Oh started a row, I'm the twat

[Smellz714]

But I actually am because I can't argue. I have the emotional maturity of a 5 year old. He is upset that my job in hospitality leaves him looking after the 1yo and 3yo 3 evenings and 1 weekend daytime a week. I've told him to suck it up and that I do more solo parenting than him, he disagrees and says mine doesn't count because it's temporary (school hols), ridiculous obviously, I do the lot, housework, organising, mental load all that stuff. On his childcare days I prep the dinners/lunches give them activities etc. he gets time alone to do exercise/sleep/read, I don't, I either work or look after the kids. I had a perfect opportunity to express my dissatisfaction with the split of responsibilities but have in the end come off like the agitator. I lost the plot, screaming shouting profanities, wishing him dead telling him to leave. I've apologised and we've cleared the air but I am embarrassed and frustrated with myself because I could have got some help off him, instead it's business as usual but he's in an emotionally abusive relationship. Why am I like it? How do I not be like it?

Try never responding in the moment. Make it a habit to use a holding sentence like- that doesn’t feel fair to me but let me think about it.
Then go away, marshal your thoughts, and come back to it at an agreed sensible time.

It sounds as though your fight and flight gets aroused at criticism and you fight as though your life depends on it. What was your home like as a child? Did you see healthy disagreement?

You need to access counselling for your extreme reactions, because if you don’t stop this your husband and children will suffer and so will you.

There’s a website I’ve seen suggested for splitting household responsibilities. That would be worth a look for you about this specific issue.

But your reaction is the more urgent problem.

On his childcare days I prep the dinners/lunches give them activities etc.

Stop doing that for a start. No wonder he thinks parenting is a breeze.
Then start splitting the household chores and tell DH you both need equal free time. Whether that free time is used for sleeping, TV or hobbies is immaterial it's the actual time to do whatever you want without the children. How much does he have?

Thanks both. I will look into counselling again, I have done short spells in the past but didn't focus much on this issue. I was punished by being made to be by myself; sent to my room etc. I was shut down by my parents if I ever tried to bring things up so learned to bottle things up and work things out by myself. Not healthy. My parents would give eachother silent treatment. I'm really practical in my thinking too, like absolutely, to a point where I'm perceived as cold. Other half is the absolute opposite so when he just wants to vent I'm trying to fix and offer solutions, it doesn't work. @myplace you're completely correct about the criticism, can't hack it, strive for perfection constantly and really worry myself with what other people think of me. And it certainly does feel like an attack so I defend myself by lashing out and pushing away.

He gets 2-4 mornings a week to exercise and maybe one evening after work/before teatime, when football starts there'll be home matches. Then on top of that regular 10-15mins a day to vape or play instruments. It's not much but it's 100% more than what I get. He doesn't agree and says I have a couple of hours on a Sunday while the little one is napping and the eldest is pottering about and instead of doing a hobby I chose to do the housework which doesn't need doing.

If you have the capacity to realise you flew off the handle, reflect, apologise, repair etc, I wouldn’t count that as an overall emotionally abusive relationship. Not great in the moment, but overall you’ve got the capacity to claw it back into a good place.

Factor in that you’re stressed out from not getting any time to yourself, it’s no wonder!

Be kind to yourself, take responsibility to apologise but also to ask for what you need in future. Much more balance and support by the sounds of it!

Your language is interesting… “ he get” this and “ you get “ that as if you are both powerless to change it. You’ve drifted into this set up and it no longer works for you so you need to both sit down calmly and look at other options.

So that doesn’t sound fair, AND your response is not healthy or acceptable.

Are you going to do anything about either problem? You both need to be able to raise issues without war breaking out.

As an outsider, it looks to me as though you’d be better placed to deal with your own issues if you weren’t stressed from doing too much. However that’s just hearing your PoV. DH can vacuum multiple times a week, which is totally unnecessary, and leave me doing more than my share of everything else.

so stop doing all the prep-work for his time looking after the DCs and definitely stop doing housework on the Sunday.

But you need to calm down when the arguments start - maybe say "i am not getting into this now - let's come back to it in a couple of hours and talk details"

and then walk away.

ETA: things do get a bit easier in many ways when the DC are older. Although other things come into play (clubs, play dates etc etc) You need to have a strategy for now, and a plan for later, so that you both get downtime, but also that you all get family time. And the division of labour.