So I have been married 7 years. I worked in the office and then from home for most of it. My spouse and I both worked and we have a 5 year old special needs child that requires a lot of attention.

My wife and I now own a business together and work from home unless we are on a job site. It’s very beneficial to us with our kiddo needing the extra attention because we home school.

I wake up at 5am and try to work out and then get my day started. My kid is up by 6 or 7am and I take over caring for him. My wife will sleep until 9 or 10 am and by then I have done a ton of house work, gotten some of my work done, and done everything for my son. Then she will sit on the couch until almost noon on her phone. Then she is in a rush to get her work done and acts like she is the priority because she has to get her stuff done before the work day is over and I end up taking care of my son the rest of the day.

What really bothers me is that I do almost everything for our child, majority of the house/yard work, and still get my work done. I’ve said I need more from her and I try to give her the benefit of the doubt. She doesn’t take care of her health, eats poorly, and complains about being tired all the time. I ask her about her mental health weekly because I know this can be from depression. We have both struggled with it but we have things to take care of and she just doesn’t pull her weight.

How do you navigate talking about this with someone who gets mad every time it’s brought up? I’ve tried different approaches but I can’t get anything to stick. I feel like I’m giving up so much of my life to cater to hers and that’s not how this is supposed to work.

3 comments
  1. Do you have an agreed upon division of household labor or is it just kinda arbitrary?

  2. Can you rent an office that gets you two out of the house? All the WFH business has people stir crazy. Hire someone to care for you care for your son or put him in school. All of you need to get out LC the house.

  3. Get the book Fair Play and the cards and use them to have a talk about what is fair and what you both want.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like