If DH is a law firm partner, must I be the default parent?

[Anonymous]

Women biglaw partners have a staff (seriously) of people running their lives. Nanny, housekeeper, and oftentimes a SAHD or mother/MIL to keep things running.

Biglaw is terrible, OP. It is so, so stressful and just toxic. You need to understand this before dealing with anything because you are going to get no where with your husband and will spiral into a resent-fest.

OP if you want your husband to participate in your lives, quite frankly, he needs to leave biglaw. It's that bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^women do this all.the.time. Why can't he?

Agree.

Has he given this one moment's thought wrt OP's career?

If he's a biglaw partner, why should he have? OP doesn't seem to have.

Where in the world are you getting that the OP hasn't thought about her own career?

[Anonymous]

OP you need to lower the bar in regards to your expectations of your husband. DH and myself had a discussion about expectations a few weeks ago, and came to some compromises. I am without question the default parent. DH pitches in much more than he used to, because I had to put my foot down and tell him if he didn't help I was going to quit my job to stay home. I cannot work a fulltime job, care for DD before/after work, cook, keep the house clean, keep up with laundry, etc without his help. That got his attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. We have a good but not great nanny. I know he won't be the one going to doctor's appointments. The trigger for this was his asking me what I had gotten our child (and his mom) for Christmas. When I said I hadn't because I've been busy at work he said he ha no ideas and he'd leave it up to me since I was "better" at it. Our son likes trains, trains, trains, balls, trains, and trains. I also told him he could order a present for his mom if he felt so strongly about it.

I don't think this has much to do with whether he's a law firm partner. He could do this task if he felt like it. He doesn't feel like it. You have one child. There really is a lot of time in the day, outside of work, for either one of you to pick out gifts for one child. After bedtime, nap time on the weekend, etc. Now whether either of you FEEL like doing this in your limited free time...that's the crux of the issue.

Take care of your own kid and tell him good luck with his mother. If she gets nothing, refer her to her son.

You are clueless as to what the demands are when it comes to certain occupations.

Like I said these are things that need to be resolved before one marries or has children. Alternatively, both parties should agree - if they are so inclined - that they will just settle for making a lot less money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^women do this all.the.time. Why can't he?

Agree.

Has he given this one moment's thought wrt OP's career?

If he's a biglaw partner, why should he have? OP doesn't seem to have.

So if he is a biglaw partner, he doesn't have any obligation to consider what his spouse wants or needs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^women do this all.the.time. Why can't he?

Agree.

Has he given this one moment's thought wrt OP's career?

If he's a biglaw partner, why should he have? OP doesn't seem to have.

So if he is a biglaw partner, he doesn't have any obligation to consider what his spouse wants or needs?

At $500k-1m, yes.

[Anonymous]

What a joke. Lawyer here. Yes even a "big law partner" has time to buy a present or 2 on Amazon-- you can get the app for your phone and buy something in 5 min, especially of money is no object.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^women do this all.the.time. Why can't he?

Agree.

Has he given this one moment's thought wrt OP's career?

If he's a biglaw partner, why should he have? OP doesn't seem to have.

So if he is a biglaw partner, he doesn't have any obligation to consider what his spouse wants or needs?

At $500k-1m, yes.

The is why the divorce rate is high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. We have a good but not great nanny. I know he won't be the one going to doctor's appointments. The trigger for this was his asking me what I had gotten our child (and his mom) for Christmas. When I said I hadn't because I've been busy at work he said he ha no ideas and he'd leave it up to me since I was "better" at it. Our son likes trains, trains, trains, balls, trains, and trains. I also told him he could order a present for his mom if he felt so strongly about it.

I don't think this has much to do with whether he's a law firm partner. He could do this task if he felt like it. He doesn't feel like it. You have one child. There really is a lot of time in the day, outside of work, for either one of you to pick out gifts for one child. After bedtime, nap time on the weekend, etc. Now whether either of you FEEL like doing this in your limited free time...that's the crux of the issue.

Take care of your own kid and tell him good luck with his mother. If she gets nothing, refer her to her son.

You are clueless as to what the demands are when it comes to certain occupations.

Like I said these are things that need to be resolved before one marries or has children. Alternatively, both parties should agree - if they are so inclined - that they will just settle for making a lot less money.

That is the time machine solution. But OP does not have a time machine. So now what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^women do this all.the.time. Why can't he?

Agree.

Has he given this one moment's thought wrt OP's career?

If he's a biglaw partner, why should he have? OP doesn't seem to have.

So if he is a biglaw partner, he doesn't have any obligation to consider what his spouse wants or needs?

At $500k-1m, yes.

Then he should not be married. Because marriage entails paying attention to and addressing your spouse's needs and wants - that's the very definition of marriage.

[Anonymous]

Yes, unless you make more than 150k a year I would quit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a joke. Lawyer here. Yes even a "big law partner" has time to buy a present or 2 on Amazon-- you can get the app for your phone and buy something in 5 min, especially of money is no object.

Yeah, it's weird that this is the thing that set her off. Five minutes on Amazon can't really be the issue. I'm guessing there's a lot more going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yes. you are the default parent and default household-runner.

this conversation should have occurred before your husband took the partnership.

This exactly, but he can still buy a present for his mom. And I say this as someone who has a spouse that works longer hours than a big law partner, but I knew what I was signing up for before I had kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. We have a good but not great nanny. I know he won't be the one going to doctor's appointments. The trigger for this was his asking me what I had gotten our child (and his mom) for Christmas. When I said I hadn't because I've been busy at work he said he ha no ideas and he'd leave it up to me since I was "better" at it. Our son likes trains, trains, trains, balls, trains, and trains. I also told him he could order a present for his mom if he felt so strongly about it.

I don't think this has much to do with whether he's a law firm partner. He could do this task if he felt like it. He doesn't feel like it. You have one child. There really is a lot of time in the day, outside of work, for either one of you to pick out gifts for one child. After bedtime, nap time on the weekend, etc. Now whether either of you FEEL like doing this in your limited free time...that's the crux of the issue.

Take care of your own kid and tell him good luck with his mother. If she gets nothing, refer her to her son.

You are clueless as to what the demands are when it comes to certain occupations.

Like I said these are things that need to be resolved before one marries or has children. Alternatively, both parties should agree - if they are so inclined - that they will just settle for making a lot less money.

That is the time machine solution. But OP does not have a time machine. So now what?

She lives with the situation, he agrees to take on a less demanding position .......... or they part company and get on with their lives.

But it is just not realistic to expect someone in a demanding occupation to assume the parental obligations that a parent would if he/she were in a less high pressure situation. It applies irrespective of gender.

BTW, I have a son who has a very high pressure job and he broke up with his girlfriend because she was making too many demands on his time. Unfortunate but a lot better than getting married and then finding that she was very unhappy with the demands of his occupation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. You should have thought about this before you went down this path. It is surprising that you did not.

I don;t think it is that surprising. I think most people have a general idea of what life with kids is going to be like but until you do it, you really don't have a concept of the day to day of family life. I certainly know that I am learning things as LOs get older and things tend to change with each phase. Its hard to predict. Sure if someone works 60-70 hour weeks, of course you can predict that they won't have much family time, but in less extreme cases, I think its easy to not really be sure what time changes are needed.