Balance

8 comments

1. Also, relationship is abt 1 year at this point

2. I don’t think your expectations are unreasonable. I’m a SAHM and take care of most of the household chores. My hubby takes care of repairs, maintenance, etc.

   She’s also pregnant, so give her space. Depending on how her pregnancy is going, she may not be able to do everything.

   But as a general rule, I don’t think you’re being unreasonable. You need some downtime too.

3. Would put it this way. Expectations are fine, but holding someone to expectations can be unproductive. Have a conversation about how to better split things in your relationship and agree on an outcome, the things you describe sound reasonable to be on her plate (with a big caveat around pregnancy necessitating some down time of her own).

4. Maybe talk to her about how you’re struggling and need help, acknowledge she’s pregnant so you don’t want to do anything that could harm the baby, but make it more of an ask than coming home and telling her “okay you’re responsible for all this now” see it as the two of you against the problem first. And THEN if she’s unreasonable or incapable in ways that are her fault (like if she gets put on bed rest and can’t do laundry and you break up that’s shitty) you can escalate

5. It’s important to talk about division of labor. It’s important for her to be her own person with the ability to leave the house and interact with others without you. It’s important to take into consideration how she is affected by pregnancy before asking her to do more at home. It’s important to discuss finances and long term planning together. It’s important to discuss expectations for child care before the kid is here. It’s important to discuss division of household labor and expectations for after the kid arrives before the kid is here. It’s important to discuss post partum recovery before that time comes. It’s important to discuss parenting before the kid arrives. It’s important to discuss balancing free time for each parent as well as time to date each other before the kid arrives.

   It sounds like you haven’t really talked about much.

   Get talking. Get a therapist to help if need be.

6. NO that’s NOT unreasonable! And odds are it’s not going to get any better. Good luck!

7. There are some caveats here – is she otherwise healthy, how is she doing with her pregnancy (the majority of women can continue to work, in or out of the home, while pregnant – but there will be better and worse periods, and the type of work might need to be modified), and of course once she has the baby, everything would need to be reassessed.

   But in the scenario of no baby (yet), and no pregnancy or healthy well-tolerated pregnancy, assuming this is an apartment/normal sized home (vs some insane mansion), and that the at-home partner isn’t otherwise “working” (eg in school most of the day) – my expectation would be that the at-home partner does most if not all the weekday housework, and that weekend chores, while split equally, would pretty be limited to cooking/dishes and special projects like painting or something.

   A “fair” split (again, with the above caveats) is that both parties work to have about the equal amount of free time. If I’m working outside the home 8+ hours a day, I would fully expect an able-bodied partner with no small kids to look after to be able to handle *all* the household chores within that time, if not less. So we *both* have enough after-work free time, and free weekends.

8. Did you discuss this before living together? To me, it CAN (very flexible can) be unreasonable to expect it now if no prior discussion occurred. Also does she want to work? Is her reason for not working because of the limited transportation? Do you live in a town that offers Public transportation? If not and she’s limited to the home it’s not really fair to say she’s home all day when really she’s stuck there all day. I live in a very small town where walking two miles only gets you a gas station and 3 miles to the nearest food stop. We only have one car so only one of us can work atm. Is your town similar? I was primary breadwinner and hubby used to stay at home and I didn’t expect anything, he did what he could and if he got tired and didn’t do anything that was fine too. Now I stay home with our toddler and he works. Some days I do laundry, some days I clean the whole house, some days I binge watch tv and only take care of childcare. I don’t think expectations should be the focus. Now if you’re tired and need more support from her, that’s something you should mention. “I’m tired on weekends and would appreciate if you could help me get some things done so I have more resting time like laundry etc..” Expecting support is reasonable, expecting specific completed tasks not so much. Also consider her age she is 21. Has she live without her parents or on her own for long? Does she actually know how to do all these things or manage her time? Consider that along with the extreme tiredness in the beginning of a pregnancy, she might be feeling as overwhelmed as you. I worked 50 hour weeks with my first pregnancy with my second I fell asleep every single workday to the point where I was okay with getting fired if it meant I could nap. There doesn’t need to be a huge medical issue to feel that way, every pregnancy is different. Consider both of your feelings and then discuss it. Asks what she needs and tell her what you need and be mindful of the importance of discussing these things before you initiate any new major life changes with her. Good luck to you both and congratulations on your pregnancy.