I was so naive re marriage, career and kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a sad state of affairs that we expect a couple to work 105 combined hours per week and have time to raise a kid. Work is the bigger problem here.

OP exactly my point. The myth of the career woman is oversold. You can definitely either make it super big or have a good but not amazing career and have a good marriage.but a really good career usually works out if it’s the man.

Not true for everyone, speak for yourself.

OP, as someone who had the career I wanted and has kids, I would encourage you to watch that Grey’s Anatomy episode where Bailey tells Mer to get a deeper bench. No matter what your child care situation is you need to build in layers of redundancy and be flexible. Treat this like a marathon, not a sprint. Otherwise you will burn out yourself and everyone around you.

Get more childcare. Figure out the division of tasks, adjusting as you go along. Understand that in five or ten years he will be broken in as a dad and adjust your expectations accordingly. I don’t know a single woman with a career who wasn’t disappointed at first with a husband’s lack of ability to do more, no matter how much he did. I don’t know a single woman who wasn’t happy to have kept her career once the kids got older. It only gets easier. You are really in the swamp when kids are too young to go to school, but this will pass in a couple short years. Once you’re more senior you can flex your hours. Keep the bigger picture in mind.

It doesn’t get easier, it gets different.

Don’t have more kids, OP. Messing up one human’s life is more than enough.

It definitely got easier for me once kids hit elementary school. We are gender reversed roles- husband is SAHD, I work full time but I still did the admin stuff when the kids were little because I couldn’t let go. It took a little bit of pain on both our ends, but we have a better balance now.

[Anonymous]

OP
I leave for work at 630. Before I leave I prepare the baby’s breakfast, what else he needs for the day. My husband wakes up at 7 but reads his news for 45 minutes because he says he needs to start his day right. So he wakes up the baby changes the diaper and dresses him but his meal; etc all done by me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP
I leave for work at 630. Before I leave I prepare the baby’s breakfast, what else he needs for the day. My husband wakes up at 7 but reads his news for 45 minutes because he says he needs to start his day right. So he wakes up the baby changes the diaper and dresses him but his meal; etc all done by me.

OP to be clear I don’t mind preparing the baby’s breakfast. What I mind is the fact that he is holding on to his pre baby routines whereas I just got added a lot of complexity to my life. When he promised he would do the majority of these things.

[Anonymous]

If you are away from your child 60+ hours every week, are you really even a mother? You said the baby is asleep when you get home at night so when exactly are you mothering?

And yes. I would say the same to a father. There are extenuating circumstances….deployments, travel, etc. But choosing this life? Being completely ok with never seeing your child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are you hiring the baby sitter? Can he just hire one himself?

Tho honestly I’d throw the video game system away. If he’s neglecting his kids because of it, it’s gotta go.

Oh yea. Men really shape up when you rachet up the control and start throwing their stuff away. Why stop at video games, girl? Just throw away his phone and laptop, too. No screens for him until he pays attention to the kid.

Tell us, how many years of marriage wisdom do you have?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a sad state of affairs that we expect a couple to work 105 combined hours per week and have time to raise a kid. Work is the bigger problem here.

OP exactly my point. The myth of the career woman is oversold. You can definitely either make it super big or have a good but not amazing career and have a good marriage.but a really good career usually works out if it’s the man.

Not true for everyone, speak for yourself.

OP, as someone who had the career I wanted and has kids, I would encourage you to watch that Grey’s Anatomy episode where Bailey tells Mer to get a deeper bench. No matter what your child care situation is you need to build in layers of redundancy and be flexible. Treat this like a marathon, not a sprint. Otherwise you will burn out yourself and everyone around you.

Get more childcare. Figure out the division of tasks, adjusting as you go along. Understand that in five or ten years he will be broken in as a dad and adjust your expectations accordingly. I don’t know a single woman with a career who wasn’t disappointed at first with a husband’s lack of ability to do more, no matter how much he did. I don’t know a single woman who wasn’t happy to have kept her career once the kids got older. It only gets easier. You are really in the swamp when kids are too young to go to school, but this will pass in a couple short years. Once you’re more senior you can flex your hours. Keep the bigger picture in mind.

OP: Thank you. Will do. And that’s helpful to hear.

I do flex my hours. Our daycare was closed last week due to COVID and I took on the bulk of childcare because I can flex my hours. My husband says he cannot work after 7pm because he’s too tired. I worked 8-midnight to make up for the lost time during the day. This is what’s driving me crazy.

PP here. Just pace yourself. You can’t expect yourself to sprint like old times the first 2-3 years after having a baby.

This is temporary. Keep saying that to yourself. Once school kicks in, and their sleep stabilizes, there are new challenges but by and large it’s much less hands on. For one thing you don’t have this problem of always having to get a babysitter.

Think of your husband as an energy reserve. Yes he could deplete himself as you are doing, but would that help the family? You may crash and he may have to take over. Charge everyone’s battery as much as possible and get other batteries on board. I spent a week or two hiring each nanny and it was worth it. Also got help with cooking. Look into meal delivery services, outsource whatever you can. It gets much easier but you can’t be firing on all cylinders the whole time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP
I leave for work at 630. Before I leave I prepare the baby’s breakfast, what else he needs for the day. My husband wakes up at 7 but reads his news for 45 minutes because he says he needs to start his day right. So he wakes up the baby changes the diaper and dresses him but his meal; etc all done by me.

OP to be clear I don’t mind preparing the baby’s breakfast. What I mind is the fact that he is holding on to his pre baby routines whereas I just got added a lot of complexity to my life. When he promised he would do the majority of these things.

The solution is not to resent him but to figure out the practical additions or changes you can make to simplify all this. Yes, that thinking lands on your plate. But you just do it and move on. You will figure out how to get what you need for yourself later.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are choosing to spend your "free time" at work. And I get it, I'm a workaholic too, but one day I finally realized that my husband is better at work boundaries than I am and that's why he has so much time to play video games or watch football, and I don't.

Find a different job, find a way to shave 10 hours a week off your current one, accept slightly less money, be okay with skipping this promotion, or accept that this is the choice you are making.

60 hours a week isn't long term sustainable if you also want a family and a sense of self, whether you are a man, woman, or something in between.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a sad state of affairs that we expect a couple to work 105 combined hours per week and have time to raise a kid. Work is the bigger problem here.

OP exactly my point. The myth of the career woman is oversold. You can definitely either make it super big or have a good but not amazing career and have a good marriage.but a really good career usually works out if it’s the man.

Not true for everyone, speak for yourself.

OP, as someone who had the career I wanted and has kids, I would encourage you to watch that Grey’s Anatomy episode where Bailey tells Mer to get a deeper bench. No matter what your child care situation is you need to build in layers of redundancy and be flexible. Treat this like a marathon, not a sprint. Otherwise you will burn out yourself and everyone around you.

Get more childcare. Figure out the division of tasks, adjusting as you go along. Understand that in five or ten years he will be broken in as a dad and adjust your expectations accordingly. I don’t know a single woman with a career who wasn’t disappointed at first with a husband’s lack of ability to do more, no matter how much he did. I don’t know a single woman who wasn’t happy to have kept her career once the kids got older. It only gets easier. You are really in the swamp when kids are too young to go to school, but this will pass in a couple short years. Once you’re more senior you can flex your hours. Keep the bigger picture in mind.

OP: Thank you. Will do. And that’s helpful to hear.

I do flex my hours. Our daycare was closed last week due to COVID and I took on the bulk of childcare because I can flex my hours. My husband says he cannot work after 7pm because he’s too tired. I worked 8-midnight to make up for the lost time during the day. This is what’s driving me crazy.

PP here. Just pace yourself. You can’t expect yourself to sprint like old times the first 2-3 years after having a baby.

This is temporary. Keep saying that to yourself. Once school kicks in, and their sleep stabilizes, there are new challenges but by and large it’s much less hands on. For one thing you don’t have this problem of always having to get a babysitter.

Think of your husband as an energy reserve. Yes he could deplete himself as you are doing, but would that help the family? You may crash and he may have to take over. Charge everyone’s battery as much as possible and get other batteries on board. I spent a week or two hiring each nanny and it was worth it. Also got help with cooking. Look into meal delivery services, outsource whatever you can. It gets much easier but you can’t be firing on all cylinders the whole time.

One more thing — use your work skills to solve this. If you have a dud colleague at work, you’re not going to waste your time figuring out why he’s like that and how to change him. You go around him. And you don’t depend on him. Yes, it’s annoying, but you don’t have time to waste on this if your schedule is as described. Get your weekends covered to make more time for yourself and figure out how to work smarter not harder to save yourself time on non baby things. Detach and look at this as the logistical and practical issue it is. If over time the balance does not emerge in your favor then you deal with it. But I wouldn’t judge him or the marriage based on what it looks like in crisis mode, which is essentially what’s happening when you have young kids and two jobs to juggle.

[Anonymous]

OP created this. She decided to 60 hours a week. That’s on her. Her husband also works a full time job and does the majority of the child care. Like most humans, the husband needs some time to chill out. OP sounds terrible, her husband should run now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP created this. She decided to 60 hours a week. That’s on her. Her husband also works a full time job and does the majority of the child care. Like most humans, the husband needs some time to chill out. OP sounds terrible, her husband should run now.

Op: well if you add the admin, you probably get more of a 60-40 split.

And compensation-wise, also a 60-40 split in the other direction. Point is not compensation. Point is level of compensation requires long work hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP
I leave for work at 630. Before I leave I prepare the baby’s breakfast, what else he needs for the day. My husband wakes up at 7 but reads his news for 45 minutes because he says he needs to start his day right. So he wakes up the baby changes the diaper and dresses him but his meal; etc all done by me.

You seem more mad about the fact that your DH has downtime (and you don't) than the idea he does less than you with regard to the baby (it seems he does more overall, especially on the day to day stuff because of your long hours).

It's like you won't be happy unless your DH is miserable, doing housework and baby-related drudgery, during all the hours that you are at work. That's a ridiculous expectation. I think you actually hate your job and resent all the hours you work, but instead of focusing on that you are resenting your DH for working fewer hours. What's wrong with him taking a little time to himself every morning before getting the baby up? That's just healthy -- I do it daily.

You work too much. You work too much. You work too much. THAT's the problem. You are trying to make your DH the problem when it's really your job. Sorry. Working 80 hrs a week and parenting a baby only works if you have a SAHM or multiple nannies (or a nanny and a very good housekeeper). Your DH has a job too, he's obviously doing a lot of childcare, and your are getting mad about him looking at his phone before the baby wakes up or playing video games after the baby goes to bed. He's not a slave, he's a person. You should remind yourself that you are one too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP created this. She decided to 60 hours a week. That’s on her. Her husband also works a full time job and does the majority of the child care. Like most humans, the husband needs some time to chill out. OP sounds terrible, her husband should run now.

Op: well if you add the admin, you probably get more of a 60-40 split.

And compensation-wise, also a 60-40 split in the other direction. Point is not compensation. Point is level of compensation requires long work hours.

Yeah, sure. Just admit you value your job above all else. If you just owned that instead of seething with resentment that your husband is behaving as a normal, non-workaholic person would, maybe your marriage will survive for a few more years.

[Anonymous]

I would love to see what happened if a man wrote this about his wife.

You're awful, OP, you need to hire out help. He's working a full time job and you expect him to do everything a SAHM does. I work part-time and I don't even do half the stuff on your stupid list. Grow the F_ up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP created this. She decided to 60 hours a week. That’s on her. Her husband also works a full time job and does the majority of the child care. Like most humans, the husband needs some time to chill out. OP sounds terrible, her husband should run now.

Op: well if you add the admin, you probably get more of a 60-40 split.

And compensation-wise, also a 60-40 split in the other direction. Point is not compensation. Point is level of compensation requires long work hours.

Yeah, sure. Just admit you value your job above all else. If you just owned that instead of seething with resentment that your husband is behaving as a normal, non-workaholic person would, maybe your marriage will survive for a few more years.

No matter what the “agreement” was before the child was conceived/born, most mature people recognize that having a child
will change their lives in unanticipated ways. I have yet to meet a well-functioning family that has not had to renegotiate/reconsider/alter all those before plans. OP, you seem beyond stuck in a way of thinking that predates the child. For as much as you are complaining that your DH isn’t changing his mindset, you don’t seem to be willing/able to change yours. I’m getting the same sense of seething resentment that you can’t have the life back that you had where you were able to focus entirely on your career. That is no mindset to raise a child. You need to do some quick maturing. There is now a child involved.