DH is not the person I married :(

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi, I am your husband. Not actually, but someone a lot like him. I worked very hard these years sacrificing my physical and mental health to provide you with an amazing life. Now that I’ve spent some time WFH, I realized just how amazing that life is and I want some of it for myself too before I kick the bucket.

You are welcome.

NP, but you sound very immature and self centered, not cut out to be a father.

[Anonymous]

It's funny, this has basically happened in my marriage and I LOVE it. It turns out that my husband's job has a lot of free time during the day (busy 9-noon and again from 4:30-7pm with a lull in between). It used to be that that lull was spent in the office wasting time in a variety of ways. Now he can take the kids to the dentist, start slow cooker meals, run to Trader Joes. It's funny because our kids are now 14 and 12 and they don't remember that I was the default parent pre-COVID. THis change has let me lean into my career and I am now making $200K more than I was when COVID started thanks to a recent job change I never would have made had my DH not been able to handle more stuff at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi, I am your husband. Not actually, but someone a lot like him. I worked very hard these years sacrificing my physical and mental health to provide you with an amazing life. Now that I’ve spent some time WFH, I realized just how amazing that life is and I want some of it for myself too before I kick the bucket.

You are welcome.

NP, but you sound very immature and self centered, not cut out to be a father.

Am I good enough to be a mother, though?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi, I am your husband. Not actually, but someone a lot like him. I worked very hard these years sacrificing my physical and mental health to provide you with an amazing life. Now that I’ve spent some time WFH, I realized just how amazing that life is and I want some of it for myself too before I kick the bucket.

You are welcome.

NP, but you sound very immature and self centered, not cut out to be a father.

Am I good enough to be a mother, though?

Definitely not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Assuming you have enough money and will be able to retire comfortably, there is nothing wrong with him having more flexibility. I gained a lot more flexibility and can work less starting around age 48, because I’m “the boss.” I don’t have to get into the weeds. My team does and comes to me to make the hard decisions. Hard decisions take a lot less time than digging into all the details to present the issues to me.

Honestly, my husband is a little freaked out that I’ve gone from being a workaholic to perfectly ok running to the grocery store between meetings at 2pm on Tuesday or even watching TV while I eat my lunch. I spend LOTS more time with our middle school daughter. I make about 80% of our income.

I also want to retire as soon as I can. Hopefully by 55, but definitely by 60. It will depend on the exit value of my company in a few years. He looks freaked out when I mention retirement. But he will adjust.

That said, you really need to dig into what you want here. Do you want him doing more family
Stuff? Or to just stop bugging you about making more? Or both? Figure that out. But acting like he needs to go back to being a workaholic is likely incredibly unrealistic. He is pivoting and likely realizing life is too short.

Wow, I am woman who identifies a lot with this post, except for the mid TV thing. But I don’t hesitate to, say, walk at lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi, I am your husband. Not actually, but someone a lot like him. I worked very hard these years sacrificing my physical and mental health to provide you with an amazing life. Now that I’ve spent some time WFH, I realized just how amazing that life is and I want some of it for myself too before I kick the bucket.

You are welcome.

I hear this. I am the wife who works many more hours than my husband and prepandemic I just wanted to spend more time in my house looking at my flowers. Now I do (and I still earn $$$). The difference seems to be that my husband and kids are really happy for me to get all of the good things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi, I am your husband. Not actually, but someone a lot like him. I worked very hard these years sacrificing my physical and mental health to provide you with an amazing life. Now that I’ve spent some time WFH, I realized just how amazing that life is and I want some of it for myself too before I kick the bucket.

You are welcome.

NP, but you sound very immature and self centered, not cut out to be a father.

Am I good enough to be a mother, though?

Definitely not.

Lol! OP is a mom who does less, so you just insulted her I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many contradictions in this post.

-OP does soo much for the kids, can't get another job because she has to take care of the kids.

-When DH wants to? Of course he wants to, now that they're easy! They don't really need it, they're self sufficient, they can drive themselves this year.

-OP complains that DH never saw the kids, left before they woke up, home late, she had to do everything and resented it.

-When DH wants to? He's home too much, he's too lazy, he's awake too late (??), he's unattractive and unambitious.

-OP resents him never being around to care for the children and never seeing them. When he wants to? He's Mr. Mom and again she finds it unattractive.

Make up your damn mind. No wonder men talk about women not knowing what they want and being fickle.

OP doesn’t like her husband.

Yep. She just wants his pay check, but doesnt want to see him or have him around his kids at all. But resents him no matter what he does

[Anonymous]

I’d tell him to take on those tasks now (why isn’t he already?) and you’ll see what is out there in terms of job mobility for you. Is he actually going to step up and do the things he said?

Has he made new friends lately by chance? My DH had a similar change and it was because he made a new group of friends who were “wealthy men of leisure” types who spent a lot of time during the day exercising, lunching, and golfing. The difference was those guys were a decade older, in many cases had family $$$ or were working cushy jobs for “the family business” (again, family $$ basically). Many of them also talked about time with kids, blah blah but were not doing a lot of parenting from what I could tell. My DH got incredibly jealous……who wouldn’t, I suppose.

Ended up being a phase my DH got over….we don’t make nearly enough $ for him to live that lifestyle LO. I think I posted ano Jr it on DCUM at some point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d tell him to take on those tasks now (why isn’t he already?) and you’ll see what is out there in terms of job mobility for you. Is he actually going to step up and do the things he said?

Has he made new friends lately by chance? My DH had a similar change and it was because he made a new group of friends who were “wealthy men of leisure” types who spent a lot of time during the day exercising, lunching, and golfing. The difference was those guys were a decade older, in many cases had family $$$ or were working cushy jobs for “the family business” (again, family $$ basically). Many of them also talked about time with kids, blah blah but were not doing a lot of parenting from what I could tell. My DH got incredibly jealous……who wouldn’t, I suppose.

Ended up being a phase my DH got over….we don’t make nearly enough $ for him to live that lifestyle LO. I think I posted ano Jr it on DCUM at some point.

Funny enough - yes, he has a new golf crew and they are all in a better financial position than us (more luxurious vacations, lots of lunches/dinners, guys golf trips, etc etc). So I've thought he wanted me to make more money so he could better "fit in" with his new friends.

[Anonymous]

Men shouldn't WFH. His T and social skills are deteriorating.

[Anonymous]

I’m assuming we are around the same age. My oldest is also 15. DH is a high earner and I’m a SAHM. In our late forties, many of our friends and colleagues are burning out and starting to think about retirement. Our kids’ college and our retirements are already funded. If he is earning the same as before, I don’t think this should bother you. And if you don’t want a more stressful job, then just stay where you are.

DH and I talk about where and what we will do when kids go to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Men shouldn't WFH. His T and social skills are deteriorating.

Yes, how dare half the species get a nice work/life balance. That's reserved for women only!

[Anonymous]

Sounds like nobody wants to work hard in your house. Just keep things as is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like nobody wants to work hard in your house. Just keep things as is.

This is fairly normal. People want work life balance. Who wouldn’t?