Reply to My DH does not understand what it's like to be the primary parent

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don’t know why y’all marry these men.[/quote]

When I married him, he was a self-sufficient adult who owned a home, was great at his job, planned dates for us, did his own laundry, etc. I never expected to be in this situation, and even when we had one kid he was pretty good. But something about the second kid... he just checks out a lot now. I have no idea what red flags I supposedly missed. I don't know what I could have done to prevent this beyond aggressively forcing him to take on childcare duties when they were babies. Should I have forced him to take a solo paternity leave, would that have helped? But then how do you even do that, it was not an option for us.

I think he hit a limit on parenting and we didn't know what that limit was going to be until we exceeded it. He was doing fine up until then.[/quote]

DP, so I didn't write the first post. How is your relationship between you and your husband? To me, when I explain to my husband that I feel like I'm drowning or that I'm stressed out, he cares and reacts accordingly because he loves me. (And I do the same for him). It often requires a conversation outside the moment when you sit down and tell him how you feel.

My husband used to sit down on the couch in our living room (which is connected to our kitchen) when I was doing something in there because it looked like I was handling everything and didn't need his help. However, I was simultaneously emptying the dishwasher, making dinner, packing lunches, and dealing with the kids' homework. But because no one was screaming, he thought it was ok. Then I started sitting down on the couch with him. Every time he sat, I sat. I basically refused to do any work if he wasn't doing any (we both work full-time jobs, so this is just related to house/child work). He then realized how unfair it was that I was doing stuff while he wasn't. So now we either decide who is doing what (and if someone finished their tasks early they're generally kind enough to help the other person out), or we don't sit until we can both sit.[/quote]

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