Reply to Breaking the Mommy Martyr Routine

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Reply to "Breaking the Mommy Martyr Routine"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] I wonder if some of the women out there realize the mixed messages that they are sending.

On one hand, we have multi-page thread last week about women criticizing men for not pulling their fair weight in raising the kids.

Then we get the responses to OP in this thread - who is a dad who wants to help and give his DW a break (albeit doing things his own way) but his wife will not let him.  Instead of helping him strategize, a great bunch of you imply that he must be an asshole, incompetent or whatever else.

Take it from me, if you want a fully involved dad, you are going to have the pump the brakes about everything being done a certain way.  Stress over results, not process. Some of you want your DH to do as much as you do but you also want to tell him what to do and how to do it.  You want a "team" as long as it is on your terms.  That is a recipe for bad parenting relationship and a bad marriage.

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I'm one of the people who thought he sounded like an ahole. I also have a fully involved DH who is a great dad and an equal partner who I let parent how he wants to parent and don't hover over giving instructions. I just don't think calling someone a 'martyr' is constructive. Its very condescending and IMO conveys an active resentment towards his wife. I don't really believe that someone that is insulting his wife is truly interested in helping her so much as coming off as the 'BEST DAD AND DH EVER.' He's just coming off as disingenuous. Of course if reality is exactly as he describes than his wife is a controlling crazy but I just think it is rare that one part of a couple is the only person responsible for a rough patch. It takes two to tango. Part of wanting an equal partner in my husband is wanting someone who won't resort to thinking about me in such a derogatory way because we'll be honest and talk it out before it gets to this point.

I just guess the image of this amazing dad trying desperately to whisk the kids out of the house at 6 in the morning and then accosted by his type A wife refusing to let him spend time alone with his kids just rings a bit false to me. But its really the use of the word martyr, which IMO kind of invalidates any of the wife's feelings in his mind. I think OP and all of his defenders here are being a bit overly defensive. Some of us found his tone to be quite jerky, it doesn't mean we're all mommy martyrs ourselves, it just means he came off a bit like an ahole. [/quote]

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