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Thank you! I know there are women who have it much worse, who work full-time with five kids and support losers who lie around drinking and beat them up, there are women who live with drug addicts and abusers, but so what - is that something to aspire to somehow?? There's always someone worse off. On the other hand there are husbands who work and take care of everything while the wife goes to spas and has full-time nannies etc...the point is, there's all kinds of families out there, I'm not trying to compare 'who has it worse', I'm just trying to find a happy medium for US, in which the workload and parenting is divided in a way that is fair and both of us get some time to relax.
I'm actually very big on dividing things up, making agreements as to who does what and when, exactly. I think that works well for these types of conflicts. However whenever I suggest it to DH he balks, pretty much saying that since he works, it's only his call on how much he helps out and he doesn't want to be held down to anything since ANY time he spends with DS is out of the goodness of his heart only and if he doesn't feel like it at any point, he shouldn't have to do it. I think he's wrong, that having a family means having obligations beyond bringing a paycheck, but I don't know how to get it through to him
I hear you. My husband was like this at one point, when my daughter was 2 and I was pregnant. And I was working at the time! His job was really demanding, like 50-60 hour work weeks, and he just didn't get it until I got sick and had to be hospitalized. He had to care for the 2 year old alone for a couple of days (fortunately during a period where he was on a more 9 to 5 schedule) and it FINALLY kicked in. He showed up at the hospital complaining how hard it was to take care of her and how he couldn't get anything done and how tired he was at work before he paused and realized he was saying this to the woman who had been doing everything he was doing while pregnant. LOL But it took all of that for it to finally happen.
Part of his problem is just doesn't understand how hard you are working, so to him you are whining and selfish. And if he's talking to men (even some women) at work they may be reinforcing this idea. People who don't have to deal with a toddler don't get how demanding it is (epseically if the child involved is of the spirited variety), and how you need more than an hour to yourself a couple of times a month to refresh. For now, you just might have to make your own time as much as possible. You've gotten some great suggestions here. And look into hiring some help, even if its just for a couple of hours a week. I would try to get things so that you are done with everything about the time hubby goes to bed. And I would also schedule regular date nights. If he can see how it benefits HIM when you get some help through having a happier wife, it may change the way he's looking at things, or at least get him in a better mood to have a real convo. You need time off too, and he either has to provide it himself or pay someone else to.
I think you shouldn't have more kids though until you can come to some understanding about this. If he goes through the next 20 or so years resetning every little piece of housework or childcare he's asked to provide (or pay someone else to do), that is a real problem. And the way he talks to you is completely unacceptable. No matter what happens that has to end.
As your son has just turned three, now is the perfect time to help him become a little more self-reliant in entertaining himself. For example, sit with him while he makes towers (or whatever) with blocks, then when he becomes a little more competent, tell him to tell you when he's used up all the blocks. Then leave him to it (read a magazine or do a crossword in the same room but detached from him). You'll most likely find he'll start going longer and longer without your involvement (hence giving you little breaks through the day).
My daughter, at that age, used to love 'doing my hair'. I'd sit on the floor with my back against the couch, she'd sit on the couch and brush my hair, pretend to wash it, condition it and rinse it. It was totally delicious. Sometimes it only lasted five minutes, other times she'd be happy for half an hour and I could doze off without her even noticing!
While small children need socialising activities outside the home, they also need to learn how to entertain themselves for short periods of time. This will be especially helpful for you if you do have a second child.
Good luck!
Have to disagree here....boys are different. Boys do not sit, at least not mine. Boys play rough, and left on their own they can become quite destructive. I also take mine out of the house as much as possible. Lots of classes and activities. However, I now look for classes and activities that give me a break - not the ones I have to do with him. Babysitters are the best, though - I hire the young ones who actually want to play with the child and have more energy than I do. Then I can do what I want (in the house) for a few hours.
I have very little advice to give. The SAHMs have given you a lot of support and advice throughout this thread, and they are in a much better position to do so than I.
I wanted you to know that I have never walked in your shoes (I'm not a mom), but I think you're in a tough spot. You deserve more slack and more respect than some posters are giving you. Though I've never been a mother, I spent the summer and fall as the full time, sole caregiver of my mom. She nearly died twice, and for 28 days she couldn't do one thing for herself. I bathed her, dealt with bathroom issues, fed her, brushed her teeth, everything. I also had to care for my dad. I would leave the hospital when he came to visit and clean the house, do the laundry and the dishes, shop for him, and put out his medications. So, in some respects I totally and completely empathize with you. It's the most exhausting, draining, self-sacrificing thing to 100% pour your life into someone else, to never have the freedom or mental power to read, to listen to music, or to even shop by yourself.
I am only posting to say, Hang in there! I do think you need to have some kind of conversation with your husband. Maybe after the little one is in bed. Your husband is being, I'm sorry if it's harsh, a jerk. I don't know if he's aware or not. Calling you names, speaking to you in hostile and accusatory tones, whining, etc. is not helpful, and it sounds like the behavior of an emotionally immature person. I think you need to have a chat about why you're tired, what you do all day, and what you want from him. I don't know if it will help, but for your own sanity, you might want to give it a go.
Good luck, sweetheart. Don't waste energy on negativity. Take the good advice and chuck the rest.
I think you need to stand up to him. I think you need to demand that he put the video game away and do his part. Don't get angry and yell. Have a serious conversation with the TV and the computer off. Tell him you are worried about the direction your marriage is heading if nothing changes.
But, at the same time, I think you need to make your own life easier. Maybe you could find a mom's day out program for the rest of the school year, or a neighbor kid to babysit after school, and take him to a non-parent participation preschool next year. Figure out why you are doing chores until midnight and adjust your schedule. Take him to the grocery school during the day so you can have a 3rd night at the gym, or go to the library and read. Some Saturday, say you need to run some errands, and stay out all day. Better yet, take a trip back home or to visit a friend for a weekend. He will never fully appreciate what you do all day, but he won't even begin to unless he has to do it.
ETA and stop staying in your son's room until he goes to sleep! That time after the kids are in bed is precious. It is the only time the adults get to have an adult conversation.
EC, I'm sorry to hear your marriage is in a rough place. I hope you two can work it through. It sounds like each of you is trying to win, or beat the other person. You two are opposed. You both have to learn to be on the same team and not fight against one another. You've been given a lot of good advice. Some has been overly harsh. It's up to you what you find helpful, and to do that you have to figure out what you really want. For instance, do you want to win this argument with your husband, or do you want to solve this problem?
1. Your marriage comes first, before your child. There was a great post earlier about going to bed with your husband every night (and having sex). I think it's worth re-reading. You and your husband together need to be the center of your son's world right now. It sounds like you are in orbit around your son's needs, which seem to overwhelm you and consume your focus (I'm thinking of that thread about the play area at the mall), and your husband is somewhere floating beyond that. Your marriage must come first, meaning that you must work on the battling and resentment between you.
2. You live in an apartment, and you have one child. I was married at 22 and remember how stressed I felt about being a mother and adjusting to this whole new life. I sympathize with you there. My oldest also had several food allergies and threw up a lot while we tried to figure out what they were. I worked full-time then and missed a day of work almost every week because I had to pick her up from daycare when she vomited, although she was not sick. Now it's 17 years later and I have three children and a house three times the size of that apartment. One child in an apartment when you are not working is ... well, it's a big slice of cake, EC. You've got to take control of your schedule. Cooking, cleaning, and laundry for two adults and a small child is not that much work.
3. About the video games, I have to ask ... your husband sounds like he is hiding. The withdrawal into video games sounds very much like what my husband went through. I will dig out a couple of posts if you want to talk so you can read the story, but if your husband is like mine in that way, ask yourself something. (I mean this kindly, so please don't read this in an accusatory way.) If he is withdrawing from real life, is his home somewhere he does not want to be? Are you always mad at him?
Last edited by JustJulia; 02-25-2013 at 07:59 AM..
And look into hiring some help, even if its just for a couple of hours a week. I would try to get things so that you are done with everything about the time hubby goes to bed. And I would also schedule regular date nights. If he can see how it benefits HIM when you get some help through having a happier wife, it may change the way he's looking at things, or at least get him in a better mood to have a real convo. You need time off too, and he either has to provide it himself or pay someone else to.
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ETA and stop staying in your son's room until he goes to sleep! That time after the kids are in bed is precious. It is the only time the adults get to have an adult conversation.
--From two posts that sum it up. You need to get the marriage back on track and then, once he's happier, maybe he won't want to escape into video games so much, he'll want to be with you or helping with your son.
Both you and your husband sound unhappy. Make yourself happy by getting a babysitter for a few hours and go out and do your thing. MAYBE with you happier and more relaxed, he'll be in a better mood and will help more.
Sounds like he wants to have some romance and spend time alone with you. Go out on dates with him, just the two of you, and see if that doesn't make him happier and more willing to help.
He shouldn't be calling you names but it's a symptom of something--probably of not getting one on one time with you. Other posters have recommended this approach.
I really think that if you focus on your marriage and get a baby sitter and spend some romantic time with him, his resentment will fade away. In line with that, you and dh should be spending time together evenings after ds is in bed. You should NOT be sitting with ds while he falls asleep--why do you do that? Assuming you can get dh off the computer, this is the time you should be spending alone together.
Thank you! I know there are women who have it much worse, who work full-time with five kids and support losers who lie around drinking and beat them up, there are women who live with drug addicts and abusers, but so what - is that something to aspire to somehow?? There's always someone worse off. On the other hand there are husbands who work and take care of everything while the wife goes to spas and has full-time nannies etc...the point is, there's all kinds of families out there, I'm not trying to compare 'who has it worse', I'm just trying to find a happy medium for US, in which the workload and parenting is divided in a way that is fair and both of us get some time to relax.
I'm actually very big on dividing things up, making agreements as to who does what and when, exactly. I think that works well for these types of conflicts. However whenever I suggest it to DH he balks, pretty much saying that since he works, it's only his call on how much he helps out and he doesn't want to be held down to anything since ANY time he spends with DS is out of the goodness of his heart only and if he doesn't feel like it at any point, he shouldn't have to do it. I think he's wrong, that having a family means having obligations beyond bringing a paycheck, but I don't know how to get it through to him
Why on earth are you considering having a second child with him? I have no help with my son AT ALL. My husband is wonderful but he's gone 12 hours per day. It sounds like you had unlimited help before you moved so it must be shocking to be going through this adjustment now - with a demanding 3 year old - as opposed to going through the shock with an infant. I found a great gym with daycare and my son loves it. I've also joined a MOPs group that has childcare for the meetings. They've saved my sanity.
My advice would be to go to marriage counseling and don't even consider a second child until he is more willing to act like an adult on the weekends. Video games? Sleeping until 10am? This will be going on while you have a crazy toddler and newborn and it will be the death of your marriage. It sounds like you had a lot of help with your newborn. You have no idea what it's like to do that basically alone - AND YOU DON'T WANT TO FIND OUT.
Editing to add - I read the rest of the posts. I agree that you need to get your sex life back on track. But a key component to that for me is that my husband needs to act like someone I want to have sex with. Point out that if he stopped calling you names and stopped acting like a little boy you might actually be attracted to him.
I think your husband is unhappy at home and is hiding in his video games, and I think you are using housework as an excuse to hide from your husband. You need to get back on track as a couple. I also noticed you didn't mention (at least not that I saw) spending any fun time together as a family. Do you ever go to the zoo or museum or amusement park all together, or do you spend your weekends trying to pawn your son off on each other? It sounds like you are both fixated on the not so fun parts of parenting and missing out on the good stuff.
I don't know many parents who haven't gone through a rough patch when their children are toddlers. It's exhausting, and the primary parent gets very little adult interraction.
I won't rehash some of the good advice you have already received in this thread, but it really is important to take a step back and figure out what you want. Having a non-accusatory heart-to-heart with your husband will help. I think it's easy to forget that if the marriage is on shaky ground, that impacts every aspect of the family. Intimacy is important.
2 things that helped me greatly when my children were that age was to find a mother's helper or drop-off preschool so I had a little time to myself. The other thing that helped me was finding a mom's club or any group that works for you where you can have some interraction with other moms, including adult time. Book club, bunko, anything that can give you some time for yourself, and a bit of fun.
You aren't alone, many of us have been in the same place, and it's not something people talk about much, but it really does get easier as kids get older.
The root of your problem is actually that you and your husband are trying to get more free time as much as possible from each other, and both of you define "free time" as without your son. He has some free time and you resent that he spends this on computer games. You have some free time, not so much from your POV and definitely less when your parents were around, but it's still more than most mothers and you are still unable to explain how exactly taking care of ONE child in an apartment will result to such hardwork and stress you out so much. Aside from cooking dinner and taking care of your son in the evening, why can't you finish the other chores when your husband is at work? Unless your son has some special needs, what is making you so tired? Many women have FT jobs with more children and still have sex with their husbands. You need to work this out with your husband. Both of you have to mature and stop outdoing each other on who can sleep till noon on weekends. I only have sympathy for your son, on why you both seem to hate spending time with him so much.
Excellent point. Every likely the child already senses that the mother considers him to be a burden and he overhears the constant nagging and bickering about her needing more than an hour and a half break from him.
Very likely the father sees very busy and hard working mothers in the work place, mothers who have to get up in the wee hours of the morning, fight traffic for an hour, work 8 or more hours and fight traffic another hour, do the shopping, housework, and everything that needs to be done, and they are only happy to get time to spend with their children, so he really doesn't get why his wife feels so very put upon.
The OP might be old enough to have kids but it was obvious she wasn't ready to give up her leisure time.
Maybe couneling will help them as a couple, or maybe she is really looking for excuses to dump this husband and return home to her family who will make it all very easy again, she can have entire weekends all to herself with lots of other time. Mabye divorce is the answer, at least her family doesn't view the child as a big burden.
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