Tension between DH & AP

[Anonymous]

AP and DH never warmed up to each other. It's like the Cold War in our house - no screaming or fighting just lots of passive aggressive activities, door slams and silent family dinners. AP acts totally fine with me - chatty, warm etc. anytime DH is home she locks herself In her room. On weekends she spends all her time at another APs house - including holidays.

It's our first AP - I put a lot of the blame on DH for not making an effort and treating her more like an employee than family member. AP is also very immature and has told me she never saw her father. I try to mediate but it's going nowhere. DH has said "no more APs" and wants to pull the plug before our year is up - but our kid loves her so much.

Im overwhelmed with working long hours, then doing household stuff and full time mom - it's non stop then I have to deal with this.

Any advice?

[Anonymous]

DH needs to get on board with having an AP, or he provides another arrangement. Period.

[Anonymous]

Has it been like thus from day 1 of arrival? Maybe there was a trigger event you need to better understand before you can even figure out what the problem is. If she is that miserable with DH and kids love her sounds like she is a pretty good AP to be doing good job with less than ideal host family.

[Anonymous]

Op - it's been like this from day 1. She's not a stellar AP by any means - lots of "tv babysitter" and 1/2 done duties. I think the way DH communicates is a lot more direct than she is used to. So things just get worse. My kids think Like her - so it's hard to justify rematch.

[Anonymous]

14:42 here - we never had a cold war situation but we got our first AP when DH was working overseas a lot. He was here for her arrival and in country for a month to get settled in, driving, etc. They got along fine. He was gone about 3 weeks per month overseas for first 3 or 4 months and only heard my complaints (nothing big, just not ideal first AP - sucked with laundry, started dating and guys coming in our home to pick her up and she was 30 minutes late to get ready, etc). When he got back and had time to focus on situation he was pissed and very business like. Using business terms for return on investment and things like that; which was ironic as it was his travel and our kids in FT daycare that he did not like (about 10 hours a day they were in there) and snapped and wanted either nanny or AP for them to be home more.

He gets home and wants to go into rematch, but it is not that simple. She was an ok AP, and I felt safe with her having my children; we sat her down and corrected her major issues (like her dates coming into our home to pick her up at 9pm and me entertaining them as she finishes getting ready) and things like that. When he was around her more and got the big ticket items taken care of we had a good year with her. He is very direct with them that no woman (no matter what country) really likes, but has facts and examples for them to see his (aka "our") perspective.

We are on our third AP now and he has learned that there is not some magical formula for the perfect AP. He had to reset expectations more than he expected going in but would not compromise on anything with regards to children or safety. Some AP are disasters, no doubt - but talking to them and have communication is the first step. My DH was terrible at that first step for our first AP. But once he took it we were all better off.

The TV thing is an easy fix - lots of software apps to control or monitor you TV use; or just tell her 30 minutes a day or whatever. Just have a direct conversation (with specific examples) or things DH (and you) do not like....give her some upside on things she is doing well; but him bitching about little things (and TV or iPad are easily corrected) and not looking at anything she does right may not be a fair evaluation of AP.

[Anonymous]

That would not be tolerable in my house. Our AP needs to get along with both of us, or I would rematch. It would not be OK for me to be uncomfortable in my own house when both DH and the AP were home -- that would feel too much like I had to pick sides about which one (DH or AP) deserves to be there or which one is "right" or "wrong."

Sometimes it's just chemistry. If there are behaviors that can be fixed, address them. If it's just a case of your AP and your DH do not and probably cannot click, then you should rematch. Not only is it uncomfortable for you, but it can't be that comfortable for your kids either.

[Anonymous]

OP - if you read the rematch files of CCAP, as I do, you will see that a huge number of rematches happen because of chemistry. There is no shame in this - it just happens. The key thing, though, is to make sure that your DH is onboard with the program and willing to work with you to present a unified message (in a welcoming, host family style) going forward. My DH isn't great about the fact that we host APs, but he has learned to hide it and put on a friendly face.

[Anonymous]

Have you ever considered what it would be like to live with your boss? Especially when you know he doesn't like you?
Your husband doesn't seem to be well-suited for an AP or live-in nanny.

[Anonymous]

If our au pair like this wasn't currently au pairing in the Netherlands (and left us three years ago) I'd wonder if you were her extension family.

We had one (of seven) au pair that just could not "click" with my husband. Not helping the situation, he was out of work and therefore spending a lot of time at home not by choice. Fortunately there was no door slamming but lots of quiet. They never talked if they could avoid it - I would get texts from one of them while at work asking me something that the other one would know - and they'd be in the same building. Immensely frustrating.

Unfortunately, we weren't in a place to be signing a new agreement with the agency (necessary to rematch), and - IMPORTANTLY - in our case she took really good care of the kids, so we toughed it out. She was always in her room or at a friend's house when off duty - we would sometimes check the driveway on weekends to see if the car was there to know if she was home.

You mentioned something really important in retrospect - your au pair didn't have a relationship with her father. Neither did ours, her father died when she was young. We now know to screen for au pairs that have good relationships with their dads (I fully realize that there are good au pairs out there that don't, but for our family it's important that our au pairs be able to relate to "adult" males well).

My husband was always on board with the idea of remaining in the au pair program - probably because we had an excellent experience with AP#1 before this one (AP#3) arrived. AP#2 went into rematch by mutual decision, so we were a little skittish about rematching again immediately, which also helped in our decision to keep her.

My twin infants (at the time) are no worse for wear, but they also didn't necessarily realize what was going on.

I'm not sure that I have advice, other than to offer commiseration. The big thing we had to do with that au pair was to separate the childcare aspect of having an au pair (which was going well) from the roommate aspect of having an au pair (which wasn't.) Basically, we put up with a crappy roommate to have good in-home childcare. Can you try to separate the two in your minds as well? Or are the childcare aspects also not going well? We've gone on to have four more au pairs that my husband enjoyed/related well to, so it is possible to have a different experience with your next au pair, but he has to be on board with the idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you ever considered what it would be like to live with your boss? Especially when you know he doesn't like you?
Your husband doesn't seem to be well-suited for an AP or live-in nanny.

Agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If our au pair like this wasn't currently au pairing in the Netherlands (and left us three years ago) I'd wonder if you were her extension family.

We had one (of seven) au pair that just could not "click" with my husband. Not helping the situation, he was out of work and therefore spending a lot of time at home not by choice. Fortunately there was no door slamming but lots of quiet. They never talked if they could avoid it - I would get texts from one of them while at work asking me something that the other one would know - and they'd be in the same building. Immensely frustrating.

Unfortunately, we weren't in a place to be signing a new agreement with the agency (necessary to rematch), and - IMPORTANTLY - in our case she took really good care of the kids, so we toughed it out. She was always in her room or at a friend's house when off duty - we would sometimes check the driveway on weekends to see if the car was there to know if she was home.

You mentioned something really important in retrospect - your au pair didn't have a relationship with her father. Neither did ours, her father died when she was young. We now know to screen for au pairs that have good relationships with their dads (I fully realize that there are good au pairs out there that don't, but for our family it's important that our au pairs be able to relate to "adult" males well).

My husband was always on board with the idea of remaining in the au pair program - probably because we had an excellent experience with AP#1 before this one (AP#3) arrived. AP#2 went into rematch by mutual decision, so we were a little skittish about rematching again immediately, which also helped in our decision to keep her.

My twin infants (at the time) are no worse for wear, but they also didn't necessarily realize what was going on.

I'm not sure that I have advice, other than to offer commiseration. The big thing we had to do with that au pair was to separate the childcare aspect of having an au pair (which was going well) from the roommate aspect of having an au pair (which wasn't.) Basically, we put up with a crappy roommate to have good in-home childcare. Can you try to separate the two in your minds as well? Or are the childcare aspects also not going well? We've gone on to have four more au pairs that my husband enjoyed/related well to, so it is possible to have a different experience with your next au pair, but he has to be on board with the idea.

This PP back, realizing I left a piece out - in our case, the "bad roommate" au pair also had really bad English skills. So yet another factor in our decision not to rematch was my guilt in putting someone potentially unlikely to rematch (lukewarm family reference and bad English, though strangely a good driver even though she was from a country known to have bad drivers) into the pool, just because my husband couldn't manage to get along with her. In the end, she wound up extending with another family, one where the HM spoke her native language and in California to boot! I was very happy for her that she extended with a family that was such a great fit for her.