(sorry for the length)
Hi all, I'm a newbie/lurker but really need to gain some help or advice or something!
My dp works full time Mon - Fri about half an hour from home. He leaves around 8am and gets home around 6pm. We have an almost 2 yr old ds whom I take care of during the day. I work three weekday evenings, dropping ds off at my parents' at 4pm then head to work for 5 hrs and work 9am til 4 every Sun. I also volunteer 2 hrs in the week too, again my dad has ds.
On two of the evenings when I am working my dp picks up ds from my parents on his way home from work and does bath and bedtime, the other evening he goes straight from work to play football. And for the past couple of months (aka tennis season) he does the same on one of the evenings I have off (but to play tennis - my parents babysit) and goes to play a match every Saturday, leaving at lunchtime. After playing whichever sport there is a 'mandatory' beer/chat break which means that it is always 9/10/11pm when he gets home, well after ds's bedtime. This can mean he doesn't see ds from Tues pm until Fri pm if he is asleep when ds sets off for work. He does have ds on Sundays but normally goes to visit his family (doesn't tackle the chores like mopping the kitchen or getting dinner ready) where he will get some help from his sister and brother (both childless) and I will take over when I return from work at 4pm.
I'm just so exhausted; I do all the housework and cleaning, the cooking, the shopping, the ironing, the DIY, the planning (spending/holidays/activities/the house and garden) and paying the bills. My dp has a few duties like the bins, ironing his work shirts and (now I'm pregnant again) helping with taking washing in and out to the dryer and does the dishes when prompted but doesn't have much initiative - he just doesn't seem to see things that need doing or plays dumb (ie. doesn't know where the dusters/flash/spanners are kept, 'can't' cook pasta, never done it before etc are common excuses).
Every weekday I get up, do activities with ds, do household stuff, and either inevitably do bedtime as my son will shout and cry for me if he knows i'm at home or I'll go to work. Saturdays = a few jobs done in the morning, Sunday = work, I will do bedtime both these days too. I barely have time to keep on top of the day to day housework never mind getting a break from things or tackling a major household project whereas my dp plays sports/socialises two evenings and is gone for nearly all of Saturday. He just does not understand the amount of pressure it's putting onto our family. I'm 6 mos pregnant, have SPD and am growing very resentful of the lack of help or understanding I am getting at home, he simply doesn't 'get' how emotionally and physically demanding it is to have a boisterous toddler to occupy every minute of the day and to have no time-out to look forward to. If he books a day off work it is because he is craving a game of golf/snooker, if he talks about going out it is with friends, since our son was born I don't think he has initiated/arranged for the two of us to do anything. I don't feel like a person anymore, I feel like a mum, an employee, a cook and cleaner but not as someone who is part of a mutually rewarding relationship.
I really don't know what to say or do any more. He feels that I don't understand how stressful his job is. He says that he's given up so much of his social life and hobbies that I am being selfish to expect him to drop the ones he has left. In truth, I think the footy is a good thing (fitness-wise and socially) but the tennis is a step too far. I have no social life any more. I just really don't know what to say anymore, there have been a few weeks of him nodding and saying he'll give tennis a miss next week but as a resentful duty rather than an understanding gesture...the following week he will have forgotten everything and go about his planned sports as if I don't need any help or support that week cos I've not mentioned it. I'm also annoyed that he can go days without properly seeing ds but when I suggest my mum taking him on a Sat morning so we can get jobs done he won't hear of it because he barely sees him.
I have rambled on so much but I just need some advice on how to convey how thoroughly knackered and unsupported I am feeling to him?? I just can't seem to get it through. Am I being unreasonable, is he?
Thanks in advance...