Help me navigate this childcare situation with my husband

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mystery has been solved surrounding all of the sexless marriages. I could possibly bring myself to sleep with these useless, lumps of flab and flesh.

Indeed. You people are crazy to put up with this nonsense. Batshit crazy.

My lady bits get dry as the Sahara just thinking about spending time with one of these manchilds.

"God baby, it really turns me on when you spend hours leveling up your character in your MMOG and watching TV rather than going to bed at a decent hour and being able to be a functioning adult the next day." - No woman ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I am completely blocking out any notion of divorce, until the youngest is in elementary school. When I said I am worried about what will happen once the kids leave, I meant once they leave permanently as in college. I will still be in fairly young, in my early 40s. So i am mostly worried about him sleeping constantly, and me doing what? the kids will gone and I will be left to take care of him. He is a total man child, this is a lesson to your daughters, do not marry your first boyfriend and do no marry young.

I know what you meant. And my question still stands: why will you be left to take care of him? Only if you choose to.

I married very young. My DH has been a full parenting partner. In fact, for the last few years, our split in parenting duties has been more along the lines of him 60/me 40, due to my job.

The problem is not that he was your first boyfriend or that you married young. The problem is that you are attempting to run an organization (family) with someone who is not pulling his weight--who in fact is UNDERMINING the organization, for reasons that are entirely within his control. (It's not, for example, that he has a chronic illness.)

Your post's title is not inaccurate. You not asking for help navigating this childcare situation WITH your husband, because it sounds like he's not working WITH you on much of anything. Nor are you really asking for help navigating this CHILDCARE situation, because what you really have is not a childcare problem but a HUSBAND problem.

The lesson to our daughters should be that no one can take advantage of you without your permission.

You seem to think you are trapped well beyond elementary school. Only if you choose to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I am completely blocking out any notion of divorce, until the youngest is in elementary school. When I said I am worried about what will happen once the kids leave, I meant once they leave permanently as in college. I will still be in fairly young, in my early 40s. So i am mostly worried about him sleeping constantly, and me doing what? the kids will gone and I will be left to take care of him. He is a total man child, this is a lesson to your daughters, do not marry your first boyfriend and do no marry young.

OP, I sympathize with your situation. I will point out that you do not have a ton of options. You will probably have to either a) do all the work, as you have been doing, and recognize that nothing will change, b) demand change, as frequently as necessary, and recognize that this will create tension between you and your husband, or c) hire someone to do morning drop off for you so that you can get to work and your husband can be his lazy self.

I think there are pros and cons to each options. If you just suck it up, you may (will) become (stay) resentful and will be stressed out and exhausted all the time. However, if you set your expectations to that level, you are unlikely to be disappointed. If you nag your husband, he will be mad at you, you will be mad at him, and your kids will probably pick up on what's going on. His behavior may or may not change. If you hire someone, it can get expensive, but you know that you have someone reliable helping you out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mystery has been solved surrounding all of the sexless marriages. I could possibly bring myself to sleep with these useless, lumps of flab and flesh.

Indeed. You people are crazy to put up with this nonsense. Batshit crazy.

My lady bits get dry as the Sahara just thinking about spending time with one of these manchilds.

"God baby, it really turns me on when you spend hours leveling up your character in your MMOG and watching TV rather than going to bed at a decent hour and being able to be a functioning adult the next day." - No woman ever.

If I wanted a manchild, I'd take up with one of DS's college-aged friends. Manchild, yes, but awfully nice to look at. Plus, I'd only be relying on him for one thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mystery has been solved surrounding all of the sexless marriages. I could possibly bring myself to sleep with these useless, lumps of flab and flesh.

Indeed. You people are crazy to put up with this nonsense. Batshit crazy.

My lady bits get dry as the Sahara just thinking about spending time with one of these manchilds.

"God baby, it really turns me on when you spend hours leveling up your character in your MMOG and watching TV rather than going to bed at a decent hour and being able to be a functioning adult the next day." - No woman ever.

I like how the plural of "manchild" is "manchilds." Very nice touch.

[Anonymous]

OP, I know that this is going to sound strange, but bear with me.
Does your husband have a carbohydrate heavy diet? I've stopped all weekend naps and go to sleep at a regular hour now that I've cut out carbs like bread and pasta. Maybe try to talk your husband into a paleo diet and get some exercise, so he can get on a better sleep schedule and won't lapse into a carb coma after every meal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I know that this is going to sound strange, but bear with me.
Does your husband have a carbohydrate heavy diet? I've stopped all weekend naps and go to sleep at a regular hour now that I've cut out carbs like bread and pasta. Maybe try to talk your husband into a paleo diet and get some exercise, so he can get on a better sleep schedule and won't lapse into a carb coma after every meal.

Oh yeah. He can't even take care of his kids but he's going to do something like this??

He's LAZY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I know that this is going to sound strange, but bear with me.
Does your husband have a carbohydrate heavy diet? I've stopped all weekend naps and go to sleep at a regular hour now that I've cut out carbs like bread and pasta. Maybe try to talk your husband into a paleo diet and get some exercise, so he can get on a better sleep schedule and won't lapse into a carb coma after every meal.

Oh yeah. He can't even take care of his kids but he's going to do something like this??

He's LAZY.

I was just trying to offer some options. Diet really affects mood and can make people emotionally and physically lethargic.

[Anonymous]

Op, he may be lazy but give him a chance to show you he doesn't have a sleep disorder. He needs a medical check up and maybe some sleeping pills too. Better living for everyone through chemistry can't be worse than what you are doing now.

I agree with others that you shouldn't block out divorce. You can give your DH a Chance to grow up but if he can't is this what your kids should be learning? Seriously, you all may be better off without him.

[Anonymous]

I think your DH sounds like a lazy dick, but you may want to have him tested for sleep apnea. The sleep he's getting may not be restful sleep. This is what happened to my DH. Now he has a CPAP and life has amazingly changed for the better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's hard to feel sympathetic about his need to sleep in after binge watching Netflix.

This. He can't choose tv over parental responsibilities. He needs to drop off one of the kids every day. Keep to the same fixed schedule every week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I am completely blocking out any notion of divorce, until the youngest is in elementary school. When I said I am worried about what will happen once the kids leave, I meant once they leave permanently as in college. I will still be in fairly young, in my early 40s. So i am mostly worried about him sleeping constantly, and me doing what? the kids will gone and I will be left to take care of him. He is a total man child, this is a lesson to your daughters, do not marry your first boyfriend and do no marry young.

Why would OP wait? That's harder on everyone. Harder on her to have the dead weight until then, harder on the kids because they will be older and more aware of what is happening. I can't believe she wouldn't rather do it now when the kids are at an age where divorce parents would be all they knew/remembered.

She wants this to be "a lesson to [our] daughters" but what she's teaching her kids is that they should put up with this shit from their future "partners". Every day that goes by she's sending them that message. Sheesh.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why you can't just leave the kid that he needs to drop off with him. If he doesn't drop kid off and stays home, your DH will be taking care of child. You absolutely don't need to be late for work for this.

I think you should find place for both kids and closer to home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why you can't just leave the kid that he needs to drop off with him. If he doesn't drop kid off and stays home, your DH will be taking care of child. You absolutely don't need to be late for work for this.

I think you should find place for both kids and closer to home.

Just wanted to add that DH and I both worked 30min-45 min from home but our daycare was 5 min from our house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why you can't just leave the kid that he needs to drop off with him. If he doesn't drop kid off and stays home, your DH will be taking care of child. You absolutely don't need to be late for work for this.

I think you should find place for both kids and closer to home.

+1 - this

It shouldn't even be an option for him to refuse to bring one kid to daycare and for you to argue with him. It really is like when your kids start to argue with you over something that is their responsibility to do. When I feel myself getting sucked in, I realize I have to stop engaging. I'm not going to explain, plead, try to counter what they are saying, get so frustrated I just do it myself (which honestly just would reward their behavior and encourage more of the same). It comes down to "you make a choice". You can either follow thru with your responsibilities or you have the consequences of not following thru with your responsibilities. Until you let him feel the consequences of his actions he has absolutely no incentive to change.

First, he has to deal with bringing the kids in for his 3 mornings. When he finds himself with the kids at home while he is trying to work or being late to work he will either go to bed earlier, go to a doctor if he thinks this is a medical problem, find a different job where he can get started 10am or that has even less of a commute, figure where in the budget something can get cut so he can hire someone to help get the kids out in the morning etc. You shouldn't be telling him which change to make, he needs to be motivated to make a change that fits the tradeoffs he is willing to make. I too am not a morning person and am a night owl but I had to figure out for myself what worked for me. I try to keep my work commute reasonable so I don't have to get up early for work and can pick up the kids easily if they need to go home sick or early closure due to snow. Even with that I wasn't until I got on an alternative schedule where I have every other Friday off plus WFH one day that I was really motivated to get up earlier and get to bed earlier. The payoff for me is having that one day I two weeks when I have free time to myself to read, relax, sometimes do errands etc. Before I had that, I felt like the Dunkin Donuts commercial "time to make the donuts" when I would tey to go to bed early (with very little me or downtime) in order to get up early to just repeat the process all over again. But the key is my DH couldn't tell me to get a job close, go to bed early, get on an alternative schedule, I had to figure those things out for myself. He also may make different decisions on how to balance his work, family, and down time. The key though is you don't get to shirk your parenting duties or work responsibilities while you figure things out - that isn't an option on the table.