Husband breaking my trust

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are working parents with young kids, and we recently spent many hours trying to find a more balanced split of responsibilities. He offered to do pickup from daycare each day since I do dropoff and make dinner.

We agreed that he would leave by 5:30 - this is already later than I did pickup, and only leaves us like 15 minutes for family dinner, which is the only time we have as a whole family all day. He proposed this approach. At 5:00, I confirmed with him that he would leave no later than 5:30, that this was a hard stop for work, and he said "Of course."

Well, come 5:30, he is still on the phone with his boss, because the boss will be busy for the next few days, so he says 5 more minutes. At 5:35, he is still on the phone. I check in, he's like "I'm finishing up." At 5:40, he is walking out, still trying to finish up with his boss on the phone.

I got extremely upset. He said "Sorry, but it was important".

I told him that I can't trust anything he says. I basically have to hope and pray each day that something doesn't come up at work, never knowing which day he might just ignore what we agreed on, miss family dinner, upset our little kid who hates being picked up late, annoy the daycare teachers , make our older kid late for her activity. Basically, his boss controls our family life.

He said I'm overreacting and it's not like he's cheating, so it's not breaking trust. And can't I focus on the fact that most days he gets out by 5:30?

He has a history of breaking promises and putting work first, always working longer than he tells me.

I have a history of anxious attachment from my family of origin. However, I really think that I'm not being unreasonable here. Because I can't trust him on bigger things if even these smaller promises mean so little to him. If he can't commit to leaving at 5:30, he should own up to it. If he thought he could do it, but now realizes it's only possible 80% of the time, he could say "Hey, I'm sorry I overcommitted. Are you okay with doing pickup at short notice when I'm stuck on the phone? Or let's look into hiring someone to drive our kid home?

How can I communicate all this to him? Or am I totally wrong here?

Good lord, you sound exhausting.

FYI, the sky is NOT falling, chicken little.

Exactly, how many hours is "many"?
I have no doubt that you were the one driving these many hours of tedious discussion about scheduling.

It's really not that difficult, especially since he works from home.
It sounds like you just like making his life difficult, which he will grow to resent & detest in short order.
You're going to torn him into a bitter husband if you don't change the way you speak to him.

Not every little thing is a crisis where you can't trust your husband now, that's ridiculous!

Although, you CAN trust that if you don't appreciate how hard he works at trying to make you happy, there will always be some other woman who will be thrilled to take a hard working family man off of your hands... that's a promise.

Only then, will you regret your neurotic behavior.

Please go get a diagnosis and medication for your anxiety and control issue, as you'll make your entire household miserable & resentful.

Would a woman that puts her job before family be considered "a hard working family woman?" I'm blown away by all the responses here defending the man for putting priority in his job and telling her it's not a big deal. Such a double standard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are working parents with young kids, and we recently spent many hours trying to find a more balanced split of responsibilities. He offered to do pickup from daycare each day since I do dropoff and make dinner.

We agreed that he would leave by 5:30 - this is already later than I did pickup, and only leaves us like 15 minutes for family dinner, which is the only time we have as a whole family all day. He proposed this approach. At 5:00, I confirmed with him that he would leave no later than 5:30, that this was a hard stop for work, and he said "Of course."

Well, come 5:30, he is still on the phone with his boss, because the boss will be busy for the next few days, so he says 5 more minutes. At 5:35, he is still on the phone. I check in, he's like "I'm finishing up." At 5:40, he is walking out, still trying to finish up with his boss on the phone.

I got extremely upset. He said "Sorry, but it was important".

I told him that I can't trust anything he says. I basically have to hope and pray each day that something doesn't come up at work, never knowing which day he might just ignore what we agreed on, miss family dinner, upset our little kid who hates being picked up late, annoy the daycare teachers , make our older kid late for her activity. Basically, his boss controls our family life.

He said I'm overreacting and it's not like he's cheating, so it's not breaking trust. And can't I focus on the fact that most days he gets out by 5:30?

He has a history of breaking promises and putting work first, always working longer than he tells me.

I have a history of anxious attachment from my family of origin. However, I really think that I'm not being unreasonable here. Because I can't trust him on bigger things if even these smaller promises mean so little to him. If he can't commit to leaving at 5:30, he should own up to it. If he thought he could do it, but now realizes it's only possible 80% of the time, he could say "Hey, I'm sorry I overcommitted. Are you okay with doing pickup at short notice when I'm stuck on the phone? Or let's look into hiring someone to drive our kid home?

How can I communicate all this to him? Or am I totally wrong here?

Good lord, you sound exhausting.

FYI, the sky is NOT falling, chicken little.

Exactly, how many hours is "many"?
I have no doubt that you were the one driving these many hours of tedious discussion about scheduling.

It's really not that difficult, especially since he works from home.
It sounds like you just like making his life difficult, which he will grow to resent & detest in short order.
You're going to torn him into a bitter husband if you don't change the way you speak to him.

Not every little thing is a crisis where you can't trust your husband now, that's ridiculous!

Although, you CAN trust that if you don't appreciate how hard he works at trying to make you happy, there will always be some other woman who will be thrilled to take a hard working family man off of your hands... that's a promise.

Only then, will you regret your neurotic behavior.

Please go get a diagnosis and medication for your anxiety and control issue, as you'll make your entire household miserable & resentful.

Would a woman that puts her job before family be considered "a hard working family woman?" I'm blown away by all the responses here defending the man for putting priority in his job and telling her it's not a big deal. Such a double standard.

Also, the OP said both she and DH are working parents.

[Anonymous]

I got you, OP. It's crazy-making to have a conversation like "5:30 for sure? Yes, really 5:30 definitely!" And then it's like the conversation never happened, and then he's a baby about it when you call him out. That kind of thing can really make you lose respect for a man.

From now on when you make these kinds of agreements with him, you have to anticipate that he's not reliable and doesn't have a backbone to upwardly manage his boss.

[Anonymous]

It would annoy me a lot too if someone was constantly breaking commitments, but only having 15 mins family time with your child all day is the bigger issue here.

[Anonymous]

Op, if you don’t mind sharing, how pretty are you, and how often do you have sex with your husband?

[Anonymous]

You just can't function on a tit-for-tat basis in a marriage. It sounds like you keep a ledger of "wrongs" and "injustices" and that's just not sustainable. You've gotta play the long game and learn not to catastrophize the small stuff, especially when you have kids. I am either 10 minutes early or 5 minutes late to pick up and I can't seem to change that. I can't imagine if my DH was breathing down my neck and universalizing my being late sometimes to being an untrustworthy person. It sounds like he's doing his best to balance a busy family life with a demanding job. Give him some credit for trying to make it work. Your marriage may depend on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are working parents with young kids, and we recently spent many hours trying to find a more balanced split of responsibilities. He offered to do pickup from daycare each day since I do dropoff and make dinner.

We agreed that he would leave by 5:30 - this is already later than I did pickup, and only leaves us like 15 minutes for family dinner, which is the only time we have as a whole family all day. He proposed this approach. At 5:00, I confirmed with him that he would leave no later than 5:30, that this was a hard stop for work, and he said "Of course."

Well, come 5:30, he is still on the phone with his boss, because the boss will be busy for the next few days, so he says 5 more minutes. At 5:35, he is still on the phone. I check in, he's like "I'm finishing up." At 5:40, he is walking out, still trying to finish up with his boss on the phone.

I got extremely upset. He said "Sorry, but it was important".

I told him that I can't trust anything he says. I basically have to hope and pray each day that something doesn't come up at work, never knowing which day he might just ignore what we agreed on, miss family dinner, upset our little kid who hates being picked up late, annoy the daycare teachers , make our older kid late for her activity. Basically, his boss controls our family life.

He said I'm overreacting and it's not like he's cheating, so it's not breaking trust. And can't I focus on the fact that most days he gets out by 5:30?

He has a history of breaking promises and putting work first, always working longer than he tells me.

I have a history of anxious attachment from my family of origin. However, I really think that I'm not being unreasonable here. Because I can't trust him on bigger things if even these smaller promises mean so little to him. If he can't commit to leaving at 5:30, he should own up to it. If he thought he could do it, but now realizes it's only possible 80% of the time, he could say "Hey, I'm sorry I overcommitted. Are you okay with doing pickup at short notice when I'm stuck on the phone? Or let's look into hiring someone to drive our kid home?

How can I communicate all this to him? Or am I totally wrong here?

Good lord, you sound exhausting.

FYI, the sky is NOT falling, chicken little.

Exactly, how many hours is "many"?
I have no doubt that you were the one driving these many hours of tedious discussion about scheduling.

It's really not that difficult, especially since he works from home.
It sounds like you just like making his life difficult, which he will grow to resent & detest in short order.
You're going to torn him into a bitter husband if you don't change the way you speak to him.

Not every little thing is a crisis where you can't trust your husband now, that's ridiculous!

Although, you CAN trust that if you don't appreciate how hard he works at trying to make you happy, there will always be some other woman who will be thrilled to take a hard working family man off of your hands... that's a promise.

Only then, will you regret your neurotic behavior.

Please go get a diagnosis and medication for your anxiety and control issue, as you'll make your entire household miserable & resentful.

Would a woman that puts her job before family be considered "a hard working family woman?" I'm blown away by all the responses here defending the man for putting priority in his job and telling her it's not a big deal. Such a double standard.

Maybe. But a woman would probably make a back up plan for the back up plan. Jobs pay the bills and working hard is also a (very important) form of caring for your family. Obviously some people take it to an extreme but this man doesn't sounds like he's doing that. Leaving at 5:30pm is a pretty good work-life balance for most professional jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason why the best setup for families with young children is if the mother works part-time.

Part time is the worst of both worlds. It is the worst set up—not the best

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a reason why the best setup for families with young children is if the mother works part-time.

Part time is the worst of both worlds. It is the worst set up—not the best

I did it for many years when my kids were younger and it worked very well for me and my family. Depends on the job though. I was truly part-time, and slowly ramped up as the kids got older. Now they’re tweens and teens and I’m back to full-time and it’s working okay. But Dh has dialed back and is available for pickup and lesson transport and such.