard.
Then I went to empty the dishwasher and he goes “why are you doing that??” Uh, because the dishes need to be unloaded and no one else will do it? Which p!ssed him off, he told me to get out of the kitchen, and made a huge deal by spending two hours cleaning the kitchen down to every last detail to prove I’m not the martyr I think I am.
UGH.
PP who quit. My DH used to do things exactly like this. He also would accuse me of doing make-work that even he acknowledges today were necessary kid tasks.
In my case I can say now he really *couldn’t* do more at home given the weight of his professional load. I grew up middle class and was really resistant to hiring out the level of stuff we needed to. He grew up UMC and didn’t understand why I was reacting like that. But even for things that just could not be outsourced, I think he got very defensive about it and refused to open his eyes to the reality of 1) how much life stuff just cannot be outsourced 2) how much I was doing. Because if he really saw it, he’d have to admit it was deeply unfair and accept that he was the bad guy in the dynamic, which is a big blow to anyone’s ego. If that’s what you have to convince your spouse of, that they are treating you very unfairly (and in my case that was also hobbling my career which I was just as ambitious about as him) well, that’s just a big pill to swallow.
So he was very professionally busy and offered up the solution of hiring stuff out and you resisted? And still complained about the workload?
…yes? I’m admitting we were both wrong. That’s how we are still married my friend.
You’re still married because you caved and gave up your financial independence.
You sound mad. Why are you mad?
NP here.
I mean, isn't it a legitimately angering phenomenon that women often give up financial independence because their husbands won't step up?
Yes but IMO the bolded is the key. Why do they do that? They shouldn't do that. I think women convince other women that this is the solution.
Personally I think that this issue, imbalanced workload in the home, comes down to a frog in the pot situation. I think a pattern starts really early on, when there is no resentment and everything is hunky dory. And you just pick things up because society naturally directs a lot of these things to the woman. And likely EARLY on even before kids. This starts from day 1. It just doesn't feel like a big deal at first that you're cleaning the kitchen every night because there isn't 15 million other things to do and your needs are being otherwise met. But then you have kids and maternity leave means you are alone with the baby for three months and you become just better at handling kid stuff. Not because you are naturally better, but because you're left alone with an infant for three months and just literally HAVE to figure it out.
And then the stuff deferring to mom really kicks in, the school always calling you first, the pediatrician always calling you first etc.
And you're doing all those little things that you picked up at first that are suddenly much bigger things.
Meanwhile, Dad is kind of blind to all of this. You're in a pot that is slowly coming up to boiling and he's in a pot that is coming up to being warm and is confused because he's not freaking out even though his pot is getting warmer too!
There is a study out there that says that the least sympathetic group towards women with severe PMS is women with mild PMS. Because they don't believe its that bad because they can't get outside their own experience. I think something similar happens with men in marriages like this. They too have had to take on more, so are least able to see the disparity.
I don't have this issue in my marriage. I think for two main reasons. First, I didn't breastfeed (this isn't a knock on breastfeeding but I think breastfeeding sets up a dynamic from day one where mom takes on something really hard that is then continually reinforced unless actively combatted) and we split all babycare duties equally from day 1, wakeups, baths, bedtimes, etc. And I went out of the house and left him with the kids frequently from day 1. I know so many people who do not do this. Forcing dad into situations where he needs to 'figure it out' during infancy is CRITICAL IMO to preventing this dynamic. Second, I think because of #1, my husband realized the moment I was tipping into 'totally overwhelmed' and he voluntarily took over all the laundry. He brought it up, he took it on. 100%. I think think this happened because he was fully in it with me, so understood the burdens of the kids really really well and therefore the fact that the household stuff was on me, it was obvious to him. I didn't have to convince him.
Now I am also certain that there are plenty of guys who are just jerks who are uninterested in taking care of their families, and nothing will help them. There are also women who are perfectionists and have to have things done a certain way and cannot relinquish control and the guy can't win. But personally I think these men and women are in the minority and most are just falling into a terrible pattern not even seeing it happen. But by the time they realize it the wife is in boiling water and the resentment she has at looking at the other frog who just watched her descend into misery without doing anything is too strong to overcome.
I don't know PP about this breastfeeding thing as an excuse why some men are just useless.
I had agreed with my DH that we will split feedings, but when my baby came, I couldn't stand her crying ( I was crazy but that's besides the point). So I would grab her from whoever was holding her when she started crying. So DH did not get to feed her. I breastfed for a year, and I stayed home while he worked.
With the second one, I breastfed for a year and a half and stayed home while he worked.
Other than bathing the babies, he did everything else. When he got off work at 5 or 6:30 on the days he went into the office, he started doing everything that was to be done. And he did stuff in the morning too before work.
I would have done the same if he were the one waking up at night to breastfeed. It's empathy. Some men ( and women) don't have it.
So you guys took steps to actively combat the pattern. Which is great, I know a lot of women for whom breastfeeding established an early imbalance in workload. And again it isn't a knock on breastfeeding its saying that if you pursue breastfeeding you should find other ways to ensure equal workload is happening in the beginning. I assume he was doing that stuff because he knew it had to be done and you communicated well about it and by your own account it sounds like you were suffering some post partum mental health issues that likely alerted him to issues early on. I'm not saying there are not bad guys out there though, and that there aren't especially good guys. But there's a lot of people in the middle and it helps to understand the patterns that result in this very very common marital issue.
Got you.
My DH is one of the especially good guys, but I have noticed that in many marriages where there is a balance, the women were very outspoken and intolerant to imbalances from the begining. However, these men seem to have more empathy in other areas of their lives unrelated to their spouses. So maybe it's a combination of empathy and communication?
I think it is also learned. My husband is also an especially good guy. He was also the youngest boy in a family of three boys with a military mom wife who did EVERYTHING. When we were dating his nephew came up to us with dirty hands asking us to wash his hands and he did nothing and after I helped the kid I was like, what was up with that? You did nothing? And he was like, 'I didn't know what to do.' And I was like, 'you don't know how to help a kid wash their hands what's wrong with you?' And he seemed perturbed. But it sets a tone you know, I never let him do anything like that without commentary. And I never stepped in to help him if he did something not quite right, I let him figure stuff out. My husband IS a very empathetic person, and so I think he was very teachable here. But he had to be taught. He had to be shown a different measurement of what is acceptable. Should I have had to do that? No. But he couldn't naturally understand that being babied his entire life left him with some terrible habits. But being with me, exposed to me (the oldest daughter of four siblings so the polar opposite), exposed to the way I view things, the things I was willing to do and was not willing to do, made him grow up.
So I guess long way of saying I agree, empathy and communication. I think an underrated aspect of this though is that mom/wife/woman/competent partner needs to be able to be comfortable with the discomfort of watching someone else do something you think is important wrong or badly and fail. And learn from that failure. I think one thing that I have seen happen in marriages I have been close to is that one person cannot let the other person take something on fully. They will have opinions on it, critiques, etc. And so the husband feels like he's not doing anything right and shuts down. And shutting down is as bad as the nagging. I'm not saying it's an earned reaction, but both people are acting badly there. When I was first home with my newborns I didn't do everything right always the first time. And I cannot imagine what I would have done to someone following me around correcting me in that high stress situation. So you need to communicate, and you need to let him do things his way, as long as its essentially acceptable, and believe that just like you perfected things as you practiced, your husband will too. And again, there are of course exceptions to this rule, total jerks and total harpies who are outside the lines. But I really do believe most people are somewhere in the middle, confused by why nothing they do seems like its working, and not seeing years of baggage and habits and patterns contributing to every aspect of it
NP. We have three kids 4 and under and my husband doesn't know how to change a crib sheet. He doesn't know how to properly change a diaper. And by properly, I mean so that the crib sheet doesn't have to be changed every single time he diapers the baby. He doesn't know you're supposed to throw away disposable changing pads if they get poop on them. He doesn't know how to put on kid socks. Yesterday, I watched in stunned disbelief and he put two left shoes on DD to go out.
He has two or three things he needs to do in the morning while I get DD ready. He did his list once last week. He has done it once this week. So, I do it all while he regularly sleeps in then gets up 45 minutes late and makes himself a cup of coffee. We're supposed to alternate dinner. He did 1 last week, zero so far this week. So, I do it all while he's on social media or whatever. I am so tired of asking, begging for help.
It sucks and, yes, I resent him so much.
Why did you continue to have kids with a man like this? This is just as much on you. If you don’t want to end up in a situation like yours then you have to have your husband doing 50/50 before you have more kids. I understand having the first kid and then finding out your DH is worthless. But to then go on and have two more kids with him?
The work load was much less with one and second pregnancy was twins. But thanks for being so helpful.
I am not the PP but the one you responded to originally. I feel like your comment here gets to what I was saying. The imbalance starts as not that big a deal, and so grievances go unspoken. I mean how does he not know how to change a crib sheet? How does the crib sheet impact diaper changing? Does he just walk away leaving poop? Did you just let him get through your first child's infancy without having major discussions about this?
I am not blaming you, I'm sorry you are in a difficult situation. Honestly you sound past the point of no return, the resentment has set in. And 100% possibly you are just married to an unredeemable jerk. But for your own good in subsequent marriages you should think about what part you played in this dynamic emerging. That doesn't mean its your fault, but you let yourself become a doormat and that doesn't happen overnight its a death by a 1000 cuts. You need to yell at the first or fifth cut, not wait until the 900th and flee because you're near death.
But PP, this is locking the barn door after the horse has run off. Why do you think this is helpful? She has 3 kids. She can't go backwards now. Her DH is not helpful. Perhaps she let things go at first. Many, many women do this. We're groomed and trained to do this, to be helpful and considerate and to pick up after others. But with 3 kids, one person can't do it all. You must outsource but that's not enough. You need a partner to pick up half the work (half, ha ha, even 1/4 would be a great start), and most men simply won't do this. They don't see it as their responsibility. They don't see all the little tiny things women do every day to keep a house running: Wiping off a dirty counter, picking up shoes scattered in the front hall, sweeping up dirt clods dropped by kids' boots, putting stray dishes into the dishwasher, calling to set up playdates, sending notes to teachers, picking up birthday gifts for DD's friends, etc. etc. It's exhausting doing all this little stuff.
Previous PP, you say you are not blaming me but that is exactly what you are doing. I did nothing to encourage my husband's laziness. We discussed raising children at length before marriage. I was explicit: I want an active and engaged father for my children. He vehemently agreed. He was a feminist, went to all the rallies, had all the t-shirts, had all the liberal friends... With the first baby, the division of labor was pretty fair. Not 50/50 but he was trying. After the second pregnancy, he just tapped out. The workload tripled and he just decided, meh this isn't for me. Rather than face the grind of three young kids, he decided to just relax instead.
It really pisses me off that people are so quick to ask what the woman did to cause her husband to be an ass. Some people are just selfish asses.
This. As a mom and wife, I can’t even put my kids in mismatched clothes without people screaming I’m a terrible mom. But when a dad completely checks out, it’s always the wife’s fault.
Like, if you went to a coffee shop, ordered a drink, and the barista sat scrolling on their phone instead of making it, and when you asked what’s up he replied “you might tell me I did it wrong so better to just not make it at all”….you’d recognize that’s insane. If you had to baby them and ask repeatedly over an hour before they made it, you’d recognize something is severely wrong with them. Because it’s literally their job. Same thing with husbands - pitching in at home is their job.
I get why it seems misogynistic and unfair to even remotely blame the woman.
However, anecdotally, every woman I know with a helpless husband has majorly contributed to the problem!
One of the driving factors I see with the imbalance begins with the woman staying home after having the baby while the husband returns to work. It sets the tone that the woman is fully responsible for the kids and house and the husband just needs to go to work. But then a good number of women decide to quit their jobs and stay home. They also breastfeed which means they can’t leave their baby without again, doing significantly more work than the man. It also means they are fully responsible for the mental work of storing and doling out pumped breastmilk. I admit I order the cans of formula but that’s all I do.
The biggest thing I notice is how differently these women live their lives from men. They often don’t work, don’t go away for the weekend and won’t leave their children. Whereas I’ve never had any issue leaving the house for the entire day and not providing my husband with any instructions. If I were to ask these women if they have left their kids with their husband for the weekend and how it went, they would tell me they can’t do that. But they have never done it so they don’t know that.
To a new mom I’d say if you don’t want to end up resentful and angry then when you’re six weeks postpartum leave the baby for the day and head out. Don’t leave instructions. He won’t kill your baby. Also don’t breastfeed.
Oh stuff it. The NB period was the only time our household approached any kind of equity. And that had nothing to do with me - it was the only time period where it was obvious to my STBX that he had to step up and he was socially expected to (paternity leave) somewhat. All downhill from there. Was it my fault that he decided to start staying at the office until 9 pm when the baby was 2 months old? I didn’t have the opportunity to “just leave.” He literally did not show up.
Suggestion for you - don’t make assumptions about things you know nothing about.
It’s not your fault he did this, but I certainly wouldn’t have put up with this. I would have hired a sitter every single day from between 6 PM and 9 PM. I likely would have left the entire weekend since I was stuck at home every weekday.
Where would I have gotten the money for an extra 15 hrs of childcare?
why would you SAH if your finances were so close to the bone? And please don't tell me you don't have your own money to spend because you're a SAH.
Anonymous wrote:Best decision I made in our marriage was to stay at home starting when our first of three was born. I saw the way things were going fairly early on and recognized that although I could “have it all” with a career - it was going to come at a cost trying to balance everything. Still happily married nearly 20 years later.
This is what I did too and while DH appreciated it for a long time, now that the kids are teens he is pressuring me to go back because I have "so much time" and yet he has no desire or willingness to change anything about his behavior. He's trying to make it about the money even though he makes 3x what he made when he was totally fine with my staying home, and we own our home and have college and retirement fully on track. Its quite the pickle and I'm not entirely sure how it will be resolved.
Well, do you have more time? Can you go back to work part-time? I have high schoolers and they require a lot less parental time than kids in elementary school.
I don't get your point. Your DH is working the same amount of hours, but your hours taking care of the kids has decreased. The amount of time taking care of house-related stuff presumably has stayed the same. So, the only variable that's changed is that you have more free time on your hands. Just own up to the fact that you don't want to work because you like not working and leading a leisurely life.
Not the p(PP), but I am in the same situation. My kids are in HS and I am basically free now with a lot of time. However, my DH does not want me to work. He wants me to have a leisurely life now. I am actually ok with it. I have no desire to be going to work for pay either. Would rather work on improving my fitness, travelling and extending my social circle.
Vomit. So vapid and entitled.
Yes because Microsoft word, PowerPoint and corporate meetings are so meaningful.
Anonymous wrote:Best decision I made in our marriage was to stay at home starting when our first of three was born. I saw the way things were going fairly early on and recognized that although I could “have it all” with a career - it was going to come at a cost trying to balance everything. Still happily married nearly 20 years later.
This is what I did too and while DH appreciated it for a long time, now that the kids are teens he is pressuring me to go back because I have "so much time" and yet he has no desire or willingness to change anything about his behavior. He's trying to make it about the money even though he makes 3x what he made when he was totally fine with my staying home, and we own our home and have college and retirement fully on track. Its quite the pickle and I'm not entirely sure how it will be resolved.
Well, do you have more time? Can you go back to work part-time? I have high schoolers and they require a lot less parental time than kids in elementary school.
I don't get your point. Your DH is working the same amount of hours, but your hours taking care of the kids has decreased. The amount of time taking care of house-related stuff presumably has stayed the same. So, the only variable that's changed is that you have more free time on your hands. Just own up to the fact that you don't want to work because you like not working and leading a leisurely life.
Why should she go back to work, when they have enough money and her DH likely still wouldn’t contribute to running the household? Then she would be in the exact situation we’re discussing here.
Why would anyone work? DH makes $2M+ and I still work and we have two children. I've always worked. If you can't find a part-time job in DC that is intellectually or emotionally fulfilling, especially when you don't need the income, then I would assume that you are limited in some way (intellectually, physically, emotionally, etc.). A grown woman, particularly one who has the benefit of a great education and no need for high income or benefits, should have some sense of, oh I don't know, giving to her community if she is capable. I have friends who are in their 50s with kids now in high school or college, who have not worked since having kids, and they are floundering. Women often need a higher sense of purpose beyond keeping track of the household in order to live a full and meaningful life.
Anonymous wrote:Title says it all. I’m not saying that there aren’t other contributing factors to issues in the marriage. But I look at the amount of work I do within the home and it’s simply not sustainable for the rest of my life. Husband does literally nothing in the house and refuses to see that it’s a real issue or do anything about it. The resentment is off the charts. And yes we are in couples therapy.
That's why you see so many SAHMs. People assume they aren't capable or are lazy but they pick family's cumulative sanity.
Women have to really think hard if they themselves and the guy they want to marry is really family material or not. To be fair, so should men. Every person isn't cut out to be a good partner or a good parent.
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