Disastrous morning. Something has to change. It is damaging and unhealthy, but I don't know what to do.
USUALLY: i get up first to get myself ready and do school drinks (while kettle is boiling). i wake husband with a cuppa so that he can wake up and get kids ready (I really would wish he would set his alarm, but sometimes that doesn't wake him). He has just started getting involved with the morning school routine (after 6 years of doing it on my own). He gets kids up, gives them breakfast, makes snacks for school and feed dogs (but forgets their medication). Then goes back to bed, I assume to 'wake up'. Once kids have had breakfast I take over, I oversee them getting dressed, teeth and I do their hair (2 girls), whilst finishing getting ready myself. One daughter I suspect is ADHD and really needs a lot of overseeing getting ready. Literally promt every item of clothing and making sure she isn't reading/playing instead. The other daughter sometimes needs physically dressing if tired, but usually she's very good at getting herself ready. Then when it's time to get all their stuff together, put drinks and snacks in bags, get my stuff together, lint roller the kids because we have dogs and get in the car. That busy 10 mins of Chaos is when my husband decides to have a shower. Despite me asking him not to get ready at the last possible minute and to be available to help get kids and stuff in car. and half the time we are waiting for him. I am certain he also has ADHD (which he denies/doesn't believe in) so he is 'time optimistic'. I might be autistic, or at least learnt to live like an autistic person as most of my family is autistic. So my husband and I clash. He likes to be free flowing and relaxed, and I need routine. My approach gets us ready on time and causes him stress (and me stress because I have to nag him). His approach causes me stress because we are late and disorganised. I can't win.
this morning was horrific. He was up late with pain in an injury he won't see a dr about. Not a bad injury but one that probably needs physio and strong pain killers. But still went to golf last night. Regardless, I still expect him to preform if he says he is goin to, much like I have to everyday since the kids were born as I have had no one to lean on or rely on. I still have to get up early and get everything done even when I've had 2 hours sleep due to pain, because I can't trust him tk step up.
so he was up late, i woke him 4 times. (I refused to take over waking the kids because that is a slippery slope to going back to me doing it all). he then got the kids up late. In fact i had to help get the kids up because we were so late and got one of the kids breakfast as the other was still in bed. He'd been 'unable' to get her up.... I was then running late, we were all running late, he went back to bed. He said he wasn't going into work that morning, so I said great, you can be a bit more 'hands on' then in overseeing the kids (instead of shouting 'are you getting dressed' from his bed). The ADHD Child needs someone physically checking on her every 2 mins. What he did instead was to get the ADHD child in bed with him for a cuddle and a chat (a chat I'd already had with her). That felt self indulgent, he liked the cuddle and didn't want to get out of bed. I wanted / needed him to get out of bed and help her actually get ready, not enable her to chill out when we were already behind. I tried to communicate with him what needed to be done and what I needed him to do (based on experience!) I feel that was reasonable and understandable but he doesn't like to be told what to do (demand avoidance I think. And I'm autistic so I'm direct and blunt). He has no emotional regulation and so he just starts telling me to chill out like I'm the one in the wrong for picking up his slack, and then just insults me, until we are arguing and I am insulting him back (not proud of that, but I do feel there is only so much I can take, and I cannot have him insult me and not stick up for myself. Do I teach my girls to accept that behaviour for themselves in the future?). It was horrible horrible morning. Horrible for the kids. I don't know how to be any different, and I don't know if he can be either. Feel like we are ruining our kids lives, feel like stepping into traffic and just leaving them because I hate to think I am hurting them. But doing that would also hurt them.
the history is that my husband has always been shit or minimal at helping with the morning or bedtime routine. Maybe because the ADHD makes him hate routine and always look for fun and have 'time blindness'. Which means I never get to have fun, do all the work, have all the fall out because of the lack of routine. And live a life where I can foresee failure in which he will run headlong into because we need to 'chill out'. He does bring the fun into their lives, there's just no room for fun in mine because of it. I do need to chill out more, but how can I when I find him so stressful, that I have to fight against him, that I have to do more because I cannot rely on him/pick up his slack. How can I chill out when I am plainly asking for help and he just lies in bed, thinking he knows best and doesn't listen. Needless to say we were late, and I was crying all the way into school at the nastiness, stress and helplessness of it. Feel like I am attacked for trying to do what is needed for the family, for trying to get him to do what is needed. What is the solution? I start getting up even earlier and go back to doing it all myself so I don't get the stress or the attacks. And then be bitter and resentful. And be too tired in the evenings to be a wife to him?
It has caused alot of bitterness and resentment in the past. Therefore, on and off last year he was better (but on and off isn't reliable, I can't work with that) and since September he has really good. Just today I think, has been horrific, but not unusual.
I need him to 'woman up'. To just do what is needed like a mum does. Get up even though you don't want to, because that is what your family needs. Do what is needed! I need a team mate I can rely on and share the load. K
PS It might sound harsh for me not to allow him slack because he's not sleeping due to pain. But that pain isn't stopping him in any other area of life and he is doing nothing about it. And I'm still expected to do it all if I have no sleep due to pain or kids, or if I'm ill. I'm holding him to the standards u HAVE to live by.
And also, he does often like to give excuses as to why he can't get up to help, much like a child would. And then miraculously that illness that prevented him from getting up, has gone for the rest of the day. He's just sick of mornings. But I doubt he is as sick of it as I am.
what the hell should I do?