Long time lurker, but first time poster! Just need a rant really.
I'm seriously struggling to manage to keep everyone else in my life happy and keep up with what feels like unrealistic expectations of me! So wondering if it's just me who is failing or is anyone else feels like this!
As a bit of background...married to DH for last 7 years, been together 14 (met at school) 1 ds who is 1year 8 months. 2 sets of parents who live locally and grandparents (dd's great grandparents) are around as well.
Both work full time. I work in an office based role, most demanding job I have ever had but I really enjoy it and went back to work when ds was 6 months. DH works a mixture of shifts, but mostly twelve hour night shifts with the odd day shift thrown in when he wants to do overtime. He then struggles to sleep during the day. Ds is at nursery full time.
Ds has some separation anxiety and struggles if I walk out of the room without him (apart from at nursery drop off which he barely notices when I leave him) I encourage him to follow me round the house so that I can at least get things done and as such he is very good at cleaning already haha! However this upsets DH massively as he feels left out which I do totally understand. But then on the rare occasions when he does stay in the same room with him all he does is sit on his phone and doesn't interact with him in the same way I do.
Then we have the parents and parents-in-law. Especially mine. We all live in the same town, 10 minutes from both set. If we don't take Ds round to see them at least once or twice a week, the comments of 'oh we never see him' and 'he won't remember us start.' My parents still work, parents-in-law are both retired due to medical reasons. By the time we finish work and collect Ds from nursery we barely have time to get home, have dinner, spend about an hour together, before it's bedtime for Ds and the I have the housework, packing of lunches/bag etc to do. DH is normally in bed during bath & bedtime to try and get as much sleep before work! So that only leaves weekends to see grandparents, which is also the only quality time I get with Ds. DH also goes to the football most weekends, so Sunday's are the only family day we get, and we seem to get inundated with requests for family on those days.
Then there's DH. he has struggled becoming a dad I think, we've had our fair share of ups and downs and are currently going through marriage counselling things got that bad. It has helped, but he still refuses to admit that he needs to change some of the things he does, and accept that he isn't going to be the centre of attention anymore. Tonight we had an argument over something small which could have been avoided. He is extremely sleep deprived I admit so probably not thinking completely straight. I had been out with Ds with some friends for a quick catch up (all of whom have similar aged children) and at DH's request had taken Ds so he could try and get some sleep. I had come in with Ds, he ran to him, and then realised I had popped back out of the door to grab something from the car (i left my phone and purse on the roof so kind of important to go and get!) so he had a full on toddler meltdown (he was a very overtired toddler at this point!) It was totally an accident, I didn't mean to upset anyone, so he has now gone to work in a strop and made me feel like I did it on purpose. DH has also left all the plates that he used for his lunch and dinner around the house, his clothes all over the floor, and the dishwasher that I asked him to empty - full so now i have that to sort out.
SO that was more of a rant than I intended. Well done if you made it to the end!!