I have an egalitarian marriage, and I HATE it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We split childcare, cooking, cleaning. Everything is always chaos. Who has time to work full time plus communicate constantly about every little detail of home management in order to keep things running remotely smoothly? Power struggles about how to do every little thing since there are two people who have to have ultimate responsibility for the outcome. We are bad at this!! Maybe other people can do it better.

To me the ideal arrangement would be that my husband was out of the house more, earning more money, and I had a part time job and had more time with kids and home management. Why do women complain about that arraignment? I really don't get it. I actually hate having other people (DH, nanny) in my kitchen, doing a half-ass job. My poor kids have part time with me, nanny, and daddy, but no one person who really gets to spend extended, quality time, learning about their needs and being there for them. I hate this.

I disagree. The ideal arrangement is that your husband works part time and does a great job doing nearly everything around the house and with the children. You get up in the morning, put on the clean clothes he hung up for you in the closet that he organized, brush your teeth with the toothpaste he bought, give the kids a kiss and casually tell your husband that one of them might have a runny nose and maybe shouldn’t go to school that day, then go to work. After work, come home and play with the kids while your husband finishes making dinner, do the dishes while he supervises homework, play a game as a family, and put the kids to bed 50% of the time. If you have to work late, you just send him a text to let him know. He figures out what to do.
If it works out, you might take kids to an activity or pick them up after work. If it doesn’t, you just text your husband, and he figures it out.
Saturdays, you make the kids breakfast with the food he bought from the grocery store, dress the kids in their athletic uniforms that he washed and laid out, and go watch their games. Sundays, you sleep in. One of those days, you make dinner. Sometimes you take the kids to visit family or friends.
Holidays and birthdays, you just show up.
Summer, pretty much the same as the rest of the year except you go to the pool more often, congratulate your kids on learning to swim (how did that even happen?), and sometimes your kids tell you they went to camp that day.
Throw in splitting some of the home maintenance, hiring someone to mow the lawn, unloading the dishwasher twice a week, and showing up to parent teacher conferences, and you can say that you do 50% of the housework and childcare when you are home, go to most of their games, are involved in their school, and are still doing great at work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We split childcare, cooking, cleaning. Everything is always chaos. Who has time to work full time plus communicate constantly about every little detail of home management in order to keep things running remotely smoothly? Power struggles about how to do every little thing since there are two people who have to have ultimate responsibility for the outcome. We are bad at this!! Maybe other people can do it better.

To me the ideal arrangement would be that my husband was out of the house more, earning more money, and I had a part time job and had more time with kids and home management. Why do women complain about that arraignment? I really don't get it. I actually hate having other people (DH, nanny) in my kitchen, doing a half-ass job. My poor kids have part time with me, nanny, and daddy, but no one person who really gets to spend extended, quality time, learning about their needs and being there for them. I hate this.

I disagree. The ideal arrangement is that your husband works part time and does a great job doing nearly everything around the house and with the children. You get up in the morning, put on the clean clothes he hung up for you in the closet that he organized, brush your teeth with the toothpaste he bought, give the kids a kiss and casually tell your husband that one of them might have a runny nose and maybe shouldn’t go to school that day, then go to work. After work, come home and play with the kids while your husband finishes making dinner, do the dishes while he supervises homework, play a game as a family, and put the kids to bed 50% of the time. If you have to work late, you just send him a text to let him know. He figures out what to do.
If it works out, you might take kids to an activity or pick them up after work. If it doesn’t, you just text your husband, and he figures it out.
Saturdays, you make the kids breakfast with the food he bought from the grocery store, dress the kids in their athletic uniforms that he washed and laid out, and go watch their games. Sundays, you sleep in. One of those days, you make dinner. Sometimes you take the kids to visit family or friends.
Holidays and birthdays, you just show up.
Summer, pretty much the same as the rest of the year except you go to the pool more often, congratulate your kids on learning to swim (how did that even happen?), and sometimes your kids tell you they went to camp that day.
Throw in splitting some of the home maintenance, hiring someone to mow the lawn, unloading the dishwasher twice a week, and showing up to parent teacher conferences, and you can say that you do 50% of the housework and childcare when you are home, go to most of their games, are involved in their school, and are still doing great at work.

Laying out uniforms sounds a lot better than busting my *SS at my very demanding 60 hour per week job. By a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We split childcare, cooking, cleaning. Everything is always chaos. Who has time to work full time plus communicate constantly about every little detail of home management in order to keep things running remotely smoothly? Power struggles about how to do every little thing since there are two people who have to have ultimate responsibility for the outcome. We are bad at this!! Maybe other people can do it better.

To me the ideal arrangement would be that my husband was out of the house more, earning more money, and I had a part time job and had more time with kids and home management. Why do women complain about that arraignment? I really don't get it. I actually hate having other people (DH, nanny) in my kitchen, doing a half-ass job. My poor kids have part time with me, nanny, and daddy, but no one person who really gets to spend extended, quality time, learning about their needs and being there for them. I hate this.

I disagree. The ideal arrangement is that your husband works part time and does a great job doing nearly everything around the house and with the children. You get up in the morning, put on the clean clothes he hung up for you in the closet that he organized, brush your teeth with the toothpaste he bought, give the kids a kiss and casually tell your husband that one of them might have a runny nose and maybe shouldn’t go to school that day, then go to work. After work, come home and play with the kids while your husband finishes making dinner, do the dishes while he supervises homework, play a game as a family, and put the kids to bed 50% of the time. If you have to work late, you just send him a text to let him know. He figures out what to do.
If it works out, you might take kids to an activity or pick them up after work. If it doesn’t, you just text your husband, and he figures it out.
Saturdays, you make the kids breakfast with the food he bought from the grocery store, dress the kids in their athletic uniforms that he washed and laid out, and go watch their games. Sundays, you sleep in. One of those days, you make dinner. Sometimes you take the kids to visit family or friends.
Holidays and birthdays, you just show up.
Summer, pretty much the same as the rest of the year except you go to the pool more often, congratulate your kids on learning to swim (how did that even happen?), and sometimes your kids tell you they went to camp that day.
Throw in splitting some of the home maintenance, hiring someone to mow the lawn, unloading the dishwasher twice a week, and showing up to parent teacher conferences, and you can say that you do 50% of the housework and childcare when you are home, go to most of their games, are involved in their school, and are still doing great at work.

Laying out uniforms sounds a lot better than busting my *SS at my very demanding 60 hour per week job. By a lot.

Pp here. Sorry you don’t like your job. Maybe you should talk with your spouse.
My husband lost his job during the pandemic, and I ramped up to full time. I absolutely love it, and I appreciate everything he is doing to make my life awesome. I love just being able to text and say that I’m working late, rather than stressing about how to fit six hours of work into the four hours I have before school pick up. I eat lunch at work and have dinner made for me every day. I still have a lot of time with my kids. I get a lot more respect at work working FT over PT, and I have taken on an administrative title. It’s great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We split childcare, cooking, cleaning. Everything is always chaos. Who has time to work full time plus communicate constantly about every little detail of home management in order to keep things running remotely smoothly? Power struggles about how to do every little thing since there are two people who have to have ultimate responsibility for the outcome. We are bad at this!! Maybe other people can do it better.

To me the ideal arrangement would be that my husband was out of the house more, earning more money, and I had a part time job and had more time with kids and home management. Why do women complain about that arraignment? I really don't get it. I actually hate having other people (DH, nanny) in my kitchen, doing a half-ass job. My poor kids have part time with me, nanny, and daddy, but no one person who really gets to spend extended, quality time, learning about their needs and being there for them. I hate this.

I disagree. The ideal arrangement is that your husband works part time and does a great job doing nearly everything around the house and with the children. You get up in the morning, put on the clean clothes he hung up for you in the closet that he organized, brush your teeth with the toothpaste he bought, give the kids a kiss and casually tell your husband that one of them might have a runny nose and maybe shouldn’t go to school that day, then go to work. After work, come home and play with the kids while your husband finishes making dinner, do the dishes while he supervises homework, play a game as a family, and put the kids to bed 50% of the time. If you have to work late, you just send him a text to let him know. He figures out what to do.
If it works out, you might take kids to an activity or pick them up after work. If it doesn’t, you just text your husband, and he figures it out.
Saturdays, you make the kids breakfast with the food he bought from the grocery store, dress the kids in their athletic uniforms that he washed and laid out, and go watch their games. Sundays, you sleep in. One of those days, you make dinner. Sometimes you take the kids to visit family or friends.
Holidays and birthdays, you just show up.
Summer, pretty much the same as the rest of the year except you go to the pool more often, congratulate your kids on learning to swim (how did that even happen?), and sometimes your kids tell you they went to camp that day.
Throw in splitting some of the home maintenance, hiring someone to mow the lawn, unloading the dishwasher twice a week, and showing up to parent teacher conferences, and you can say that you do 50% of the housework and childcare when you are home, go to most of their games, are involved in their school, and are still doing great at work.

This is not actually what I would want (I would not enjoy being so sporadically involved in my kid's lives or being so passive about day-to-day functioning in my home) but it's a fair point. For many men, this describes an "egalitarian marriage" because so much of the work is invisible to them or they assume it to not take very much time.

However, I also think a lot of UMC/rich people I know get around this problem by outsourcing a lot of stuff. So the PT spouse or the one with the flexible job really does get to focus more on just spending time with the kids, because it's important to them. Stuff like organizing a closet, keeping the house clean, laundry, grocery shopping, sometimes even cooking and other day to day stuff, gets taken care of by someone else. Plus say you work 15 hours a week but kids are in school for 30 hours -- if you are also outsourcing a lot of household tasks, you are actually better off than the spouse with the FT job in terms of having free time and being able to do things for yourself.

Conversely, in a working class family, splitting everything 50/50 (either down the middle or dividing up tasks) can be hard if one partner is just not sufficiently competent at childcare and household tasks. I now working and middle class couples where the woman works and does most of this other stuff because, even assuming their spouse is willing to do some of it, his competency is so low and can cause more problems than are worth it. Managing a household on a tight budget requires real attention to detail and diligence, much more so than when you have enough disposable income to outsource or simply not to worry too much if someone buys the wrong size shoes or forgets to buy things on sale or whatever. It's easy to look at these marriages and say "Oh you're enabling your husband, just make him do it, but I've seen situations where that just doesn't work -- he will never be competent enough to be a true partner in that respect, so if he's capable of earning a decent salary, just let him do that and handle the rest yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We split childcare, cooking, cleaning. Everything is always chaos. Who has time to work full time plus communicate constantly about every little detail of home management in order to keep things running remotely smoothly? Power struggles about how to do every little thing since there are two people who have to have ultimate responsibility for the outcome. We are bad at this!! Maybe other people can do it better.

To me the ideal arrangement would be that my husband was out of the house more, earning more money, and I had a part time job and had more time with kids and home management. Why do women complain about that arraignment? I really don't get it. I actually hate having other people (DH, nanny) in my kitchen, doing a half-ass job. My poor kids have part time with me, nanny, and daddy, but no one person who really gets to spend extended, quality time, learning about their needs and being there for them. I hate this.

I disagree. The ideal arrangement is that your husband works part time and does a great job doing nearly everything around the house and with the children. You get up in the morning, put on the clean clothes he hung up for you in the closet that he organized, brush your teeth with the toothpaste he bought, give the kids a kiss and casually tell your husband that one of them might have a runny nose and maybe shouldn’t go to school that day, then go to work. After work, come home and play with the kids while your husband finishes making dinner, do the dishes while he supervises homework, play a game as a family, and put the kids to bed 50% of the time. If you have to work late, you just send him a text to let him know. He figures out what to do.
If it works out, you might take kids to an activity or pick them up after work. If it doesn’t, you just text your husband, and he figures it out.
Saturdays, you make the kids breakfast with the food he bought from the grocery store, dress the kids in their athletic uniforms that he washed and laid out, and go watch their games. Sundays, you sleep in. One of those days, you make dinner. Sometimes you take the kids to visit family or friends.
Holidays and birthdays, you just show up.
Summer, pretty much the same as the rest of the year except you go to the pool more often, congratulate your kids on learning to swim (how did that even happen?), and sometimes your kids tell you they went to camp that day.
Throw in splitting some of the home maintenance, hiring someone to mow the lawn, unloading the dishwasher twice a week, and showing up to parent teacher conferences, and you can say that you do 50% of the housework and childcare when you are home, go to most of their games, are involved in their school, and are still doing great at work.

This is not actually what I would want (I would not enjoy being so sporadically involved in my kid's lives or being so passive about day-to-day functioning in my home) but it's a fair point. For many men, this describes an "egalitarian marriage" because so much of the work is invisible to them or they assume it to not take very much time.

However, I also think a lot of UMC/rich people I know get around this problem by outsourcing a lot of stuff. So the PT spouse or the one with the flexible job really does get to focus more on just spending time with the kids, because it's important to them. Stuff like organizing a closet, keeping the house clean, laundry, grocery shopping, sometimes even cooking and other day to day stuff, gets taken care of by someone else. Plus say you work 15 hours a week but kids are in school for 30 hours -- if you are also outsourcing a lot of household tasks, you are actually better off than the spouse with the FT job in terms of having free time and being able to do things for yourself.

Conversely, in a working class family, splitting everything 50/50 (either down the middle or dividing up tasks) can be hard if one partner is just not sufficiently competent at childcare and household tasks. I now working and middle class couples where the woman works and does most of this other stuff because, even assuming their spouse is willing to do some of it, his competency is so low and can cause more problems than are worth it. Managing a household on a tight budget requires real attention to detail and diligence, much more so than when you have enough disposable income to outsource or simply not to worry too much if someone buys the wrong size shoes or forgets to buy things on sale or whatever. It's easy to look at these marriages and say "Oh you're enabling your husband, just make him do it, but I've seen situations where that just doesn't work -- he will never be competent enough to be a true partner in that respect, so if he's capable of earning a decent salary, just let him do that and handle the rest yourself.

I agree with you generally but I want to point one thing out - it can be really difficult to find someone to do any non routine chores like organizing a closet. You’d almost have to spend as much time explaining to them how you want it done as you would just doing it yourself. Even with routine chores it’s often required to spend a lot of time explaining. We have our nanny do dinner prep, but it takes 15 mins every morning for me to get that setup for her, as an example. Outsourcing, unfortunately, is not magical unless you are the Queen of England and have staff managing your staff.

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm sorry life isn't meshing with what you want. For me, working part-time would be the worst of both worlds. Working hard for 4 hours a day then rushing to get other stuff done before picking up the kids. You're just always on and going hard.

I think the best gig is SAHM with a high earner husband. Then you're still outsourcing cleaning and lawn care and can still afford tutors, kids' activities, your own activities, people to fix stuff, etc. Plus plenty of time to handle kids' appointments, make dinner, work out, volunteer, and take up hobbies. Everyone would be less stressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We split childcare, cooking, cleaning. Everything is always chaos. Who has time to work full time plus communicate constantly about every little detail of home management in order to keep things running remotely smoothly? Power struggles about how to do every little thing since there are two people who have to have ultimate responsibility for the outcome. We are bad at this!! Maybe other people can do it better.

To me the ideal arrangement would be that my husband was out of the house more, earning more money, and I had a part time job and had more time with kids and home management. Why do women complain about that arraignment? I really don't get it. I actually hate having other people (DH, nanny) in my kitchen, doing a half-ass job. My poor kids have part time with me, nanny, and daddy, but no one person who really gets to spend extended, quality time, learning about their needs and being there for them. I hate this.

I disagree. The ideal arrangement is that your husband works part time and does a great job doing nearly everything around the house and with the children. You get up in the morning, put on the clean clothes he hung up for you in the closet that he organized, brush your teeth with the toothpaste he bought, give the kids a kiss and casually tell your husband that one of them might have a runny nose and maybe shouldn’t go to school that day, then go to work. After work, come home and play with the kids while your husband finishes making dinner, do the dishes while he supervises homework, play a game as a family, and put the kids to bed 50% of the time. If you have to work late, you just send him a text to let him know. He figures out what to do.
If it works out, you might take kids to an activity or pick them up after work. If it doesn’t, you just text your husband, and he figures it out.
Saturdays, you make the kids breakfast with the food he bought from the grocery store, dress the kids in their athletic uniforms that he washed and laid out, and go watch their games. Sundays, you sleep in. One of those days, you make dinner. Sometimes you take the kids to visit family or friends.
Holidays and birthdays, you just show up.
Summer, pretty much the same as the rest of the year except you go to the pool more often, congratulate your kids on learning to swim (how did that even happen?), and sometimes your kids tell you they went to camp that day.
Throw in splitting some of the home maintenance, hiring someone to mow the lawn, unloading the dishwasher twice a week, and showing up to parent teacher conferences, and you can say that you do 50% of the housework and childcare when you are home, go to most of their games, are involved in their school, and are still doing great at work.

This is not actually what I would want (I would not enjoy being so sporadically involved in my kid's lives or being so passive about day-to-day functioning in my home) but it's a fair point. For many men, this describes an "egalitarian marriage" because so much of the work is invisible to them or they assume it to not take very much time.

However, I also think a lot of UMC/rich people I know get around this problem by outsourcing a lot of stuff. So the PT spouse or the one with the flexible job really does get to focus more on just spending time with the kids, because it's important to them. Stuff like organizing a closet, keeping the house clean, laundry, grocery shopping, sometimes even cooking and other day to day stuff, gets taken care of by someone else. Plus say you work 15 hours a week but kids are in school for 30 hours -- if you are also outsourcing a lot of household tasks, you are actually better off than the spouse with the FT job in terms of having free time and being able to do things for yourself.

Conversely, in a working class family, splitting everything 50/50 (either down the middle or dividing up tasks) can be hard if one partner is just not sufficiently competent at childcare and household tasks. I now working and middle class couples where the woman works and does most of this other stuff because, even assuming their spouse is willing to do some of it, his competency is so low and can cause more problems than are worth it. Managing a household on a tight budget requires real attention to detail and diligence, much more so than when you have enough disposable income to outsource or simply not to worry too much if someone buys the wrong size shoes or forgets to buy things on sale or whatever. It's easy to look at these marriages and say "Oh you're enabling your husband, just make him do it, but I've seen situations where that just doesn't work -- he will never be competent enough to be a true partner in that respect, so if he's capable of earning a decent salary, just let him do that and handle the rest yourself.

I agree with you generally but I want to point one thing out - it can be really difficult to find someone to do any non routine chores like organizing a closet. You’d almost have to spend as much time explaining to them how you want it done as you would just doing it yourself. Even with routine chores it’s often required to spend a lot of time explaining. We have our nanny do dinner prep, but it takes 15 mins every morning for me to get that setup for her, as an example. Outsourcing, unfortunately, is not magical unless you are the Queen of England and have staff managing your staff.

Eh, there are professional organizers. They don't even charge that much. I know finding people to outsource to can be difficult, but it is not as hard as doing everything yourself. And even if it only cuts your time in half, as opposed to eliminating that task completely, that's a lot of time you just got back (and most things, outsourcing will save you much more than 50% of the time you would spend on it). Yes, of course only extremely privileged people with full time staff could ever completely outsource all their chores. But in families, time and energy are very valuable limited resources. Next to money, it's probably the biggest source of strife in marriages, the division of labor. When families can outsource even 20-30 percent of that labor, it makes the equation easier to manage. Thus wealthy people have more options for making their marriages more "equal". But if you try to hold families without that option up to that same standard, you wind up with lots of resentment and frustration because actually trying to evenly divide childcare and household duties without outsourcing anything is really, really hard and requires constant negotiations.

And that's why middle and working class families often choose a division of labor that seems non-egalitarian compared to UMC professionals. I think the assumption is that it's a political choice, that they are just old fashioned about gender roles. But I think more often it's just much, much more efficient, if you have to take care of all this stuff yourself, to have one person doing paid labor and one person doing most of the unpaid labor. Yes, there are consequences to this that are bad for women. But there are tons of benefits to the family. So when rich people tell middle class people "you just need to get your husband to do more" without acknowledging that they use this handy third option (hire someone to do it) that might not be available to everyone, I get annoyed. The equality of UMC professional marriages is not always possible at a lower HHI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would hate your ideal arrangement because I hate chores and cooking and house keeping and I am terrible at it. My ideal situation would actually be making more money and a house husband. People like different things!

Also, DH and I avoid your issue by splitting routine household tasks on a permanent basis and one person is in charge of their areas and the other person has no involvement or input and honestly probably doesn’t even know what’s going on there. No duplication and works for us.

+1 took us a while but we finally reached a division that seems pretty fair. Also helped a lot when I had to travel for work and DH is reminded how much time and energy all the “invisible” labor takes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[

And that's why middle and working class families often choose a division of labor that seems non-egalitarian compared to UMC professionals. I think the assumption is that it's a political choice, that they are just old fashioned about gender roles. But I think more often it's just much, much more efficient, if you have to take care of all this stuff yourself, to have one person doing paid labor and one person doing most of the unpaid labor. Yes, there are consequences to this that are bad for women. But there are tons of benefits to the family. So when rich people tell middle class people "you just need to get your husband to do more" without acknowledging that they use this handy third option (hire someone to do it) that might not be available to everyone, I get annoyed. The equality of UMC professional marriages is not always possible at a lower HHI.

Great points! Sometimes I love DCUM bc people have thoughtful insightful perspectives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I'm sorry life isn't meshing with what you want. For me, working part-time would be the worst of both worlds. Working hard for 4 hours a day then rushing to get other stuff done before picking up the kids. You're just always on and going hard.

I think the best gig is SAHM with a high earner husband. Then you're still outsourcing cleaning and lawn care and can still afford tutors, kids' activities, your own activities, people to fix stuff, etc. Plus plenty of time to handle kids' appointments, make dinner, work out, volunteer, and take up hobbies. Everyone would be less stressed.

Lol you don’t say?!?!?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[

And that's why middle and working class families often choose a division of labor that seems non-egalitarian compared to UMC professionals. I think the assumption is that it's a political choice, that they are just old fashioned about gender roles. But I think more often it's just much, much more efficient, if you have to take care of all this stuff yourself, to have one person doing paid labor and one person doing most of the unpaid labor. Yes, there are consequences to this that are bad for women. But there are tons of benefits to the family. So when rich people tell middle class people "you just need to get your husband to do more" without acknowledging that they use this handy third option (hire someone to do it) that might not be available to everyone, I get annoyed. The equality of UMC professional marriages is not always possible at a lower HHI.

Great points! Sometimes I love DCUM bc people have thoughtful insightful perspectives.

Disagree. There is NO reason why women are “better” or “more efficient” at this stuff. Anyone who’s done it for a week knows it’s a huge grind. Guys can grind it out too. FWIW in my house we do not outsource a lot and dad is doing everything as efficiently as mom, whether it’s mornings with the kids, packing lunches, dishes, laundry, restocking cleaning supplies, or what have you. Absolutely no estrogen required. What do you think gay couples do?

[Anonymous]

Are you poor managers in other realms of your lives?

Seems like you need a meeting to discuss what is not working, and come up with scheduled routines. A family calendar? Chore chart? (Kids can pitch in, depending upon their age.) Everyone should not be trying to do everything. Jobs should be assigned and done according to a plan that everyone agreed to.

I will say, if you have alot of kids, I think there is some inherent chaos built into the cake. Prioritize helping them grow up well.

Life happens, and it does not have to proceeed seamlessly. Embrace the fun and unexpected. It is not some corporate boardroom.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, 50:50 housework is a scam -- this should be broadcast from loudspeakers to every newlywed couple

Whoever has the more flexible or less stressful job should take on 60%, the other 40, and ideally it shouldn't be the same person on the heavier end forever. Easier said than done, though -- I'm the 60% person now and get irritated sometimes -- and I do like outsourcing certain things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We split childcare, cooking, cleaning. Everything is always chaos. Who has time to work full time plus communicate constantly about every little detail of home management in order to keep things running remotely smoothly? Power struggles about how to do every little thing since there are two people who have to have ultimate responsibility for the outcome. We are bad at this!! Maybe other people can do it better.

To me the ideal arrangement would be that my husband was out of the house more, earning more money, and I had a part time job and had more time with kids and home management. Why do women complain about that arraignment? I really don't get it. I actually hate having other people (DH, nanny) in my kitchen, doing a half-ass job. My poor kids have part time with me, nanny, and daddy, but no one person who really gets to spend extended, quality time, learning about their needs and being there for them. I hate this.

My wife has what you want in my marriage - I am out of the house and earn a lot of money. And my wife is now miserable because she feels at age 46 she never had a real career and is resentful of me for having mine.

Not saying that you would feel the same, just answering your question.

This. I’ve seen this over and over and over.

You have to be honest with yourself about what you want out of life and many people are so swept up in the daily grind of what society expects that they don’t know. Then in your 40s, the reality of not having a career hits and major resentment develops. That’s the kind of bitterness you cannot let go of easily because your kids are older, everyone is moving on, and you’ve sacrificed your self and your passions for a transient project of, what, 10-12 years?

If your dream is to be a mother and homemaker and you are realistic about what that means, day to day and in the big picture, fine. If you have any aspirations for self realization then please pursue those and do not subject your family to this level of resentment. The grass is always greener. FWIW I have the kind of partnership you describe and I feel lucky. I know that I want a career, another world to explore and a channel for my passions — challenges and opportunities to grow outside of the claustrophobic world of chores that never get done and little ones who need you constantly. There is definitely a price to pay for this, namely juggling in the early years, but for me it was a bargain compared to feeling trapped, resentful, and unfulfilled for the rest of my life.

Pp you are responding to and this is an important view. I am in a field where successful people make 700k-2M and I remember when my wife was pregnant once of my senior partners told me to not let my wife stay home because when kids get older its a disaster for your marriage. I heard they from a couple others as well. Of course, my marriage would be different.

It was a wonderful division until it wasn't and right at the time when the kids hit middle school and didn't need the intensive attention.

Of course, it's totally possible that we just weren't going to make it as a couple even if she worked but at least she would have a job and salary to support her if we divorce which is looking like a real possibility

PP here. It’s a disaster for many marriages, I agree. It’s just too hard to make up for something you’ve never had and can’t ever have. It gets idealized since you never did it. Having worked, you know it is no picnic, but try telling that to someone who feels bored, empty, and unfulfilled at home and imagines that if they had had certain opportunities their life would be so much happier.

It’s important for women to have agency. With agency comes responsibility. You can’t blame your unhappiness on someone else, you have to work it out. The main problem with dropping your career and staying home is that you feel like you don’t have agency — even when it was your choice. It’s a very hard role to leave because the inertia of the everyday drags you down into minutiae.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We split childcare, cooking, cleaning. Everything is always chaos. Who has time to work full time plus communicate constantly about every little detail of home management in order to keep things running remotely smoothly? Power struggles about how to do every little thing since there are two people who have to have ultimate responsibility for the outcome. We are bad at this!! Maybe other people can do it better.

To me the ideal arrangement would be that my husband was out of the house more, earning more money, and I had a part time job and had more time with kids and home management. Why do women complain about that arraignment? I really don't get it. I actually hate having other people (DH, nanny) in my kitchen, doing a half-ass job. My poor kids have part time with me, nanny, and daddy, but no one person who really gets to spend extended, quality time, learning about their needs and being there for them. I hate this.

My wife has what you want in my marriage - I am out of the house and earn a lot of money. And my wife is now miserable because she feels at age 46 she never had a real career and is resentful of me for having mine.

Not saying that you would feel the same, just answering your question.

Yep this was me. I am way older now. Except I am not resentful of my DH. I feel that I personally lost out not having something for me. DH traveled a ton. We would not have been able to make things work had we both worked. However when last one went off to college. Where was I? Left feeling like I had nothing. I had no identity. But I strongly feel that is on me not on DH. He would have done whatever I wanted. We made the decision together so how could I blame him?