Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH goes on one, sometimes two, guy trips a year. Usually just a long weekend. I hate them. They all go and act like they are 21 again and drink way to much, stay up too late and come home feeling hungover and exhausted for the next week.

Meanwhile I am stuck 24/7 taking care of the kids and running the house while he is gone. Then when he gets home he can barely help because he is so tired and he is so behind on work from taking the long weekend off.

I completely know he deserves time to decompress and relax and reconnecting with his friends is very important. I am so glad he still has friends and is close with them! I just dislike these trips.

Husband goes away for one weekend year and his wife is all bent out of shape. Attention! Any men dumb enough to consider getting married, this is how backward women's thinking process is!

When I was married my wife would complain endlessly that I went on two on my son's Cub Scout camping trips each year. She seemed to think one night away, sleeping on the ground in a campsite with 30 noisy kids, was somehow a vacation for me.

I had my sons plead for DW to come along on a late Fall Cub Scout campout. She never mistook those weekends for vacations again after sleeping on the ground and waking up in the high 30's

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your DH is making so much money OP, I would hire a sitter to help out while he is gone and when he first gets back. And I would be totally unapologetic about hiring as much help as needed so I’m not burnt out while he is gone.

This. Door dash dinners for the first few days after his anticipated return, send laundry out, hire a sitter for a few afternoons.

And hire a dog walker permanently. That’s such an easy thing to take off your plate. No reason you should be doing 100 percent of the default parenting and pet care when the both of you are making good money.

I think this is a good point in general beyond just girls/guys trips. I’ve found that anytime DH and I get into a bean counting or resentful place over division of labor it’s because we’re trying to allocate more than 2 people can realistically get done without burn out.

Obviously this is a harder situation when there isn’t much disposable income. But when you have a high earner working long hours, then you have to factor in some outsourcing as an expense that allows for the high earner to work those hours.

I totally send out laundry, order take out, plan a sitter, etc. when we reach a threshold of feeling unable to keep up. Way cheaper than divorce and better for our mental health than sniping at each other over who is helping with what.

That said heavy drinking is a huge turn off for me. My DH is really fit and into healthy eating. We both are light drinkers. An occasional hangover wouldn’t necessarily concern me, but I’m curious is OP’s husband has a history of over imbibing or having unhealthy habits that are annoying.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love these posts. They make me feel so much better about my marriage and my life.

My wife actively encourages me to take trips and doesn’t care if I come back tired or hungover. She takes trips and sometimes arrives home in the same condition. I’ll go hunting, golf, boating, or skiing and she’ll go to some resort or city somewhere with her friends. We do the same sorts of trips together and with friends.

It sounds like you guys are just miserable and that’s the problem. Not the trips.

+1

DW sort of pokes fun of me for being banged up after a Vegas weekend or whatever, but it’s all in good humor and she is mostly nurturing. Even if there’s some “tsk tsk” element to it. She like when I go have fun.

I do the same for her — though she doesn’t really drink, so it’s just a matter of managing the kids/house… which, guess what ladies, ain’t rocket science.

Reading the OP made me want to jump out a window. I can almost hear her screaching from my couch.

Op here - obviously I know it’s not rocket science to manage our kids/house. I will add though while you and the dads who have “big jobs” get to focus all your energy on work all day I got to work AND make breakfast, lunch and dinner for 5 people, walk the dog 3 miles, do laundry, schedule dentist appointments, schedule pre and post operative appointments for one kid, take one kid to tutoring, drop off and pick up 3 kids.

So yea my second job, being a default parent, isn’t the same number of hours and isn’t paid the same as my husbands I would argue that I am also contributing to my household.

I also have said multiple times I don’t care if he goes on guy trips. I just get annoyed when he gets home and is exhausted and cannot also contribute to our home life. We don’t have the luxury to just sit home and recuperate from a long weekend. Our kids don’t care that we are tired. Our jobs don’t care that we are tired. Our dog doesn’t care we are tired. We have to suck it up and do the grind every day.

So stop being a martyr and trying to do it all. You say that you provide a substantial contribution to the family income and that your DH makes 3.5-4 times more than you so I’m assuming that you make at minimum 100k and 350-400k respectively and likely more. That’s plenty of money for you to either outsource some of the housekeeping/childcare if you truly want to continue to work outside the home or alternately for you to quit your job or scale back to something part time. (I know you said that your job provides the health care for your family but I find it hard to believe that your husband’s job doesn’t provide an alternative option even if it costs a bit more.)

This! There is no trophy for being the most exhausted, most overtaxed, “I never get a break! Look at me!” mom. And that dynamic is allll over your post. You have the means to take a lot of stuff off of your plate, including but not limited to work, the dog, probably some kid driving. So do it! You get one life to live; no point in spending it miserable.

+1. You make more than enough money. There are dog walkers, meal services, housekeepers, nannies, and more that you could be hiring. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for someone who whines that they have to walk the dog and while making a high HHI because that’s literally a task that you can outsource in a heartbeat for a reasonable price.

+1000

If your job gives you such great healthcare I'm guessing you're maybe a fed? That was the best healthcare I've ever had (and I have always been the one with the family's healthcare because my husband own his own company). So what you are, a GS-14? If so and your husband makes 3.5-4 time that salary, you have plenty of money to outsource.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love these posts. They make me feel so much better about my marriage and my life.

My wife actively encourages me to take trips and doesn’t care if I come back tired or hungover. She takes trips and sometimes arrives home in the same condition. I’ll go hunting, golf, boating, or skiing and she’ll go to some resort or city somewhere with her friends. We do the same sorts of trips together and with friends.

It sounds like you guys are just miserable and that’s the problem. Not the trips.

+1

DW sort of pokes fun of me for being banged up after a Vegas weekend or whatever, but it’s all in good humor and she is mostly nurturing. Even if there’s some “tsk tsk” element to it. She like when I go have fun.

I do the same for her — though she doesn’t really drink, so it’s just a matter of managing the kids/house… which, guess what ladies, ain’t rocket science.

Reading the OP made me want to jump out a window. I can almost hear her screaching from my couch.

Op here - obviously I know it’s not rocket science to manage our kids/house. I will add though while you and the dads who have “big jobs” get to focus all your energy on work all day I got to work AND make breakfast, lunch and dinner for 5 people, walk the dog 3 miles, do laundry, schedule dentist appointments, schedule pre and post operative appointments for one kid, take one kid to tutoring, drop off and pick up 3 kids.

So yea my second job, being a default parent, isn’t the same number of hours and isn’t paid the same as my husbands I would argue that I am also contributing to my household.

I also have said multiple times I don’t care if he goes on guy trips. I just get annoyed when he gets home and is exhausted and cannot also contribute to our home life. We don’t have the luxury to just sit home and recuperate from a long weekend. Our kids don’t care that we are tired. Our jobs don’t care that we are tired. Our dog doesn’t care we are tired. We have to suck it up and do the grind every day.

I'm sure you'll just come up with other things you have to do but
- How hard is making breakfast? What on earth are you making every morning? Why can't your kids help?
- Why are you making lunch for your kids every day? How old are they and why don't they eat at school?
- Why are you making dinner 7 nights a week? Again, why don't your kids help? Why don't you outsource some of it?
- Scheduling a dentist appointment should take five minutes. It should also be done at the end of the previous appointment so that it actually doesn't take any time at all...
- Why are you doing all the drop offs and pick ups? Are your three kids in all different places?
- Why do you not have a dog walker? Why do your kids not help with the dog?
- Why are you not hiring help for all of this?
- Why did you have three kids and what did you think it would be like? There's no way your husband woke up last week and decided to be useless. Unless you have triplets, it took you some time to pop out three kids.

Anonymous wrote:I love these posts. They make me feel so much better about my marriage and my life.

My wife actively encourages me to take trips and doesn’t care if I come back tired or hungover. She takes trips and sometimes arrives home in the same condition. I’ll go hunting, golf, boating, or skiing and she’ll go to some resort or city somewhere with her friends. We do the same sorts of trips together and with friends.

It sounds like you guys are just miserable and that’s the problem. Not the trips.

I think there's a lot of truth to this.

If my husband or I come back from a trip with friends tired or worn out, the other one picks up the slack because we're very happy and don't mind helping each other out.

It sounds like OP has a lot of resentment towards her husband on a daily basis, so no wonder a trip like this causes her to go over the edge.

To me it's not the trip that's the problem here, it's the way their life is structured. I'm sick of guys' trips (or girls' trips) getting a bad rap. They work out great in happy, healthy marriages.

Anonymous wrote:I love these posts. They make me feel so much better about my marriage and my life.

My wife actively encourages me to take trips and doesn’t care if I come back tired or hungover. She takes trips and sometimes arrives home in the same condition. I’ll go hunting, golf, boating, or skiing and she’ll go to some resort or city somewhere with her friends. We do the same sorts of trips together and with friends.

It sounds like you guys are just miserable and that’s the problem. Not the trips.

Yeah, same here. Trips are golf, skiing, and most recently, to bourbon country. She pushes me to take trips with friends.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love these posts. They make me feel so much better about my marriage and my life.

My wife actively encourages me to take trips and doesn’t care if I come back tired or hungover. She takes trips and sometimes arrives home in the same condition. I’ll go hunting, golf, boating, or skiing and she’ll go to some resort or city somewhere with her friends. We do the same sorts of trips together and with friends.

It sounds like you guys are just miserable and that’s the problem. Not the trips.

+1

DW sort of pokes fun of me for being banged up after a Vegas weekend or whatever, but it’s all in good humor and she is mostly nurturing. Even if there’s some “tsk tsk” element to it. She like when I go have fun.

I do the same for her — though she doesn’t really drink, so it’s just a matter of managing the kids/house… which, guess what ladies, ain’t rocket science.

Reading the OP made me want to jump out a window. I can almost hear her screaching from my couch.

Op here - obviously I know it’s not rocket science to manage our kids/house. I will add though while you and the dads who have “big jobs” get to focus all your energy on work all day I got to work AND make breakfast, lunch and dinner for 5 people, walk the dog 3 miles, do laundry, schedule dentist appointments, schedule pre and post operative appointments for one kid, take one kid to tutoring, drop off and pick up 3 kids.

So yea my second job, being a default parent, isn’t the same number of hours and isn’t paid the same as my husbands I would argue that I am also contributing to my household.

I also have said multiple times I don’t care if he goes on guy trips. I just get annoyed when he gets home and is exhausted and cannot also contribute to our home life. We don’t have the luxury to just sit home and recuperate from a long weekend. Our kids don’t care that we are tired. Our jobs don’t care that we are tired. Our dog doesn’t care we are tired. We have to suck it up and do the grind every day.

So stop being a martyr and trying to do it all. You say that you provide a substantial contribution to the family income and that your DH makes 3.5-4 times more than you so I’m assuming that you make at minimum 100k and 350-400k respectively and likely more. That’s plenty of money for you to either outsource some of the housekeeping/childcare if you truly want to continue to work outside the home or alternately for you to quit your job or scale back to something part time. (I know you said that your job provides the health care for your family but I find it hard to believe that your husband’s job doesn’t provide an alternative option even if it costs a bit more.)

This! There is no trophy for being the most exhausted, most overtaxed, “I never get a break! Look at me!” mom. And that dynamic is allll over your post. You have the means to take a lot of stuff off of your plate, including but not limited to work, the dog, probably some kid driving. So do it! You get one life to live; no point in spending it miserable.

+1. You make more than enough money. There are dog walkers, meal services, housekeepers, nannies, and more that you could be hiring. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for someone who whines that they have to walk the dog and while making a high HHI because that’s literally a task that you can outsource in a heartbeat for a reasonable price.

Op, why not make your trips longer? He goes away a long weekend but checks out a few extra days. You just plan a longer trip ans have the same amount of time to relax.

You take your trip but take a longer trip. If your friends can't stay longer you stay solo and rejuvenate even further.

You really can't dictate how people have fun. My husband does camping trips with his buddies where they drink non stop and do stupid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love these posts. They make me feel so much better about my marriage and my life.

My wife actively encourages me to take trips and doesn’t care if I come back tired or hungover. She takes trips and sometimes arrives home in the same condition. I’ll go hunting, golf, boating, or skiing and she’ll go to some resort or city somewhere with her friends. We do the same sorts of trips together and with friends.

It sounds like you guys are just miserable and that’s the problem. Not the trips.

+1

DW sort of pokes fun of me for being banged up after a Vegas weekend or whatever, but it’s all in good humor and she is mostly nurturing. Even if there’s some “tsk tsk” element to it. She like when I go have fun.

I do the same for her — though she doesn’t really drink, so it’s just a matter of managing the kids/house… which, guess what ladies, ain’t rocket science.

Reading the OP made me want to jump out a window. I can almost hear her screaching from my couch.

Op here - obviously I know it’s not rocket science to manage our kids/house. I will add though while you and the dads who have “big jobs” get to focus all your energy on work all day I got to work AND make breakfast, lunch and dinner for 5 people, walk the dog 3 miles, do laundry, schedule dentist appointments, schedule pre and post operative appointments for one kid, take one kid to tutoring, drop off and pick up 3 kids.

So yea my second job, being a default parent, isn’t the same number of hours and isn’t paid the same as my husbands I would argue that I am also contributing to my household.

I also have said multiple times I don’t care if he goes on guy trips. I just get annoyed when he gets home and is exhausted and cannot also contribute to our home life. We don’t have the luxury to just sit home and recuperate from a long weekend. Our kids don’t care that we are tired. Our jobs don’t care that we are tired. Our dog doesn’t care we are tired. We have to suck it up and do the grind every day.

So stop being a martyr and trying to do it all. You say that you provide a substantial contribution to the family income and that your DH makes 3.5-4 times more than you so I’m assuming that you make at minimum 100k and 350-400k respectively and likely more. That’s plenty of money for you to either outsource some of the housekeeping/childcare if you truly want to continue to work outside the home or alternately for you to quit your job or scale back to something part time. (I know you said that your job provides the health care for your family but I find it hard to believe that your husband’s job doesn’t provide an alternative option even if it costs a bit more.)

This! There is no trophy for being the most exhausted, most overtaxed, “I never get a break! Look at me!” mom. And that dynamic is allll over your post. You have the means to take a lot of stuff off of your plate, including but not limited to work, the dog, probably some kid driving. So do it! You get one life to live; no point in spending it miserable.

Anonymous wrote:I am sure after a weekend with three children you are exhausted but this really is not worth fighting over.

It’s 2x a year for 4 days ( adding in the recuperation). Let your dh have this. You have your trips.

Life is long, the dc will not be little forever, and you’ll look back on this and realize how short-lived it was.

When we are in the trenches of parenting small children all we think about is the work. It’s hard but try and keep perspective. Wishing your family well.

This is the truth. Outsource to help you out, but IMO this is the kind of annoyance you mention to girlfriends but let go.

Anonymous wrote:If your DH is making so much money OP, I would hire a sitter to help out while he is gone and when he first gets back. And I would be totally unapologetic about hiring as much help as needed so I’m not burnt out while he is gone.

This. Door dash dinners for the first few days after his anticipated return, send laundry out, hire a sitter for a few afternoons.

And hire a dog walker permanently. That’s such an easy thing to take off your plate. No reason you should be doing 100 percent of the default parenting and pet care when the both of you are making good money.

Glad I’m not married to you, op

My ex-husband would take guy trips and I was totally fine with it. He worked hard and deserved it. Unfortunately he did not like me going on girl trips. He didn't want to watch the kids by himself. I grew resentful of that among other things.

If he can afford the cost of these trips (drinks aren't cheap at that rate) he can afford to hire you some outside help. Problem solved; case closed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love these posts. They make me feel so much better about my marriage and my life.

My wife actively encourages me to take trips and doesn’t care if I come back tired or hungover. She takes trips and sometimes arrives home in the same condition. I’ll go hunting, golf, boating, or skiing and she’ll go to some resort or city somewhere with her friends. We do the same sorts of trips together and with friends.

It sounds like you guys are just miserable and that’s the problem. Not the trips.

+1

DW sort of pokes fun of me for being banged up after a Vegas weekend or whatever, but it’s all in good humor and she is mostly nurturing. Even if there’s some “tsk tsk” element to it. She like when I go have fun.

I do the same for her — though she doesn’t really drink, so it’s just a matter of managing the kids/house… which, guess what ladies, ain’t rocket science.

Reading the OP made me want to jump out a window. I can almost hear her screaching from my couch.

Op here - obviously I know it’s not rocket science to manage our kids/house. I will add though while you and the dads who have “big jobs” get to focus all your energy on work all day I got to work AND make breakfast, lunch and dinner for 5 people, walk the dog 3 miles, do laundry, schedule dentist appointments, schedule pre and post operative appointments for one kid, take one kid to tutoring, drop off and pick up 3 kids.

So yea my second job, being a default parent, isn’t the same number of hours and isn’t paid the same as my husbands I would argue that I am also contributing to my household.

I also have said multiple times I don’t care if he goes on guy trips. I just get annoyed when he gets home and is exhausted and cannot also contribute to our home life. We don’t have the luxury to just sit home and recuperate from a long weekend. Our kids don’t care that we are tired. Our jobs don’t care that we are tired. Our dog doesn’t care we are tired. We have to suck it up and do the grind every day.

So stop being a martyr and trying to do it all. You say that you provide a substantial contribution to the family income and that your DH makes 3.5-4 times more than you so I’m assuming that you make at minimum 100k and 350-400k respectively and likely more. That’s plenty of money for you to either outsource some of the housekeeping/childcare if you truly want to continue to work outside the home or alternately for you to quit your job or scale back to something part time. (I know you said that your job provides the health care for your family but I find it hard to believe that your husband’s job doesn’t provide an alternative option even if it costs a bit more.)