To ask why no one tells you how shit it is having children?

[Boredandexhausted]

Why does everyone pretend it’s this amazing wonderful thing when actually it’s just relentless boredom and worry and doing things you don’t want to all the time.
I cannot think of one single thing that I like about having children. It’s not their fault and of course I do my best but I hate it. I’d like to walk out and never come back.
Youngest one is now having to isolate for two weeks because of covid in their school so that’s two weeks stuck in the house. Oldest one has SEN. Youngest one isn’t very bright and is already struggling in reception. Oldest one has ASD and is nowhere near as independent as most children their age.
It isn’t relentless, the asking for things, the problems I’m having to solve, I am so bored. All my life is is a series of stuff I don’t want to do with no let up. My youngest doesn’t sleep much and doesn’t go to bed until 10pm and is up again at 6.30. I have had enough.

Then I see fb videos and photos of people with their lovely families and children, enjoying days out, playing with their children etc and I think is it me? Is it just me who finds this so thankless and dull? It makes me anxious as well, having two other people demanding things from me and of me all the time.
I wish I’d known. I just wish I’d known.

I agree with Peppermint. UNLESS there's a chance that this man is likely to be a vicious, problematic ex.

Not sure what you do about that.

No, you still want rid, but you need to lawyer up.

You need to sort out a life for yourself. Get a full time job, expect your dh to adjust his working life to fit around family or together you can pay for childcare, plan time away. You don't ask permission, you inform him when you're going and ask him to make sure he can be available. I've been going away for my own enjoyment/holidays without dh or dc since both of mine were around 9-15 months. Men are perfectly capable of parenting, even with SEN children, as anyone else, if given the opportunity. A weekend away does so much to reset your life and your energy levels. It sounds like you really need that to clear your head and think about what the future should look like.

I'm so sorry yo feel this way. I'm a mum to an 18 month old and can safely say, I'm stopping at 1. Of course I love her very much but you're right, its dull work being a parent and a constant worry. People can offer their opinions but it is you that needs to make the change and that is a very hard but very brave thing to do. Dig deep for the energy to help yourself, in whatever way that is. Realise you are important even if others don't treat you that way. And to those 'childless and proud' folk telling you its easy to see how hard it is and what were you thinking? Fuck them. They know nothing.

@PeppermintPasty

I’m a single parent, you should try it. Seriously, I’m not being facetious. 80% of your resentment would evaporate if you were doing it on your own. There is nothing more demoralising than some twat filling up the space in your house and being an unsupportive douchebag.

It can be done. I work full time, no family nearby, but I have great friends.

This! So much of my frustration and resentment went when dh and I separated. Tbh it was a relief and he wasn’t a bad bloke actually - he just added to by burden.

No, dh has always been the same.
He doesn’t even know what year the eldest is in at school 😂

your biggest problem isn't even that your DH shirks his parental duties - it's you laughing about it. Walk out and go somewhere for a week and let him take over...

I definitely find it harder than I anticipated (although to be fair many people warned me how hard it would be), but I don't dislike being a mum and find it pretty wonderful MOST of the time. MOST. There are definitely some shitty days though.

But, I have a very supportive DH who pulls his weight. I think a lot of your despair is because of your chocolate teapot husband.

Hi OP I totally get where you are coming from.
I really think you need to tell your GP how you feel. They will get you on the right medication to help you.

Then you need to find something you have to do each week on the same night- and GO. Whatever is going on at home, just walk out the door and let your DH cope with it.
He will just have to learn.

And in the short term I really think you need a weekend in your local premier Inn. On your own. Phone off. Sleep, bath, eat what and when you want. You are at breaking point and you need to invest in yourself. If your husband can't see this then it's better he finds out by your weekend jaunt than anything more drastic.

Just bought a house and it’s awful.. right next to railway, got rising damp.. I can’t sleep. What should I do? Will it ever sell??? I feel like we’ve been so stupid to buy

Hi OP I totally get where you are coming from.
I really think you need to tell your GP how you feel. They will get you on the right medication to help you.

Then you need to find something you have to do each week on the same night- and GO. Whatever is going on at home, just walk out the door and let your DH cope with it.
He will just have to learn.

And in the short term I really think you need a weekend in your local premier Inn. On your own. Phone off. Sleep, bath, eat what and when you want. You are at breaking point and you need to invest in yourself. If your husband can't see this then it's better he finds out by your weekend jaunt than anything more drastic.

To he fair we don't all feel like that, that's why. I hope you feel better soon

Sorry! Phone is playing up

OP, you don’t seem to be listening to what just about everyone is telling you. Your DH is being a total waste of space and you do NOT have to put up with this. If you won’t act on this, it won’t change.

You say he has a pressurised/important job compared to yours. Is your income very different? If he’s earning a lot, then any of the following would be reasonable:

• you give up work so that you can sleep and do things for yourself when the children are at school. Otherwise you are effectively working an insanely long day.

• you get some extra, paid help. A regular cleaner, or someone to come and sit with your kids sometimes.

If neither of those is possible, then Your job/income is important to the family and there’s f* all excuse for him to not recognise that and do his fair share of household tasks.

This WILL NEVER change unless you do something about it. Sit down with him and tell him you are exhausted and unhappy. Give him the two options above, and explain that otherwise you need him to step up significantly and stop leaving everything to you.

Fundamentally though, you need to be prepared to leave him if he won’t change. For things to have got this bad, he’s either emotionally blind or doesn’t care enough about your feelings to want any disruption to his life. You’d be better off with him out and taking the kids for weekends - at least that way you’d get some time to yourself to try and find some enjoyment in your life.

Well he works full time to my part time and his job is more pressurised than mine so I don’t feel he can be expected to do much else

Your responses are so telling. This is dam all to do with your kids. You have set your standards and expectations for your DH so low. Why would you accept this? I'm sorry I work part time and my DH is a surgeon. He still knows what year all the kids are in, arranges his work around mine, is expected to roll up his sleeves and pitch in with beds or baths the moment he comes through the door. Do you know why? Because they are his bloody kids too! It's like you just play this role of down trodden little woman for some reason. Why if your husband tells you there is poo everywhere, do u clean it? I would divorce him, split kids 50/50 that way u get rid of him and only have them part time. It's not a doctor you need to see, it's a solicitor. Jesus, it's 2020 no woman should bow down to a man just because he works full time.

@grapewine
@flaviaritt

Interesting... that you take a lamp at the one person who says, actually, you know what perhaps being unsupported, exhausted and resentful of your lazy arse DH is a lot to do with it, and as an aside just be careful what you say around the kids, as overhearing you have ruined your mother's life is one major mindfuck to take on as a child.

Take this:

'Why does everyone pretend it’s this amazing wonderful thing when actually it’s just relentless boredom and worry and doing things you don’t want to all the time.'

That's what I'm objecting to. Pretend? Seriously? That everyone who isn't having a crap day is pretending? It's exactly that message that put me off having kids for decades. Which is a shame. Because you know what, being happy, and a parent, isn't a pretence. For many it's a reality. But it isn't a given. Why not just acknowledge that?

No where did I tell OP what to feel. I told her that she sounded exhausted, unsupported and resentful of her DH, and that in her position I would be too.

I said motherhood (per se) is NOT shit.... as it isn't. Some people love it, some not, some are somewhere in between. It's subjective. Let's change what she said to cake. If I said 'why does everyone pretend it's this amazing wonderful food, when actually it's disgusting, squishy, over sweet, sticky, tooth rotting and vile...' I'd hazard a guess loads of people would disagree. They'd have very right too. Cake is NOT shit they'd say. Others would agree. I would.

I'm not sure it is helpful to OP to all blindly run the down the parenting is shit alley. What OP needs is support and a break. What she needs is a DH who pulls his weight. Childcare, housework, earning, admin, are all tasks that can become overwhelming if there is no respite. OP has no respite.

OP

Oh and yes EVERYBODY lies on Facebook. It's all edited, curated fragments of time they choose to show the rest of the world. Their lives are not wonderful I can guarantee you.

I feel for you OP. When I was in my late twenties I felt like you do, exhausted and no joy in anything. My doctor was keen to hand me antidepressants but ‘on a hunch ‘ ordered some blood tests .I had a Thyroid deficiency and was very anaemic. Both things got resolved and then I had the energy to make things function better. Counselling helped also.
I hope you find what you need to get your self into a better place, 💐

I'm not sure it is helpful to OP to all blindly run the down the parenting is shit alley

It’s not blindly anything. I’m just acknowledging what she says and that her feelings are valid. I’m not going to tell her what she can say or think, and neither should any of us.

@rottiemum88

Well what lucky children you have, with one parent who ignores their existence and another who actively wishes they didn’t exist. Yet they’re the only ones in this scenario who are truly innocent, because they had no choice about whether to be born or not.

If you hated parenting so much then you absolutely should have done something about it before consigning a second child to the same fate. On the off chance you are depressed, get some help FGS and try to turn this around before it starts impacting on your children; presuming it hasn’t already.

Agree with a lot of this post.

Poor poor children. These are delicate ages and they will certainly be picking up on their mother's hostility towards them.

OP's posts aren't really about how much she hates parenting (which is a feeling certainly shared by some parents), there's a really disturbing undertone of almost hating the children themselves and putting an irrational blame on them for everything negative she's feeling when they're completely innocent.

No real blame AT ALL on where the responsibility actually lies i.e. her husband's lack of involvement, her own choices, her lack of maternal feelings, external factors outside everyone's control e.g. birth trauma, SEN etc. This irrational outlook indicates there's something else going on which could be depression even if the OP denies it (OP please seek help as most women with depression don't actually recognise it as depression).

OP you MUST take a break from the relentlessness of parenting. Your husband is the child's another parent, tell him to take a few days of work (or weekend/long weekend) and go for an adult pampering day or similar elsewhere. If you snap due to stress and resentment of them, your children could be in real danger.

I also recommend taking a look at the "Infertility" board on mumsnet and reading through posts on there. Not because this is intended to make you like parenting, but to help bring you some real perspective.

Oh OP, I hear you
An acquaintance did say to me 'it doesn't get easier, it's just different' which I agree with personally.
I read many books about maternal ambivalence as I was so shell shocked after my first (the birth, the sleep deprivation, ebf, hospitalization).
I think personal circumstances, routines, finances, support networks all play their part but parenting requires a degree of selflessness and sacrifice on someone's part: someone has to step up.
I'm a single mum so that buck stops with me. I also have a shit-smearing, bedwetting son who, if I posted about, you'd be accusing me of being the poo troll so I can relate to that.
Lockdown didn't change an awful lot for me but the daily grind, burden of responsibility, house falling apart around my ears and to add to that - no bloody swimming with the kids which was our escape twice a week: all that has obviously taken its toll.
You have my sympathies. I am now going to eat cake and have a coffee.

I am not a single parent but dh does nothing with the children or for them. They will walk past him to ask me something even if I’m in another room. Or if they ask him he just shouts me.

That's the crux of the problem. Pretty much everyone who feels the way you do has a partner who isn't pulling their weight with it all. If my husband was like that, I'd feel the way you do.

@anotheremma, your attitude of telling them it was a pleasure to bring them up, even if you hated it is setting the perfect scene for your children to wonder what's wrong with them if they hate the terrible constrictions of their own desires that so often come with parenthood, especially motherhood.
We need to end this shit somehow, our cultural method of parenting does way to much of a number on parents (especially mothers). It's like you become trapped in something that is taboo to speak up about, something that takes away your personhood, but hey, that's ok isn't it...not.
Small humans need a whole community to tolerate and guide and love them. It is too much for even two parents some of the time. God help single parents and those with SEN children.
How would you like to feel that your own life is over?

Oh OP I feel for you, your OH sounds like a complete Imbacile.

Have you thought about couples counselling as letting you carry all of the mental load is not on at all.

*other

*off

@Boredandexhausted

I only work part time. And it’s not an important job. Where both parents work full time then I suppose the caring for the children has to be more equal. My parents used to sometimes have the dc for me but won’t now because of covid.

FGS this is annoying me so much, why are you refusing to accept the fact that your husband is a useless heartless arsehole? God OP, tell him to fucking step up. Next time he shouts on you to clear up poo tell him to fucking do it himself

Stop allowing this shit