The title kind of spells it out. I’m a few months pregnant, just about out of the first trimester. I’m a full time student (went back to school last year) with an hour commute each way and I also have 2 jobs (pharmacy tech, server). All in all I have next to no free time. My fiancé has a fantastic job working for his friends company where he brings home significantly more than me and works maybe 10 hours or so a week? The rest of his time is spent golfing, hanging out with friends, etc.
He cooks all our meals & pays about 65% of the bills, and I do have to keep that in mind. But the house is never ever clean. And I know it’s not even his fault at all. He has a great job and I’m glad he does, and he does bring me food to work every day & is generally extremely thoughtful. But hearing about his fun, leisurely day after I work 13 hours just makes me resentful. He also often brings up feeling depressed because he doesn’t have much motivating him career wise/financially at the moment. Can anyone offer any advice about how to stop feeling this way?
TLDR: I, while pregnant, work 2 jobs + am a full time college student while my fiancé and father of my future child has fun all day. How can I stop resenting this?
36 comments
You decided to have a child will still in school and working two jobs. And you decided to have a child with a man who won’t clean.
What exactly are you expecting here?
I would talk to him about whether you two can manage bills if you drop one of your jobs.
Damn I’d resent him too. He’s clearly not very interested in helping your pregnancy go smoothly.
Have you talked about what’s going to happen as your pregnancy advances? Have you set up timelines for when you plan to leave your jobs/ take maternity?
Also, talk about hiring a cleaner.
You need to let go of the jealousy is probably the first thing. I’m not saying that to hurt you but someone needs to throw it out there.
Second is hire a cleaner honestly it will change your life and it sounds like you can afford one.
Lastly your finances are about to join. I would sit down and ask why you are studying and working two jobs and carrying a baby and paying 35% of the bills.
I don’t subscribe to one person getting a free ride because the other gets paid well pre marriage but you guys sound like you are deploying your resources inefficientky.
Throwing it out there would you be less stressed if you just looked after the home and kiddo? That’s a job in its own right. Distance learn the college stuff.
You said its his child so I’m surprised he hasn’t worried about mum and babies health with all that work you do but people can be dense sometimes.
If he’s depressed he maybe isn’t pro active so you need to be.
Explain how you feel without attacking him and ask for help for best results. Men in my experience respond really well if given a problem to solve. Less so with hints even the angry type.
Good luck OP
That sounds really tough. It’s understandable that it would be hard to feel happy for your partner when he’s living a more relaxed lifestyle while you have all the stress and responsibility coming down on you. Do something special for yourself each day, even if it’s just taking a few moments alone after work or getting up early before everyone else and doing something relaxing like yoga or reading/journaling – give yourself permission to take time out of your busy schedule put the focus back on YOU.
Is it within your budget to hire someone to clean the house?
Resenting him because you “have to” work 2 jobs and go to school while being pregnant implies you were forced to do all of this. You chose this. Be mad at yourself because frankly, it was a stupid choice.
Wtf? Why is he fine having you do all this while he lazes away at the golf course? What the hell is he so thoughtful about?? I would be pissed as hell.
What does he mean he has nothing motivating him right now? HE’S HAVING A BABY!
You don’t need to stop resenting this. This is an awful, unfair, situation – you are working 13 hour days and he is playing golf, while you are pregnant with his child. He can’t even help with domestic chores, and he is complaining about a lack of motivation? Really??
You *should* resent this. What are you planning to do when the baby is born?
He has a baby on the way and there’s not much motivating him career wise/financially at the moment? As far as getting over the resentment of working 2 jobs and going to school, it’s an absolutely natural reaction. It sounds like you guys need to do some planning … 2 jobs and full time school hardly sounds sustainable as your pregnancy progresses and the baby comes.
You’re asking the wrong question.
If you have a good family, You could dump the guy, move back to your hometown, and get some help.
I don’t think you can stop resenting him for a situation that’s so objectively unfair. I normally wouldn’t advise women to depend on men financially but you’re engaged and having his baby. If he makes such good money he should have no problem contributing more so you can quit one of your jobs. Even if he makes enough to not need to work more than 10 hours, he could be the one with a second job then?
If it’s possible where you live i would consider whether you actually want to have a child in a situation like this. Have you two actually established what you both want to do as a coordinated unit? Not sure why you’re working so much but it certainly doesn’t sound sustainable. Your jealousy is justified and logical, so there’s not much you can do to manage those feelings. You two have to get on the same page as a team to resolve the weird situation first. Equal amounts of free time and contribution to shared bills proportionate to income would go some way to fixing the inequality here.
He’s not very thoughtful if he thinks his pregnant fiance should be working as many hours in one day as he does the entire week, on top of schooling. Even if he gets paid well, 10 hours a week is nothing.
An Uber driver could bring you meals to work, lol. It’s messed up that he’s okay with this.
There’s a clear imbalance here. So until that is solved, resentment is going to build and build and build. Once you hit “contempt” relationships are over. Please OP, fix the imbalance.
If your pregnancy was an accident, that’s no less your fiancés doing than it is yours. It’s a tough situation you’ve landed into as the result of the choices you made. Any resentment towards your fiancé is misplaced. Stay in school. You’ll be glad you did.
You’re resentful because you’re in a fucked up situation. It’s the correct response to be having.
It’s like asking how can you stop sweating when you’re in the sauna. You leave the sauna.
I’m trying not to be an asshole, but the fact you think you’re the one that should change something in this situation is…baffling
KC Davis, author of How to Keep House While Drowning, says that couples shouldn’t focus on who works harder because it’s impossible to quantify.
*Instead, she says to focus your conversation on having equal time to rest.*
>But the house is never ever clean.
Have you two adressed this? Is it possible to divide up cleanliness chores? I.E. he does laundry and vaccuming, you do dishes and organization? just a thought for a simple solution, obviously wont solve the entire issue.
>But hearing about his fun, leisurely day after I work 13 hours just makes me resentful.
It should. This world is extremely unfair. What comes easily, basically given, to some is hard hard earned for others. Thats something you should talk about with him and other people in your life imo. Its good that you brought it here too.
When you earn what youve been working for, it will be worth it then. But be careful because overloading and burnouts are real and happen in situations simular to your own. Id be careful about working yourself too hard, especially if its not 100% necessary (done to feed and house children for example).
I read suggestions to consider dropping one of your jobs and I totally agree. I was also curious, do you believe there are emotional factors that “drive” your heavy workload so to speak? If there are, If I were you Id work on identifying those emotions and why they exist. They may be trying to get you to listen to them lately.
These issues that seem to drive actions such as heavy workloads for example can become increasingly troublesome in our daily lives so its best to adress them as early as possible.
>He also often brings up feeling depressed because he doesn’t have much motivating him career wise/financially at the moment.
He shouldnt be bringing this up so often. If he has a considerate bone in his body hed understand you work so hard and him so little and wouldnt “double-down” on beratting your feelings so to speak by burdening you with the idea that he suffers because of his light workload with high pay. If those are issues of his, he should adress them to other people more fit to carry this emotional load of his, and prepare to carry that emotional load in a different way when it comes to your relationship at this time.
For example, he could vent to friends, family, even the therapist he needs dor depression. It seems he could easily afford it and make time for it. And then he could come home and clean the house and listen to your issues and work them out together rationally and reasonably.
You wont be this busy forever. You both know that. He should be helping you reach your goals. He should recognize you need it and he can probably offer more because of his situation imo.
Good luck. I hope you two have some deep and rational conversations that include emotions that are formed into rational acceptable thoughts that help you both cope and thrive in your unique situations.
Try to understand what you want for YOURSELF, what is the ideal situation for you? (Not what you want from your husband) And do just it. Do not do anything from obligation, do it only if you want to. In other words everything you do, you do for yourself. And it was your decision to do it.
Why do you study fulltime/working/pregnant? Are you afraid to be left behind? Try to understand yourself, what motivates you, what are you afraid of in this situation.
What will happen if you say you cannot work at the moment and leave your job? What whould your husband do?
Having a baby is a choice, storks do not bring them. You both will have a baby and do not have anything sorted out. Go to couples therapy because clearly you can’t communicate with each other
Honestly it’s ok to admit you need help from him and that you’re unhappy. I don’t know how your financials and school things need to be coordinated or what laws you have with maternity leave so I won’t
I recommend you start by having a talk and asking for help and expressing your dissatisfaction with the current situation. But be very clear with yourself and him that even if you’re asking for help, it’s not a favour from him as you’re carrying his child. Pregnancy is an unimaginable responsibility, physical and mental load, and not to mention input to your shared family life. A happy pregnant woman is a happy baby, literally. Plus it’s a sacrifice you’re affected by the most now and long term as a working woman.
Then the second step is to have him confirm if he’s ready to help you during this crucial time. Don’t go into details just if he agrees or not to support and prioritise you and your child.
From there you can move forward and plan for and decide the course of action.
To be clear if he does not agree you need more support, you need to ask for support from your family. I don’t know how well you realise this but you are doing yourself harm right now. The situation is not realistic unless you’re a person who is fighting for survival due to economic reasons.
get him to hire a cleaner or to put more money towards bills so you can drop one of your jobs. since your pregnant, studying and working he should offer to do both.
express yourself, what you feeling. That you feeling low after long day and it doesn’t help listening to his exciting day as you are longing for it as well. Tell that including the resentment and that you wish to work it out/dont wish it to stay that way.
you working for yourself too. you have to remember that.. as you say he is helping significantly with the living so it does help you out more than if you were single.. just shift of perspective should help with it.. consider different possibilities and express gratefulness.
Talk to him, ask to drop one of the jobs or even bith if an option as the stress is getting too much for you. Is there a possibility for you both to move closer to your work/school? As for the cleaning split the house as him to keep downstairs clean and you keep upstairs clean then maybe once a week or every other week have someone come do a deeper clean.
If you don’t sort this now it’ll be 10 times worst once your baby is there. You’ll both be sleep deprived and exhausted the house will be a tip and you’ll no doubt argue, you HAVE to be on the same page and practice this before this baby arrives. You need to communicate and be honest and open, it’s okay to ask your partner for help! How long until you finish school completely? What is the plan once the baby arrives?
He doesn’t have much motivating him? How about the fact that he’s about to be a father?
If he only works 10 hours a week and doesn’t do any cleaning, I don’t see why he can’t work a few extra hours and pay for a maid or something so his pregnant fiancée who works two jobs and is a student doesn’t have to break her back cleaning the house too. Maybe he could even work 20 hours a week to take some of the financial burden off of you so you can scale back to just one job and school while pregnant.
What’s the plan for when the baby arrives? Are you going to continue working 2 jobs and going to school while caring for a newborn and he’s just going to keep doing his thing? Idk about your pharmacy tech job but I know restaurants don’t often give paid maternity leave.
you are really doing lots of work.
Ask him to pay more bills so you can quit one of your jobs.
I agree do you think you could quit a job of he’s making decent money especially and that’ll free time up for you that could help
You can’t stop resenting the fact that he is fine with you spending all of your time working yourself sick while he has tons of leisure time. It’s not possible. You SHOULD resent it.
You need to talk to him about division of labor, equal partnership, and equal amounts of leisure time.
The problem isn’t your resentment. The problem is your fiancé.
If he makes so much more than you, can he contribute more towards the household bills so you can reduce your work down to one job? You are running yourself ragged while he sits on his arse – anyone in your situation would be resentful. Does he not see how the current financial and labour breakdown is affecting you? Does he not care?
It will only get more difficult once the baby arrives. Are you ready to be in school, have two jobs, a baby, and all of the additional work that a baby entails? You two need to have a serious conversation about household labour division once the child is born.
Congratulations on everything you have going for you! Going back to school, a baby on the way, and working two jobs is stellar.
I think you need to evaluate how much your fiancé values you and the work you’re doing through growing this baby while working, etc.
IMO, you shouldn’t be working at all. If your fiancé can afford to golf and go out with his buddies and work 10 hours a week, why isn’t he putting on the gas and working 2X as hard to get you off your feet and focus on school?
Is this a partnership? You two plan on being together forever, is this the type of behavior you could sustain until retirement?
Yeesh. Tough crowd here. You need to sit down and have a tough talk with him about your feelings. And do it now. Before your resentment gets worse. It gets harder the more you put it off. Not easier.
How that chat goes will help you decide what to do next.
You need to drop at least one of those jobs and he needs to step up and at least clean the house, so you don’t have to take care of most of the chores on top of everything. Ideally, he’d find an arrangement where he can earn more money or work a second part-time job on the side to use his time more effectively and take pressure off of you to earn money with a second job while studying and being pregnant! This is not only about stopping to resent him, this is a practical problem that needs solution.
The fact that he feels comfortable working 10 hour work weeks while you hold down two jobs, go to school and are pregnant just sounds so morally wrong.
I think he does this because he can. Because you haven’t put your foot down about it. That’s nice he brings you food at work. But he also doesn’t keep the house clean. Bottom line is you should not be working so much, especially now that you are carrying his child.
I would sit down with him and tell him how you feel. That you don’t feel there is an equal amount of labor / money distribution happening in the relationship. Realistically he needs to step up more financially and work more than 10 hours a week so that you can have more down time. Since you are pregnant, you are only going to be more tired and fatigued as time goes on. Then once you have the child, what happens? He keeps working 10 hours a week while you care for the baby on top of everything else?
If it were me, heres how I would handle the conversation:
“Honey, I want you to know that I’m so thankful for you, for our relationship and all you do for me and our baby. I wanted to sit down and talk to you because honestly I’m feeling really overwhelmed with the amount of stuff on my plate right now. I don’t have the physical, emotional or mental energy to keep up with all I’m doing. I think I need to prioritize what I’m spending my time and energy on. For me, that is you, our baby and my career. I’ve been working two jobs to try to make ends meet and I can’t do it anymore. I would really appreciate it if you would get a second job since your job only requires 10 hour work weeks. I also want to set a strict budget together. Imagine how much money we could save! I’m committed to finishing school, because I know I can bring in that much more money in the future by furthering my education. Honey, you’re such an amazing provider and I know you want to do right by me and our baby. Thanks for working hard for us.”
The ball is in his court. If he has been raised right, he will see this as a chance to be a provider. If he hasn’t had this modeled by family members, he may need some gentle nudges in the right direction.
What you allow, will continue. Remember that. But you can’t blame him if you’ve allowed this arrangement so far. You simply have to show him that your feelings and energy levels have changed and you need more help.