Anonymous wrote:How many hours? From the second the kids are awake until they go to sleep. DH and I are both equally caring for them, cooking, cleaning, errands... There is no free time. I do go to dinner with my friends once a week and we have a date night once a week. This was what we wanted when we chose to have kids though. I LOVE being around my kids.

Anonymous wrote:I am pretty sure if we referred to a SAHM as unemployed all h*ll would break lose here.

Your husband is a full time parent.

70 hours a week of commuting, work, parenting and household tasks isn't much. That is 10 hours a day.

Your husband sounds depressed and you don't appreciate what he does or brings to the home. You sound so resentful that he wants a break after you get home. Again if genders were reversed and a man was complaining that not only did his wife expect a break but he also was still having to cut the lawn and take out the garbage because his SAHM wife wasn't getting it done..

Sounds like you are living a pretty typical life ina home where one parent is the breadwinner and te other is a sahp. Millions of men could write your post!

Anonymous wrote:Lots of good feedback here OP. Is DH actively looking for a job and spending time on that, or is he a SAHD for the near future!? They really aren’t the same thing. The job issue is what really needs to be addressed first and foremost IMHO. Even if he takes something lesser (just enough to pay for daycare)- maybe he would be happier??

As for the household chores- as other have said, it depends. Toddler is the toughest age as a SAHP IME. Lawn mowing is clearly out when he is home with the baby. Heavy cleaning can be challenging. Laundry, general picking up, errands - yes, those should be doable. Also depends on the temperament of you child to some degree- some are more difficult than others.

I think you need to sit down and have a talk with DH and get to the bottom of the job question. Figure out what the plan is regarding that. It doesn’t sound like either of you want him to be a SAHD so it isn’t surprising that it isn’t working out well. That should really be the focus.

Anonymous wrote:Lots of good feedback here OP. Is DH actively looking for a job and spending time on that, or is he a SAHD for the near future!? They really aren’t the same thing. The job issue is what really needs to be addressed first and foremost IMHO. Even if he takes something lesser (just enough to pay for daycare)- maybe he would be happier??

As for the household chores- as other have said, it depends. Toddler is the toughest age as a SAHP IME. Lawn mowing is clearly out when he is home with the baby. Heavy cleaning can be challenging. Laundry, general picking up, errands - yes, those should be doable. Also depends on the temperament of you child to some degree- some are more difficult than others.

I think you need to sit down and have a talk with DH and get to the bottom of the job question. Figure out what the plan is regarding that. It doesn’t sound like either of you want him to be a SAHD so it isn’t surprising that it isn’t working out well. That should really be the focus.

Anonymous wrote:I work. my wife stays at home. If she was like your DH and not getting the domestic stuff done, I would be pissed she wasn't pulling her weight. There can be tough days with a one year old but not every day.

Also, the SAHD role almost never works and this is why. Even when done well, women look at him as unemployed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um we're pretty equal. He does most of the cooking and I do most of the laundry.

But when DH was out of work, he did everything for the house/kids.

What on earth is your husband doing all day?

He takes care of our toddler. We got into huge fights over the summer because I wasn't giving him any time away from the baby. So now we have 2 hours scheduled each day where I take care of the kid while he... does what he needs to do. Like yesterday he got a hair cut. And he's working on finding a job. But he hasn't had any interviews in months.

I'm so pissed because our lawn desperately needs to be mowed, edged, and weeded. Our dry cleaning sat in his car for weeks before I finally got fed up and dropped it off myself. When I did so I noticed the low air pressure alert was still on in his car. The car that he uses to drive our kid around. So I took it in, sat for an hour or so in the waiting room of a tire place while they patched it.

Weeks ago he said he would sell his XBox. It's still sitting on our dining table. "I'll be in charge of the trash and recycling" he said. It only gets taken out if it's overflowing and I ask him to do it. Our sink has damage and needs to be replaced. I was the one to call a plumber.
Today we got a notice from the county that our dog registration/ rabies certification had expired and we were looking at a $500 fine if we didn't renew right away. Guess who had to take care of it tonight when I got home around 10pm?


I would like to delegate, but this stuff HAS to get done, and I just can't trust that it will get done if I ask him to do it.

Anonymous wrote:I am a SAHM who left a great job and career to raise my kids. I am also highly educated (and so is my high earning DH), so it made sense that my kids would be raised by a parent who is highly educated and not someone else.

The toddler years were hard because the kids are mobile and can get injured easily if left on their own. It was like having eyes on them 24/7. In such a scenario, DH and I had very low expectation of what could be done when a person is watching toddlers.

We were in a position to outsource some of the stuff - yardwork, cleaning the house. But the rest was tackled together as a team and mostly on the weekends.

I remember that I would go to the grocery store when my DH came back from work. I looked forward to getting a break from my baby for a couple hours a day.

OP, I think your resentment is coming from your DH being unemployed, rather than a division of labor. If he is at home with the baby, those are working hours. He is not putting less hours at work than you.

Anonymous wrote:I am increasingly resentful of how much I'm responsible for in my marriage. We have a one-year old.
My husband is currently unemployed, and has been for over a year.

I added everything up-- commuting, working, caring for my child at specific times so my husband can have time to job search, grocery shopping, cooking, paying all the bills, cleaning, laundry. It came out to 70 hours a week. With getting 40 hours of sleep in M-F (ha!), that leaves only 10 hours for everything else- getting showered and dressed, eating meals, etc.


What does the division of labor look like in your house? How many hours are "spoken for" during Monday-Friday? Is this what everyone does?

I'm not exercising or taking care of myself in any meaningful way. I am so, so angry all the time.

Weekends aren't restful. They're just for catching up on everything.

Anonymous wrote:I am pretty sure if we referred to a SAHM as unemployed all h*ll would break lose here.

Your husband is a full time parent.

70 hours a week of commuting, work, parenting and household tasks isn't much. That is 10 hours a day.

Your husband sounds depressed and you don't appreciate what he does or brings to the home. You sound so resentful that he wants a break after you get home. Again if genders were reversed and a man was complaining that not only did his wife expect a break but he also was still having to cut the lawn and take out the garbage because his SAHM wife wasn't getting it done..

Sounds like you are living a pretty typical life ina home where one parent is the breadwinner and te other is a sahp. Millions of men could write your post!