Reply to How do you drop the rope when you have SN kids?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I agree, cut anything unnecessary and outsource what you can.

The most important thing for my mental health, is deciding that I was not going to divorce my husband over the unequal workload and therefore resentment over it is counterproductive. It’s his complete inability to see the amount of mental work that goes into coordinating everything that drives me crazy. I acknowledge it to myself and then move on. In practice, sometimes my resentment bubbles out and I pick a fight, but that’s only like 3-4 times a year. When the kids were younger, I could feel us slipping into an affectionless marriage, and I didn’t want that.

I try to set up regular appointments in the late afternoons early evenings where either of us can cover. And set up a routine where my husband is the default for some of them. Since he genuinely thinks that he does  an equal share of the parenting, I gently point out that having me cover 80% of appointments is not fair, and he’ll step up.

I keep every appointment on my calendar, even if he says that he’s going to cover it. If I absolutely need him to cover something, I remind him relentlessly. We have a shared electronic calendar I put everything into it.

Finally, I have totally mommy-tracked my job. I’m lucky that I can flex around appointments were needed. I have also been here long enough that I have leave to burn when I don’t have the energy to flex my time. [/quote]

This is OP - thank you for writing. I think I have tried to take this approach (divorce is not really an option, and not what I want) most of the time. I have my weaknesses, of course, though I try to do what I can to work on them so they don’t affect the people I love). I think at the moment I am intellectually aware that we are at a difficult and intense period that won’t remain this bad (went through something similar when my oldest was being diagnosed, but diagnoses are very different so there’s a ton that’s new). I’m trying to keep myself from doing something I will regret later like quitting my job since I also have a mommy tracked job, that I like and is important to me and I have spent years proving myself to the point I CAN get away with just disappearing on people the way I do. At one point a few years ago during a similar low point I felt tempted to cheat for honesty the only time in my life. I felt ignored and unimportant to my husband and someone attractive at work was giving me a lot of attention. It was terrifying even though I intellectually understood what was happening and I don’t really think I would ever have done anything. But honestly I periodically get reminded that there are apparently limits to what I can accept.

This mostly plays out when he does something unrelated but infuriating and I lose my shit - maybe this is what your 3-4 times a year fight looks like too. Recently he made two decisions in rapid succession that affected me and the kids without  consulting me and he basically defended himself by saying that it wasn’t malicious, he just didn’t think about me at all when he made those decisions (despite being things I have very much had an opinion on in the past). And I started to wonder if my acceptance of doing everything is sending more of a signal that I will just go along with whatever he does in general which I am not ok with.

So I am not sure just accepting this is how it’s going to be and losing it a couple times a year is a good plan. But the few times I have made a stink and spent energy on it nothing changes. Or he’s like ok spend a ton of time figuring out how to make something easy and not in anyway inconvenient and of course I’ll do it. And that makes me want to throw things. [/quote]

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