I have been with my oh for nearly 8 years. He's a great man. A grafter who always comes home and becomes a family man. He helps me with everything. We tackle the kids together and we help eachother out with whatever we need. I do all the school runs, cooking and washing and general household duties such as food shopping and sorting birthdays etc. On paper everything is fair and we Are a good team.
But lately everything is getting too much. Our kids are 5 and 2. They have both had birthdays since Christmas. I got rid of loads of stuff before Christmas. But now we've had two occasions where family and friends have treated them to loads more. Everything has little bits in it. The kids Mess everything up. We try so hard to keep order in our home. We decorate when it looks grotty. We replaced all the carpets in the last three years.we got them toy boxes. But the Lego, the mega blox, the Duplo, the playdoh, the Playmobil playsets never get put away. It's always us. These are toys from family and we can't get rid of any yet. I do put stuff upstairs but it just gets brought back down. My DD has recently started tidying her room. She chucks everything into still rage tubs but it's a start and it's great that she is sorting her floor out. But the other day I realised she's been putting clothes in them too. I try and track her clothing but she's more independent now and a monkey for getting changed if she gets water or a crumb down her.
The washing is never done. I get it washed and dried daily. It's just I'm one of those people who can't catch up. I know I will in the summer. But until then with all this wet weather it takes forever to dry.
We both seem to be snapping at eachother. We don't get help with the kids. We don't have babysitters. Our relationship (quite rightly) comes last. But it's so last now. I can't remember the last time we had sex. I can't remember the last evening we watched a film when the kids were in bed. They are both usually asleep now by 9pm. Often by 8.30. but I lay on my bed whilst my eldest goes to sleep in her bed. She likes me to stay upstairs. I end up so tired! Also my partner keeps falling asleep after putting our two year old son to bed. If he goes back downstairs he falls asleep on the sofa. I suffer from bad anemia and I'm treating it again at the moment. I can't explain how weak and exhausted I am.
My partner's sister gets loads of help with her child but mil is too busy with her to help us. I said to my partner the difference it would make if a family member took my son for the day whilst my DD was at school. Id get so much done. He's so mischievous and full on that the housework is hard to do with him around. Also I'm sick of the house stopping me from investing quality time into our family.
This last four days my oh has been off work. He's been abit grumpy. We've not been able to go to the zoo as planned due to high winds and horrible rain. We couldn't take the kids anywhere for that matter. We don't enjoy softplay. We like outdoorsy things usually. But it is February so it's tough luck really. My DD goes back to school tomorrow and I feel sad we've done nothing in half term. All we've done is met friends at the park. Gone to a garden center and a morning in town and visit my mum after town. She has been to a party though. I just wanted her birthday to be fun. But between the weather and my anemia I had no energy to plan much.
Today my partner's grumpy and has pulled the sofa out to clean behind it. All he did was rant at me about the mess. It's not like I don't try. But he's naturally messy himself. There's only so much i can do in one day.
We are going away at Easter so we have something positive coming up. But right now I've truly had enough. I feel our relationship has been ruined because we can invest in eachother. We've had one trip to the cinema in 2.5 years. Other than that we've had nothing other than a 4d baby scan and a panini at Costa when I was having my second baby.
Please tell me it will get better! I want to have time and energy to invest in our family again.