Here’s what my day looks like:
* I get up at 6am, to look after the baby until around 7:30am, during this time I eat very quickly and empty the dishwasher while looking after the baby.
* I then get some chores done etc until about 8:30am when I start work (from home).
* I then work pretty solidly until about 4:30pm when I start winding down and thinking about helping with the baby more until dinner (5:30pm), or getting some chores done.
* Through dinner I end up needing to play with the baby for most of it (the baby needs a lot of attention or she’ll cry/scream/etc) – so maybe I’ll take the baby on a walk or play on the floor or something – and I’ll eat very quickly in increments.
* At around 6:30pm I help to put the baby to bed.
* I then do chores until about 8:30pm.
* I then spend about 30 minutes with my wife watching TV and we go to bed.
(As a side-note, prior to the baby sleeping through the night, I shared a room with the baby and was responsible for the baby all through the night every night, despite having a full time job and my wife not)
Here’s what my wife’s day looks like:
* She sleeps until about 7:15am, then takes about 15 minutes getting ready until she can take over the baby at 7:30am.
* She’s a stay at home mom (what she always wanted to be), and will look after the baby (actually almost a toddler now). Part of this is her getting to go places with the baby (stores, events, etc), and spend time with friends and family. I’m not pretending this is easy, mostly it is work.
* She does a few chores while looking after the baby, until around noon when the baby naps.
* Then she will typically pursuit her crafting hobby for 2 hours.
* She will look after the baby until around dinner, and will make dinner.
* After dinner, she’ll clean up, and put the baby down, which will take us to around 7pm.
* She’ll then do her hobbies or chilling until around 8:30pm and we’ll watch TV together.
So roughly, I spend about 4 hours working per day as a result of her extra sleep needs, her hobbies, her desire to chill, or also she spends like an hour on the toilet every day (which seems excessive to me but she won’t talk to a doctor about it).
I have a very high paying job (like 2 six-figure salary jobs put together while living in a cheaper part of the US), a result of a lifetime working very hard to advance my marketable skills. Previously I had my own business which I worked about 15 years building, but I had to shut it down as I could no longer invest the time in it during our marriage. I earn a lot more from my job than I did from the business though, which maybe had just allowed me to earn a bit above median wage.
My wife got a degree which so far has been worthless – she wasn’t able to get a job using it, and we agreed she should stop working when the pandemic hit and she would get pregnant and be a stay at home mom.
My wife’s family is very much supported by her Dad. Her Dad does pretty much all the cooking, the bulk to the salary earning, and all the yardwork/gardening. My wife’s mom works part time and has a lot of time to chill, read, be with her family, etc – setting an expectation for my wife. My wife’s family is very close, so they’ll often see each other weekly, and do a lot of video calls. My wife’s sister also has a job that her degree isn’t really contributing to, and is in a situation where she is likely to depend on a husband to maintain her quality of life – another warning sign to me that her family just ended up being completely comfortable, complacent, and dependent on her Dad.
Talking about quality of life, my wife expects an upper-middle-class lifestyle, and grew up reading sci-fi so has high expectations for a kind of utopian future for us. She is unsatisfied that the 2h+ she gets to spend each day on her crafts is not enough, and also wants to spend more time with friends and with me. She has a room in our house dedicated to her crafts, while I am working very hard arranging a basement conversion so I will get a proper office long-term (lots of clearing out the basement, drawing up diagrams, talking to contractors, looking into finances); she took it for granted that this is the path we had to go down, as her giving up her craft room for a very practical need that we have was just not in the universe of possibilities to consider.
I have been suffering a medical condition that has hurt my productivity in recent years. I had to have multiple procedures recently and am now recovering from it. Regardless of the condition, I have been working harder than my wife – before, and during recovery.
I feel miserable: I’ve given up my life’s work (my business) to support us, I work incredibly hard with no time to pursuit any interests, friends, hobbies, etc. I am an immigrant, so I don’t ever really spend time with my side of the family (except my Dad died recently and I had to travel home to support my mom and siblings, before and after his death). I do see a light at the end of the tunnel, but I am resentful I have had to carry the burden in terms of personal and financial investment, and it’s been me who has had to dump my passions. I point this out sometimes, then I feel like an asshole for doing so, as my wife truly does mean well, she just has a hard time modelling the reality that you have to work so hard when you have a baby and a need to maintain a lifestyle without it being handed down by one’s parents; she takes a lot for granted. She hasn’t much experience in things going wrong in life, and through running a business dealing with a lot of people and a lot of financial and social problems I am acutely aware of how fragile our societal standing can be. I sometimes point out how incredibly privileged we are – we have a nice house, we are in a good financial position, she is able to be a stay at home mom, she doesn’t really want for anything in terms of material possessions – she just kind of thinks that’s the default.
Here are some things I’ve tried:
* I’ve tried to get my wife to consider some kind of sleep therapy, as needing over 9 hours in bed each night seems excessive (it is partly insomnia, taking too long to fall asleep and waking up a lot needing to go to the bathroom to pee). She listened to most of a podcast I found for her (and would never finish it despite me nagging a few times), but wouldn’t see a sleep therapist. I bought a lot of books and she didn’t even open them.
* I’ve tried to get her to think about why she needs to be on the toilet for an hour a day, she brushes it off.
* I’ve tried to make her think that if she wants to pursuit her self-actualization through her hobbies while also being a mom, she will need to work really hard and have less chill time – like I worked very hard my whole life to educate myelf and then to create and sustain my business.
* I’ve brought up the idea of getting a cleaner, which is financially a bit difficult right now given we also are doing a basement conversion – but long-term should be a possibility. I think my wife hasn’t jumped on getting the help as she probably feels bad about having to get it (and to be honest, I kind of do too, I hate the idea of creating a family of privilege, using up too much resources for ourselves relative to what other people get).
* I’ve talked about making sacrifices with our dinner, making simpler meals with frozen foods rather than home cooking everything, to avoid time spent cooking and cleaning up. She says she enjoys the cooking, and I know good food is part of her quality of life expectation. It just seems when we are so over-stretched, something has to give, so having oven fries and pizza more often (for example), would be just one possible compromise. My wife is not big on even contemplating life-style compromises. I spent my 20s and 30s having microwave dinners and ramen, to get to where I am now.
I also feel I kind of have to manage my wife. I am a very organized person, and she is a chaotic artistic person who just wants to follow her latest obsessions (currently she is on a deep dive about intermittent fasting – which is actually great as I’m very proud of her for looking after her health). She rarely takes initiative to do something random that our family needs, instead preferring just to do a few very particular chores regularly. I pick up most of the random stuff.
I am very proud of my wife for her artistic accomplishments. I’m not going to go into detail because she’d be identifiable, but she has achieved a lot. I love my wife and we are compatible. She doesn’t ask me to work as hard as I do – but she does voice her expectations as to what she thinks our life should be like and as a hard-worker I try to make them happen.
I do sometimes feel down thinking about how both my and my wife’s accomplishments are to some degree privilege playing out, and even though I feel sad my life is so busy, I feel worse for people who don’t have what I have. A lot of what I have is because I inherited it, or I grew up in a context where my hard work led to high-value skill generation as opposed to mucking it working at drive-thrus or whatever. I think to a large degree I am responsible for some of my negativity: I see the glass half-empty too much, devalue my achievements, and because I have a constant worry that if I don’t keep working hard things will come crashing down. But from experience I’ve seen this happens to people all time time and feel I really have to avoid it happening to us. If my wife had met an average guy, things definitely would have come crashing down for her though, her expectations would have long been not met. I was bullied as a kid for my appearance, and I think that made me extremely inner-focused and driven, but not always in a healthy way.
25 comments
You sound pretty resentful of your wife, dude. Y’all need therapy. The fact that she takes care of the baby all day and you think it’s bad that she gets to “sleep in” until 7:15 is… well, it’s something.
Also, the way you presented your daily schedules just drips with invalidation and bias.
You need to speak to a therapist.
You’re carrying a lot of resentment towards your wife, but it boils down to a broken dynamic and your own struggles advocating for yourself. A lot of this is about the expectations you’re placing on yourself. You’re also clearly just burnt out on *parenting*. You really are describing being a fully involved father — which is great. But yeah, that’s like the time a baby takes. The labour division might need to be changed up, but that is the work.
I am not saying she’s perfect, just that you need to do some work to approach these important conversations from a more balanced place, for your own sake. It sucks that the person with the bigger problem and the larger amount of work, often has to be the person who adds a bit more work to their own plate first, to start the ball rolling, but I think that is where you are at.
You got a big ball of stress, burdens, resentments and twisted dynamics to unravel. A lot of it is based in your expectations of yourself — some of which seem pretty excessive to me — and the partnership dynamic you have contributed to with your wife when you really lock yourself into a provider role instead of a partnership role. You should speak to a therapist about priorities, and how to start which conversations with your wife.
I think you should hire that cleaner. It sounds a lot better for both of you to do something that takes the load off of you without putting it on her. However, I would insist she talk to a doctor about her health. The sleep issue particularly would worry me. Needing a lot of time to get enough sleep is often a sign of a sleep disorder. Sleep apnea can also cause insomnia, so you can’t just brush it off as insomnia. Also, if it is psychological, which wouldn’t be too surprising with a new baby and the ability for anxiety to cause insomnia, there is cognitive behavioral therapy specifically designed to improve sleep quality. I don’t know a lot about it, but I have heard good things about it. The thing is, if she has sleep quality issues that aren’t being addressed, it causes extra stress on the heart. She won’t have any obvious issues likely any time soon, but it can shorten her life expectancy. In general, that’s bad, and not a great thing to do to you, but it’s a really shitty thing to do to a child – to ignore symptoms of what could be an easily treatable problem that if left untreated can shorten your lifespan. So, I really think you should discuss that with her and really insist she talk to a doctor about a sleep lab. Maybe it’s nothing serious, some people just seem genetically inclined to sleep more, and getting up to pee adds time, and some people are lighter sleepers. But if it is a problem, then it should be addressed.
When you stated you sometimes have to manage your wife and mentioned her latest obsession it sounds like adhd. Not diagnosing as I am not qualified but if she has it getting treatment will make her a lot more productive. Google the symptoms. Also as others have mentioned you do need individual therapy. The early stages of parenting are extremely difficult. It won’t always be this hard. You have to make it through the toddler stage and then they become more manageable. You also need to find time for yourself. Do something you enjoy away from the house. You’re stuck inside all day every day working. That’s not healthy.
I would recommend the book fair play and do a free time and chore audit, your burdens seem unequal and you don’t seem to have any free time compared to her.
That’s kind of just life with a kid and it sounds like you’re both tired of it and wanting more personal time. And it seems like you’re projecting your own feelings onto your wife and it’s becoming resentful. Is daycare an option? How about doing daycare a couple days a week to create time for yourselves and hiring a sitter for a weekend night so you guys can have date nights? And for responsibilities and managing the family, you might need to implement a system such as writing everything down, having calendars, setting up reminders, etc.
That sounds awful. I know taking care of a baby during the day is hard work, but working and then taking care of a baby is just as tough. There’s got to be a balance that allows you to pursue some hobby, like taking a couple nights during the week you get leave after work and go to the gym or play a sport or something along those lines. If you can get an outlet for yourself it will help you recharge, look forward to something during the week, and allow you to have a better attitude during the grind. Babies are of course a blessing but it sounds like you are getting way too burnt out and need your sanity back!
I believe a good division of labor is when both people are doing 60% of the work. According to them. Because people tend to overestimate their contributions compared to the other person.
It sounds like you are fairly close to that already, you just don’t feel like you have enough time, which is totally valid. Babies are a LOT of work.
I think some family therapy wouldn’t hurt but also, it sounds like the baby is getting older, that will make your life much easier. And you make more than $200k and you are afraid to spend $100 a week on someone to clean? You need to value your own time dude.
YTA OP. You minimize everything your wife does. Go read what you wrote and how you wrote it. Everything you do is gold and amazing. When you begin talking about your wife the baby is no longer a baby and everything she gets done is less than what you do.
You are probably suffering from narcissism and misogyny, imo. Especially considering you made this post under the assumption everyone would agree with you. But most of us feel sad for your wife and toddler.
Your time with the baby is “work”, her time with the baby is time she can hang out with family and friends. Per your own description.
The bit that jumps out at me is 730-830 in the morning. Make that your time – gym, reading, whatever. Carve it out.
Then add an evening a week where you do something for yourself outside the house and book a regular Babysitter for date night.
You’re blaming her for your refusal to look after yourself.
Instead of approaching your wife with what she needs to change- tell her your needs. Be vulnerable and let her know you can’t keep going like you are and what you feel like you can do and what you need.
It’s easy to say no to sleep therapy. It may be more difficult to say no to supporting you if you are asking for more time.
Eww bro just divorce that woman. She’s so spoiled!
It’s hard to take your complaints seriously when you describe what she does in a very petter manner insisting on the times where she rests, and when you describe your tasks in a very detailed, heavy way. We can smell from a hundred miles that you are not being objective.
best evidence of this ‘if my wife had met an average guy it would have crashed, her expectations would not have been met’. This shows resentment only because you only know what YOU accept, not others. Since you say you love her I’ll put that on you being burned out and resentful. You need to raise YOUR voice in your marriage. Stand up for yourself, instead of just being resentful.
You need therapy, because a lot of your issues aren’t related to your wife, but to you not resolving your own issues. being bullied as a kid, not being able to stand up for yourself. you can stay in denial and put the burden on your wife, but what will happen? you will break up because you’ll have enough.
Are you saying your wife is so successful you can’t even describe her artistic accomplishments because it would identify her? Has she ditched these artistic accomplishments or are you describing it as “crafting” now? I’m confused.
Here’s one thing I’m clear on: contempt destroys marriages, and your post is riddled with contempt for your wife. I think counselling where you are both open to considering a different perspective would be a good start.
Info you say you’re proud of your wife’s artistic accomplishments and that she’d be identifiable if you went into detail yet you refer to her crafting a hobby- is this separate from the artistic accomplishments you refer to?
This seems pretty even to me, I don’t understand what kind of schedule you expect. If she didn’t sleep during that time, when would you be bonding with the baby? I think you seem mostly resentful that’s she’s not working and you are.
Well, I agree with others that you show a lot of resentmemt. I also think that it’s common to be resentful when you feel powerless to change a dynamic in a relationship where you adapts more to her need than she does to yours.
There are many ways to change that but the only one you can take charge of and control yourself is your own behavior. She isn’t likely to change by herself.
You could try couple therapy or something as simple as makeing a timetable for each day that shows how much sleep, chores, work, own time each of you does. It’s also often hard to work at home together with a stay at home parent for the simple fact that sitting in an office will always appear really easy to someone chasing a toddler no matter how hard you work. Looking into some other place to work might be a solution and if you could have some colleagues that would be an added benefit.
Otherwise the best solution is probably to learn how to be a bit more assertive in a good way. You do seem to want to care for her and that’s nice but you do need to be able to balance that with caring for yourself.
you need to be in individual therapy because it sounds like you’re always in survival mode and that’s super unhealthy for your body, mind, and relationships. it sounds like you recognize that your motivations may be tied to feeling inadequate as a kid, and that is definitely something to work through with a therapist. because at the end of the day we can’t control other people, all we can control is how we react.
you two have different expectations and some kind of communication barrier, which is why you feel like you’re drowning and she’s brushing you off. she’s your wife and she loves you and if you tell her you are struggling she will probably tell you to chill out and not obsess so much about money and your position in the social hierarchy. if my partner felt this way i would want them to say something and would help them adjust to a healthier balance. why do you think she won’t do that for you?
You cannot force your wife to live her life the way you wish she would live it.
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I would recommend that you drop EVERYTHING that you want her to do that doesn’t directly impact you (“you need to work harder on your hobbies if you want to self-actualize” for example) and focus exclusively on what you need.
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Based on everything you said here, I think you should focus on your need for balanced free time. You and your wife should have equal amounts of free time if things are being distributed equitably, and it sounds like you are really getting burned out without that. Get the cleaner, cleaners are professionals and they are better at cleaning than you and it’s not a shameful thing to outsource something like that.
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I would also recommend you get your own personal therapist.
Other than getting up earlier than her in the morning, and her weird 1 hour toilet thing, your responsibilities don’t seem tremendously imbalanced. And I think that if you were having personal time instead of doing chores before and after work (during the times when either your wife is watching the baby, or the baby is asleep), that would make a huge difference in your quality of life. And you could easily not have to spend two hours a day doing chores if you just hired a cleaner.
You make good money, so just hire the cleaner already and don’t argue over chores when you can outsource them (if you can budget that in with the basement remodel). Reclaim time for yourself by paying for services. If you feel guilty over doing that, that’s totally understandable! This might sound nuts, but maybe consider therapy to help you process that? It might sound nuts because it’s yet another cost and yet another thing that takes up your time–but ultimately, you should not feel guilty for using the money that you work hard for to improve quality of life for you and your family.
Frankly, I find it melodramatic to call yourself a slave when you refuse to hire a cleaner, and when you chose to have a child. Most people can only dream of having the kind of money you have. You can absolutely use that money to outsource housework, and your refusal to do so is just martyring yourself.
You are way overthinking this situation and overanalyzing (and frankly blaming) your wife for your feelings. She is a full time SAHM which you recognize is quite difficult work, as you comment that your child requires a lot of direct attention.
This comes down to the fact that you describe that you are doing “chores” and she is not. You are making what sounds like >$200k in a low COL area. If you cannot afford a housekeeper you are doing something terribly wrong financially. It sounds like it would be a perfectly reasonable way to offload and make you both happier.
You sound like you want everyone to have to work as hard as you did/do. Many people don’t want that and your family is very fortunate that they can live a life of enjoyment and not toil away. You don’t like the idea of raising a privileged family, but you married someone who grew up with privilege and expects it. No one is giving up privileges for no reason.
You need therapy for your resentment, a housekeeper for your homes “chores”, and a good hard look at what it means to be happy and why you feel you should dictate what that looks like for your wife. There is absolutely no need for you to be feeling like a “slave” when you have all the resources and abilities to improve your situation.
Get a fucking nanny wtf. Your wife’s schedule is already horrible, trying to make it as bad as yours is sooooo misguided. You say you make a lot of money and live in a cheaper area. Get a fucking nanny, my god
You timing how long she is in the bathroom?
You need help. Councilling and a housekeeper. Maybe a babysitter every once in a while.
Kids are a lot of work. You NEVER get time off. That’s how it goes when you decide to have them.
In all honesty, this is actually very balanced. You’re both doing the same amount of work, you’re just not seeing it. You’re describing that you are both fully involved parents which is how it’s supposed to be.
You two need marriage counseling and you need also need individual therapy. You are not happy with your life, and you’re taking it out on your wife. You hold a lot of contempt and resentment for her over her doing things that bring her joy. You are also allowed to do those things, you just need to make them a priority as well. You don’t have to forget yourself when you become a parent. Everything is fine in moderation.
First thing you need to work on is your communication. You need to tell her “hey, I love our life we’ve built together, but lately I’m feeling a little down and burnt out. Going forward, im going to take an hour or two for myself a couple of times a week. I’d really appreciate your support on this. It would also be incredibly helpful if you could take over night care twice a week. What do you think about this?”
It is a biological fact that women do require more sleep at night. It has to do with our 28 day hormonal cycle, as opposed to your 24 hour one. However, you’ve described she has trouble sleeping in general. This is something she needs to see a doctor about in order to get some help with it.
You need to stop putting your wife down because you are unhappy. You swear it’s not what you’re doing, but it is what you’ve done through your entire post. Even if you’re not saying it to her face, I’m sure she and your toddler can feel it.
I’ve struggled with this personally. I work hard shifts part-time, but am mostly a stay at home mom with a chronic disease. I watch our baby so my partner can go do the things he wants, like going to the gym or going out with friends. It used to make me so mad and I built up resentment, thinking why can he go do things for himself but I can’t? Then I took a hard look in the mirror and finally talked to him about it and it was simply because *I never told him I wanted to go do those things*. It was my fault. Now he watches our baby if I tell him I want to go do something. It’s important to note that we found a balance so that neither person felt like they were being taking advantage of (we only go out by ourselves no more than 3 times a week each, and we try to always plan and communicate in advance so the other isn’t blindsided). This way it’s fair.
You need to talk to your wife and work out your own compromise.
I don’t get it. three hours of chores? That seems rather excessive to me. I know I will get flack for this, but I don’t give and f. Your wife seems a bit lazy and a bit entitled. I know people that sit on the toilet for an hour just to have time to themselves. I doubt there is anything medically wrong with her.
So you come across as trying to prove something by doing too much work and then being mad at your wife.
Honestly, taking care of one toddler is not that much work. I have four kids. One toddler is not hard. Sure it can be stressful at times, but mostly pretty easy.
And I don’t agree with all these peeps that think you need therapy. You and her need to sit down and hash out your expectations together and come to a more balanced life. Make a list together of things that need to be done throughout the day and make a fairly equal division of labor. If she doesn’t want to even discuss it, then that is a sure sign that she is suffering from lazy princess syndrome.
If she is unwilling to step up, then the best thing to do is to step down. Set boundaries for yourself. Do not be afraid of her. If she gets mad and throws a tantrum, let her. But don’t let it change your resolve. And if she ever threatens to leave because you are trying to get her to do work, then tell her that you will be on the phone with your lawyer tomorrow.