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Finding it hard to cope with husband...
Hi, I wrote some time ago as I was having problems with my husband understanding what hard work looking after little ones is. He changed for a while but basically if he does anything round the house he wants loads of praise. I cry most days due to being made to feel guilty for being a stay at home mum while he is out earning the money. I'm not stupid I do know that if he didn't pay the bills and make sure there is enough money what could happen but WE decided for me not to go back to work as after childcare, petrol, clothes for word etc I think I would have been earning about ??16 a week! All that for someone else to bring up our child! It was a joint decision but I feel that unless I physically go out of the house to do a job I am looked at as doing easier job. Tonight he said to me (while I was bathing our daughter) that if I told him what a wonderful husband he was he would go and clear up the kitchen before bed...I flipped!! I am so fed up with it. I'm not saying he doesn't help out a bit round the house but he tells me HE is doing everything and going out to work and wants constant praise. Am I being unreasonable when I think that if you are married and decided to have children that it should be quite normal for a little help once in a while from your husband, even if he is the breadwinner? I also get moaned at if I don't get up with him at 7am to help him get ready for work. Our daughter is not a very good sleeper and I am 23 weeks pregnany so absolutly knackered so when our daughter is still asleep at that time it is the only rest I will get in a day. That doesn't matter though, I should be up and following him round making sure he is ready for work. Am I right to be upset or is this what a marriage with a young family is all about. Thanks for listening.
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Replies
It sounds like you are coping with most of it on your own and that really isn't on! You already have a little one to chase round after all day and with another one on the way. Your husband is an adult and should be able to look after himself, you shouldn't have to be getting up at 7am to help him get ready for work.
Would it work if you wrote up a complete list of chores (every tiny thing!) and made them visible by sticking them on the fridge? That way you could tick them off during the day and he could see what needed doing when he gets in at night (and also what you have been doing all day). Not that I think you should have to do this.....!
Don't feel bad about not having a job - going out to work and earning money seems lots easier that opting to stay at home and not get paid for it!
But either way, this situation isn't doing you any good so I think you need to have a talk to him.
Good luck!!
Tracey
while i was pregnant i was working and he wasn't and i'd come home from work do the housework and make tea!! he has got alot better now, he has worked since and just lost his job, so i've gone back to work while he looks after the kids. but i still feel like he thinks it's my job and he's doing me a favour or something!!
your pregnant and tired you don't need to run round after him, good luck, sorry i don't have any answers
[Modified by: mumto2,24 on October 08, 2007 10:13 AM]
your husband needs to do some serious growing up. but you need to toughen up to - i know because mine can be a bit like that to. your right to flip. here are a few DONTS.
DONT feel guilty about staying at home - remind him it was a joint decision and if he has changed his mind to speak up or shut up.
DONT praise him for doing his fair share - its not as if hes not making half the mess, eating the food etc, and remind him you didnt force him to have a baby.
DONT get up with him in the morning. Tell him to grow up, hes going to work not still being sent off to school by his mummy, and remind him when he leaves the house he is still an independent person doing what he has always done, but when you get up you are immediately responsible for a child all day every day-you can never do what you like when you like. Finally, remind him you are carrying his second child and that its not the walk in the park he seems to think it is.
Next time he has a few days off work let him look after the little one. Take off and leave him to it for a couple of days and see how easy he thinks it all is then! Not easy for you to leave your lo I know but it might be the best lesson he could ever learn. xx
[Modified by: megmum on October 08, 2007 11:16 AM]
A man comes home to find the front door wide open. The hall is a mess of shoes, bags and unravelled loo roll. In the lounge he finds the kids in their pj's eating chocolate and watching trash. The walls have scribble on them, toys are everywhere and food is spillt all over carpet.He goes to the kitchen fearing his wife has fallen. He finds plates, bowl, cups an cutery spewing out of the sink. The washing machine has flooded and the fridge has milk and juice spilling from it.Hegoes upstairs to find similar mess everywhere. Eventually fearng his wife is dead he goes to their room/ He finds his wife in bed with a pile of glossy mags and chocs. What the hell are you playing at he say....the wife looks up smiling and replies......today I have done what you think I do everday....NOTHING!!!!!! Alas to say his hubbie saw error of his ways.
Now, I am not suggeting you leave your child alone downstairs but maybe leave OH in charge for weekend?? Let his see how hard it really is..stick an empathy belly on him and then phone him on hour every hour during night so he is knackered too.........see how he likes it.
Am sure he loves you really though!!!!
Seriously tho my oh used to be a wee bit like that- nothing wud be done unless i asked and when it was done he made you feel like you ought to kiss his feet!!
I chose to ignore it- three years i bit my tongue and never said a word about it. I dunno wot happened I think he just grew up and now I just wouldn't let him away with it.
I think you should talk to him and tell him how you feel us women have a habit sometimes of expecting men to read our minds and they can't so he probably doesn't know hes upsetting you.
i hope he starts to appreciate how much hard work it is looking after kids and being preggers, its a shame we cant give them our exhaustion. xx
He needs a SERIOUS wake up call. Do something drastic like move out to your parents with the kids one day while he's in work and don't tell where you've gone. He'll panic when he comes home to an empty house but I think he needs to know quite clearly what a chauvanistic, sexist and derogatory pig he's being.
Sorry if I'm being too harsh - I'm in a terrible hormonal mood these days. But he reminds me of my Dad who is a useless waste of space around the house, and you need to knock it on the head now as you'll never change him when he's older x xx
Its always like this when we stay at home.........IVE been at wrk all day ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh poor bloody thing NOT!!!! Like dees dees idea,seriously........... But its true its not till they get a taste v what they could lose do they truly wake up. So one way or another u need to give him a big fXXXing wake up call here girl.
hed come home from work and have some tea then about an hour later hed be out the door leaving me with baby to sort out and pots to wash. id have to ask him to do things like change babys nappy or wash bottles even to watch baby whilst i had a bath he didn't think to ask me.
it was me who got up and did all the night feeds cos he was at work but even on his day off he did get up but would storm round bedroom then come and wake me saying i carnt get him to sleep...... bet he didnt even try...... and top it off after hed handded me baby hed go back to bed...
it was going on like that for a while before i noticed as i was so busy with a new baby and when i asked him why he doesnt stay in he said he doesnt love me anymore and doesnt want to spend time with baby cos im always there..
so after nearly 6 yrs of being together (since school ) buying a house and having a baby now he decides he doesnt love me.
so we're staying together so baby can have his1st xmas with mummy and daddy in same house then we're splitting up.. not that i want to cos i still love him with all my heart...
like tonight my sisters got baby and hes out so im sat here all alone and hes not even coming home staying at a friends...... but i surpose (sorry about spelling) i best get used to it?!!
Mazza, please don't feel guilty about being a stay at home mum. Just because you don't go out to work, your husband needs to understand that being a mum is a full time job in itself. And on top of that you're pregnant again!!!
As to telling your husband he's a wonderful hubby, well, tell him only after he's told you how wonderful you really are!!! Tell him he's a grown up and can get his own arse into gear and get himself ready for work!!!
I cannot believe how some men can think that looking after lo is easy. When my lo was six weeks old, I had an exam to sit. Trying to revise with lo screaming in the background (trapped wind) was not easy. On top of that I was trying to keep on top of the housework and make sure tea was ready when OH came in from work. For those first six weeks, whenever I "suggested" to OH that I was tired etc..., I was told that "You've been at home all day, and not gone out work...how can you be tired etc..." Well, the weekend before the exam, OH offered to look after LO the whole weekend and the two days before the exam, whilst I revised, to which I took him up on the offer. So, from the Friday night, til the Wednesday morning, OH fed, changed, got up in the night, played etc... with LO. By Saturday morning he was absolutely knackered, going on about how tired he was, and how he had not had time to have breakfast, and how the house was a mess and needed tidying up, and how he didn't have time to do much as LO would probably wake up again soon. My response..."Welcome to my world!!" Needless to say, that after his "work experience" he's never suggested that I have an easy life any more!!! Let your OH look after your LO for the weekend, get yourself off to a friends or relatives, where you can rest and relax (which at 23 weeks gone, you need to do girl!!). Let him find out that how "easy" it is!!!!!
To Rachel1005, sorry to hear about your relationship.
Good luck girls, and keep your chins up.
P.S. whilst he may be staying with you till after christmas for your lo dont let him walk all over you your not his skivvy
my o/h was like that when l/o was born, didn't do anything but now when i'm at work he looks after him so has learnt and i ended up with pnd so now i rely on him to do everything with the kids (coz i just can't cope with them!) he still does no housework though!!
we are always here if you want to chat xx. (or you can email me)
so thats the easiest way...
i know its not ideal but what else can i do???
hoping he will but dont think it will happen think his minds made up now xx
he says he cares for me in the sense that he want to make sure im alright.
does anyone think im being stupid for staying with him??
guess what he said i might be staying out!!!!!!!!
so that means he will be. home alone again need a house fast dont want to stay here any more and i dont have any tears left to cry its not fair on me or baby..
at least then we know we're on our own all the time.
my sister said i can stay with here but i dont want to put her out she doesnt mind at all but i want my own place..
looks like my babys the only man i can rely on..
and if i do go to my sisters he'll have to pay mortgage his self so he'll have to find another job so he wont have time to stay out ( ha ha!!!!!!)
maybe staying with ur sis wld be good as u wld have lots of support and oh wld have to struggle with mortgage on his own!
it might also do u the world of good to spend time away from the whole situation, and im sure ur sis wont be put out hun or she wouldnt have offered
just looks like its all going his way at the mo and not much thought to u. xx
i know what he wants he gets most of the time any way.
if i go to my sisters she wont want me to come back here.