Reply to Dealing with a spouse who's gotten very competitive with me about parenting

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DC is 22 months. I thought it was about time to start short (under 2 minutes) timeouts. Perhaps not.

As for DH, he is definitely not a batterer, and he isn't an a$$hole or depressed. But he is in a race to be the better, more burdened parent and spouse, and often needs to blow off steam by being argumentative and/or condescending.

I'm SAH because we're on a temporary overseas assignment for his job and I can't work here. He always said he wanted a SAH wife when he had kids, but IRL it's been an adjustment for him and there's a little resentment there. I also know he knows this is unfair.

There are really two distinct parts to what happened today to prompt this post. One is the new stuff - the increasing criticism of what I do (or don't do) and how I do it, and his need to feel like the superior parent who does more and does it better. It's related, though, to the second aspect, which is his need to always feel like the aggrieved party. That's longstanding - total martyr complex. It's so stupid to me because for this short window of time we have basically no stress, which will obviously change when we're back in DC and I'm full-time again. It concerns me that stupid fights like this are happening now, when we have it so good. What's it going to be like when we're all busy and stressed and in traffic all damn day again!? Maybe he's just bored with our lack of real problems!?

Some good questions and advice above. I did ask (though not calmly or diplomatically, I admit) what was up with his drama about DC and the timeout today. That timeout was actually his technique, btw. He didn't really have a defense and tried to walk it back and changed the subject. I think he was just feeling confrontational and grouchy.

The recent trigger could be that DC started going part time to an education-based preschool 3x week. DH was very into this idea and actually talked me into it (truly), but [b]maybe now he's feeling like I don't do anything all day and he resents my free time in spite of himself. Kinda like how he always wanted a SAH wife...until he had one.[/b]

(08:38: It has been a couple of nights, so maybe you're onto something there.  :D  I've noticed the same thing myself.)

When we're back in DC, I do want to try some classes. I think we would both benefit. And I really like the idea of picking a strategy we agree on from a book and deferring to that, as well as to whichever parent is "in charge" at the moment. Good rule!  [/quote]

I'm thinking this may be something to explore some more. It's "easier" to create a fight about kids than to talk about something like resentment.[/quote]

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