How many hours are you responsible for?

[Anonymous]

Ours is split 60/40 with me doing 60. But that's only because I have 1 -2 weekdays off so tend to do more stuff around the house then so that weekends can be used for fun things, not chores. Dh is extremely appreciative so that helps

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am pretty sure if we referred to a SAHM as unemployed all h*ll would break lose here.

Your husband is a full time parent.

70 hours a week of commuting, work, parenting and household tasks isn't much. That is 10 hours a day.

Your husband sounds depressed and you don't appreciate what he does or brings to the home. You sound so resentful that he wants a break after you get home. Again if genders were reversed and a man was complaining that not only did his wife expect a break but he also was still having to cut the lawn and take out the garbage because his SAHM wife wasn't getting it done..

Sounds like you are living a pretty typical life ina home where one parent is the breadwinner and te other is a sahp. Millions of men could write your post!

I’m a SAHM. I don’t know anyone (myself included) who gets a 2 hour break every day.

It also doesn’t sound like he’s taking care of the household while she works. That would annoy anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am increasingly resentful of how much I'm responsible for in my marriage. We have a one-year old.
My husband is currently unemployed, and has been for over a year.

I added everything up-- commuting, working, caring for my child at specific times so my husband can have time to job search, grocery shopping, cooking, paying all the bills, cleaning, laundry. It came out to 70 hours a week. With getting 40 hours of sleep in M-F (ha!), that leaves only 10 hours for everything else- getting showered and dressed, eating meals, etc.


What does the division of labor look like in your house? How many hours are "spoken for" during Monday-Friday? Is this what everyone does?

I'm not exercising or taking care of myself in any meaningful way. I am so, so angry all the time.

Weekends aren't restful. They're just for catching up on everything.

Division of labor in the house is not the number one priority.
Hubby getting a friggin job is the number one priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a SAHM who left a great job and career to raise my kids. I am also highly educated (and so is my high earning DH), so it made sense that my kids would be raised by a parent who is highly educated and not someone else.

The toddler years were hard because the kids are mobile and can get injured easily if left on their own. It was like having eyes on them 24/7. In such a scenario, DH and I had very low expectation of what could be done when a person is watching toddlers.

We were in a position to outsource some of the stuff - yardwork, cleaning the house. But the rest was tackled together as a team and mostly on the weekends.

I remember that I would go to the grocery store when my DH came back from work. I looked forward to getting a break from my baby for a couple hours a day.

OP, I think your resentment is coming from your DH being unemployed, rather than a division of labor. If he is at home with the baby, those are working hours. He is not putting less hours at work than you.

I’m sorry but you can grocery shop and do laundry with a toddler. It doesn’t need to be tackled on the weekend. I say this as someone who stayed at home with my DD.

[Anonymous]

Lots of good feedback here OP. Is DH actively looking for a job and spending time on that, or is he a SAHD for the near future!? They really aren’t the same thing. The job issue is what really needs to be addressed first and foremost IMHO. Even if he takes something lesser (just enough to pay for daycare)- maybe he would be happier??

As for the household chores- as other have said, it depends. Toddler is the toughest age as a SAHP IME. Lawn mowing is clearly out when he is home with the baby. Heavy cleaning can be challenging. Laundry, general picking up, errands - yes, those should be doable. Also depends on the temperament of you child to some degree- some are more difficult than others.

I think you need to sit down and have a talk with DH and get to the bottom of the job question. Figure out what the plan is regarding that. It doesn’t sound like either of you want him to be a SAHD so it isn’t surprising that it isn’t working out well. That should really be the focus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um we're pretty equal. He does most of the cooking and I do most of the laundry.

But when DH was out of work, he did everything for the house/kids.

What on earth is your husband doing all day?

He takes care of our toddler. We got into huge fights over the summer because I wasn't giving him any time away from the baby. So now we have 2 hours scheduled each day where I take care of the kid while he... does what he needs to do. Like yesterday he got a hair cut. And he's working on finding a job. But he hasn't had any interviews in months.

I'm so pissed because our lawn desperately needs to be mowed, edged, and weeded. Our dry cleaning sat in his car for weeks before I finally got fed up and dropped it off myself. When I did so I noticed the low air pressure alert was still on in his car. The car that he uses to drive our kid around. So I took it in, sat for an hour or so in the waiting room of a tire place while they patched it.

Weeks ago he said he would sell his XBox. It's still sitting on our dining table. "I'll be in charge of the trash and recycling" he said. It only gets taken out if it's overflowing and I ask him to do it. Our sink has damage and needs to be replaced. I was the one to call a plumber.
Today we got a notice from the county that our dog registration/ rabies certification had expired and we were looking at a $500 fine if we didn't renew right away. Guess who had to take care of it tonight when I got home around 10pm?


I would like to delegate, but this stuff HAS to get done, and I just can't trust that it will get done if I ask him to do it.

When my kids were that age going to work was the break I got. Being with the children was much more difficult than dealing with adults and work. Seriously, it is so so difficult to watch little kids. Please give him a break or get that kid into daycare. You need a break, too, I get that. But child minding is thankless and difficult work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work. my wife stays at home. If she was like your DH and not getting the domestic stuff done, I would be pissed she wasn't pulling her weight. There can be tough days with a one year old but not every day.

Also, the SAHD role almost never works and this is why. Even when done well, women look at him as unemployed.

Depends upon the child.

[Anonymous]

Op have you considered that he’s depressed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of good feedback here OP. Is DH actively looking for a job and spending time on that, or is he a SAHD for the near future!? They really aren’t the same thing. The job issue is what really needs to be addressed first and foremost IMHO. Even if he takes something lesser (just enough to pay for daycare)- maybe he would be happier??

As for the household chores- as other have said, it depends. Toddler is the toughest age as a SAHP IME. Lawn mowing is clearly out when he is home with the baby. Heavy cleaning can be challenging. Laundry, general picking up, errands - yes, those should be doable. Also depends on the temperament of you child to some degree- some are more difficult than others.

I think you need to sit down and have a talk with DH and get to the bottom of the job question. Figure out what the plan is regarding that. It doesn’t sound like either of you want him to be a SAHD so it isn’t surprising that it isn’t working out well. That should really be the focus.

This. The current arrangement isn’t working. The two of you need to sit down and Talk about what the goal is here. Is it to (1) have DH get a job or (2) for DH to be successful as a SAHP ? There are strategies and compromises for both- for both of you individually and for your marriage. The rest of this is really just background noise (chores etc) and at this point is just a distraction from the real issue at hand.

[Anonymous]

I agree with nearly all of the feedback you have received here.

One thing I will mention though- if DH were working FT would that lessen your workload at all? Like a lot of women, you’d still be responsible for most of the laundry, cleaning, & details. Because men. Much as this sucks. Not sure what my point is here- but I’d try to figure out a way to be more efficient with these things also because odds are this will continue regardless of what DHs work situation is. Also think hard about what chores you want DH to prioritize - both now and in the future.. Most men are not great about understanding what needs to be done. It helps to really spell it out- NICELY.

I’d be leaning on him to get a FT job if I were you. Even if it just covers daycare expense and little more. At least maybe then you could swing cleaning help.

[Anonymous]

How many hours? From the second the kids are awake until they go to sleep. DH and I are both equally caring for them, cooking, cleaning, errands... There is no free time. I do go to dinner with my friends once a week and we have a date night once a week. This was what we wanted when we chose to have kids though. I LOVE being around my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of good feedback here OP. Is DH actively looking for a job and spending time on that, or is he a SAHD for the near future!? They really aren’t the same thing. The job issue is what really needs to be addressed first and foremost IMHO. Even if he takes something lesser (just enough to pay for daycare)- maybe he would be happier??

As for the household chores- as other have said, it depends. Toddler is the toughest age as a SAHP IME. Lawn mowing is clearly out when he is home with the baby. Heavy cleaning can be challenging. Laundry, general picking up, errands - yes, those should be doable. Also depends on the temperament of you child to some degree- some are more difficult than others.

I think you need to sit down and have a talk with DH and get to the bottom of the job question. Figure out what the plan is regarding that. It doesn’t sound like either of you want him to be a SAHD so it isn’t surprising that it isn’t working out well. That should really be the focus.

The child is 1, not an infant with colic. My toddler was a little h3ll-ion right now, but I could still manage to strap him into a carseat and buy groceries, run errands, etc. A 1 y.o. should also have some kind of "safe" space in the house like a playard that would enable a parent to step outside for 30s to take a bag of trash out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am pretty sure if we referred to a SAHM as unemployed all h*ll would break lose here.

Your husband is a full time parent.

70 hours a week of commuting, work, parenting and household tasks isn't much. That is 10 hours a day.

Your husband sounds depressed and you don't appreciate what he does or brings to the home. You sound so resentful that he wants a break after you get home. Again if genders were reversed and a man was complaining that not only did his wife expect a break but he also was still having to cut the lawn and take out the garbage because his SAHM wife wasn't getting it done..

Sounds like you are living a pretty typical life ina home where one parent is the breadwinner and te other is a sahp. Millions of men could write your post!

Pretty much this.

That said, having a SAHP is a choice that needs to work for BOTH of the people in the marriage. There are plenty of DHs who just don’t want a SAHM- even if she doesn’t make a lot of $ they want her working based on principle and would be resentful if she stayed home. The same could certainly apply here. The two of you need to get on the same page. If you disagree with him being a SAHP then he needs to get a job- I would the same if the genders were reversed.

[Anonymous]

I've been in a similar situation before OP. My husband was unemployed. But we did keep the kid in daycare because I just know that my husband can't do full time childcare. I'm not saying that is a solution for you since it is expensive. But I think the reality is that probably your husband is depressed and just really shouldn't be doing childcare. I would look into whether you could get a very temporary childcare situation so he could try to get another job and then you could use daycare. Then he would be less depressed hopefully once he gets a job. Was he fired or what happened to his last job? I also have to make lists for my husband and only assign him stuff that I know he can/will deal with

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many hours? From the second the kids are awake until they go to sleep. DH and I are both equally caring for them, cooking, cleaning, errands... There is no free time. I do go to dinner with my friends once a week and we have a date night once a week. This was what we wanted when we chose to have kids though. I LOVE being around my kids.

This is us too. There's a set of tasks that have to be completed every day (dressing kids, feeding kids, cleaning up after kids, etc.) and we just do the stuff that needs to be done until the kids are in bed.

When DW and I took our respective parental leaves it is true that the at home parent wanted a break from watching the child when the other got home. However, it was only a break from watching the child, the at home parent would do other stuff such as cooking dinner, folding laundry or whatever else until the tasks were done.