Feeling overwhelmed with baby and job and man child husband

[jutasking]

I had my first baby in January this year and decided to go back early from Mat leave for financial reasons. My job is full on and high pressured. I keep getting to breaking point and just losing it and crying and screaming but my husband just doesn't seem to get it and makes me feel like I just whinge and I'm dramatic.

I just don't know how long I can keep doing this. The housework just gets on top of me as it's my sole responsibility and until a few weeks ago so was my baby girl. I told my husband I'm just breaking and he needs to help. Sometimes I just want to leave him and run away. I just can't see how I'm ever going to be happy in my life / situation. I had a nanny but it didn't work out so I'm on my own at the moment. My husband stays home some days and other days my mother in law comes. Some days I just kind of have to manage and work late when she's sleeping.

It's the housework though. It brings me to breaking point when I see the mountain of laundry I have to do and all the other bits that I just keep needing to do to keep things going. I'm also starting to feel guilty about not being able to give my baby girl 100 percent . She's been going through a strange couple of weeks of just crying more and I just feel so awful when she's upset.

I got upset tonight and my husband just said ' he doesn't need this right now ' and I'm always dramatic and I should just ' chill out ' about housework. I'm really just doing the bare minimum to keep the house from imploding and to have some kind of order as we can't live in a complete mess. I just don't know what to do. I just want to run away. I just feel stuck. I feel like other mums can just do all this, I just can't do it all. I also suffer from a chronic illness. Which doesn't yet affect me day to day, but could make me disabled in the future so it's hard to say how much this plays into what I can take on. I just feel rubbish.

You'd actually find life easier without him.

Get back to your mum's place. Tell him you are overwhelmed with looking after him. If he wants you to come back before Christmas he had better start pulling his own weight. Laundry, chores and some cooking before you will consider it.
He can organise a trip to the launderette can't he?

Hi OP. If you can afford paid help in the form of a nanny can you also get paid help to clean and do laundry and ironing etc? Also can you try hello fresh or gousto so you get everything you need to cook good meals delivered to the door and it be ready quickly.
He also needs to cook several nights a week also.

I agree with people who suggested a visual guide. Draw up the seven days of the week. And a list of tasks needed every day. Get baby up and washed and dressed, feed her, put her down for nap, bins out, sort recycling, prep dinner, cook dinner, tidy up after dinner, playtime, put wash on, hang wash up, bath and bedtime, night feeds, food shopping, online banking. Literally everything that needs to be done. If you are accused of being hysterical keep it factual and it will help keep you calm.

Ask to sit down and sort next weeks schedule out. And work through each day allocating the tasks out. He won't enjoy it-and i doubt you will come out 50:50 but it will force him to take more on and acknowledge your contribution. What you mustn't do is remind him, or do any of his tasks for him even if things fall apart as a result or you want to internally combust. Some people only learn the hard way. If he asks whats for dinner and he didnt do the shopping, say nothing-or beans on toast as you didnt go shopping.

Kids and full time work is hardcore and like others say you need to lower standards. And tell the mothers/inlaws and husbands to drag themselves into this century!

Sorry,
Just seen your previous post re staying with your parents during lockdown.
His response! He is a dick.
Sorry, I reserve this term to only the worst of the worst but, he is an actual dickhead.

Wtaf

You need to spend a couple of days really thinking about the dynamics of your relationship and household, including your own part in letting this get to this point. And perhaps think about some therapy for this level of anxious thinking.

@burritofan oh I definitely feel alone in it. I always use the terms my baby and I do this and I do that- because that's how it is. I also make all the decisions / do all the research for her etc etc. He doesn't take an interest and doesn't listen to me when I talk to him about things. He occasionally shows half an interest but it's barely. I have to repeat stuff constantly too. He's just always distracted thinking about his career etc and he actually says he needs the space to do that. I wish he took a bit more of an interest in her health and development. It's always me who'll say- oh she is hitting this milestone or that milestone, or she has eczema - let me read up on it etc etc. He just never does any of that and just doesn't listen when I talk to him about it. Not sure if all men are like that but it very much feels like I take care of her alone. It's improving a bit, but still not great.

@Iwillnotbesilenced do you agree that was a bad thing to say right ? I was so upset. He completely played it down and repeated it too. I felt reborn with my parents and was so happy and he was like ' it's not the answer, you're going to move in with them now ! ? ' he could have let me stay there but basically guilted me in coming back. As usual.

Get a cleaner.

OMG. We work hard here and have a very poor work-life balance, but even reading your posts is making me feel stressed and exhausted.

You need to take action pronto to avoid a nervous breakdown and you need to divide that action into the short and long term.

Short-term - 2 options:

1. Move back in with your mum. Don't even ask your DH. Just pack your bags, take baby and leave. It's not his decision, it's yours.
2. Make life as easy as you can for yourself:

• Mother's help for 5-6 hours a day to look after baby/chores. Cheaper than nanny and ok since you're around anyway to supervise and spend time with baby. You can get them to do hoovering/laundry while you enjoy baby... it's just an extra pair of hands.
• Stop cooking. Do microwave meals/batch cook/salads/picnic food. Just sort you and baby. Less washing up.
• Stop laundry for DH. Just you and baby.
• Sleep separately if you can. You'll get a better night's sleep.
• Cleaner if needed once a week to do hoovering/ bathrooms.
• Buy a box, label it "DH's crap". Put everything he leaves around the house in that box.
• Put a piece of paper on the fridge with a column for you and DH. Write every chore you do in the day on your list as you do it. Hopefully he'll get the message.
• If he's sat on his arse watching TV while you're doing chores, hide the remote so he can't find it. It's a petty point, but will make you feel better!

Long-term - consider if you want to spend the next 20 years exhausted and seething with resentment.

Go on to amazon right now and order extra laundry baskets. Different colours. Write his name on his. His stuff goes in his. You tell him that from now on, it’s his responsibility to do his own laundry. Do your own and the baby. That’s it. Put his basket in a different room so you don’t have to look at it. He is massively taking the piss and you know it. Stop cooking for him. Do yourself a quick soup or microwave meal. He cooks for himself. You’re not his maid!

I might be out of place. I had a friend in a similar situation. This was her second baby. She was juggling baby, school runs, working part time and a husband who worked hard and all hours, but not at all hands on. No family locally to help.

When she ran out of clean clothes and underwear for the family she'd put an urgent order into M&S and pick it up from work.

She'd order in home cooked ready meals from one of the fresh frozen cook shops, eye wateringly expensive.

She had home deliveries so no supermarket shopping.

She had a decent cleaner so she didn't have to worry about cleaning or bed changing or dishes.

She also had the brilliant idea of two dishwashers. One for dirty, one to use clean straight from it so no wasted time putting stuff away.

It was doable because her husband earned enough for it not to matter. I couldn't get over the ordering clean underwear rather than facing laundry, but it was a clever move. She did what she had to to get through it.

This solution depends on money so not available to everyone.

Fwiw I'd not be doing his laundry at all. It's probably the main thing that will get his attention, and he can do his own.

Time to separate the chores. He can do his own washing, for starters. He’s a disgrace letting you get to this point. You have a full-on job, a baby to look after and all the housework to do almost entirely alone?! Write up a list, stick to it and do NOT do his share of the work any more. Time for a reality check for him.

Also whats with the physical work thing OP? Someone can sit still at a desk all day doing something mentally very taxing and intense and leave their desk feeling exhausted. And if so how is that less than someone who does a physical but not mentally tiring job. Don't give him so many ways out of this.

I agree with PP, put it all down on paper.
You work x hours, I work x hours.
Cleaning, washing, cooking is x hours, baby care is x hours.
Then divide up the jobs.
In our house, 1 person cooked and cleaned up while the other washed the baby, read a storey and got the baby to bed. We took turns so not doing the same jobs each night.
We also clean together on a Saturday morning. I aim for a load of washing a day.
Good luck

@MessAllOver omg the sleep thing just reminded me of something that is so outrageous- I'm going to get more ' divorce him now ' comments...

So when baby girl wakes in the night, he gets angry and REFUSES to sleep in the spare room but expects us to go to the spare room ! Because the bed isn't comfortable. For months we've had this issue. How selfish is that. When she was a newborn he also refused to move from the bed and we had to sleep on the sofa as my mum was in the spare room. Thank goodness my sofa is massive and very comfortable. But I can't forget that. Thankfully she's not waking up all the time in the night anymore but it was disgusting behaviour ! He just refused to move and would get super pissed off and expect us to leave the room !!!

@jutasking

I had a nanny but it didn't work out. That stressed me out a lot as I had to get the house ' visitor ' ready every day. I was utterly shattered. I'm getting a new nanny in January. I used to use the tactic of just leaving everything a mess but I just can't now we have a baby. I literally go mad myself in the mess. He's just the kind of person that puts nothing away and our flat isn't massive and we've already outgrown it so it just makes it harder. He would be so heartbroken if I left him.

"He would be heartbroken if I left him" ....Yea because he lost his free maid, chef and babysitter....How heartbroken are you over his treatment of you and does he care? Hint---He doesn't

Living with a man child will grind you down.

Stop reminding things that he need to do like buy his mums birthday present and sort out his insurance.

Do not sort any presents for his family for birthdays/Christmas. You sort you family he sorts his.

Do not do any laundry for him. If he get defensive point out that already do two peoples laundry. You are only asking him to do his own. If he looks a state for work that’s his problems

Do not sort packed lunches or any work food for him.

It may be worth you getting one of the organisation apps. Then you can enter all the tasks and how frequently they need to be done and it can be shared with other members of your household. I find my husband suffers from ‘female housework blindness’ in that he wants a pat of the back for loading the dishwasher and is completely oblivious to the 8/10 tasks I have done that day. I find the organisation app spells out in black and white and helps correct the blindness.

When he’s not there go round with a black bin bag and bin all the crap he has left on the floor/side. When he can’t find his work pass/socks/football kit he will learn to stop leaving it on the floor.

Oh my this sounds like me 4 years ago! I flipped in the end, went total nuts I had just had enough and asked for a divorce! I think he thought I wa joking at first but I really wasn’t and he got quite the shock when he came home to me having the house valued one day. Life is much much much much easier just looking after children, not children + man child. I felt a weight lift when he went. My house is not immaculate but at least I just had to tidy up after me and DC. When the little ones go to bed I have peace, stay on top of things easier so I have more me time and I have a cleaner who is fab. Are you at particular high risk of covid? If not seriously consider getting your cleaner back tidy house tidy mind and all that. Send his washing out to a laundry service and then present him with the bill. I stopped doing exH washing and one day he spent quite some time looking for a clean work shirt and boxers...then he realised I was serious and hadn’t done any of his washing for quite a while and had to go to work in a dirty unironed shirt!

why are you with him - he sounds awful is this what you want for your daughter

After seeing your last comment I would LTB. See a solicitor. He’s sounds like a selfish man child who isn’t adding anything to the relationship.

At the moment you get zero time off. If you leave him he will probably get every other weekend with DD and you will get two days off a fortnight. Plus the messiest person won’t be living in your house!

If you stay (and I won't judge you, it takes a lot of headspace and energy to leave which you might not have at present), move into the spare room. Order a bed if you can fit one in, buy lovely new bed linen, put a TV/DVD player in there, put baby's cot there, have a mini fridge with snacks and nice drinks. Although DH and I don't sleep apart usually, I've turned our spare room into my own little haven and makes me feel much better to curl up with a good film in my own personal space. We've joked that when we move next, we'll need 4 beds at least...a room for each of us, a spare room and one for DS.

Sounds like you are doing an incredible amount, anyone would struggle! I'd be inclined to write a list of all the household tasks and leave it on the side for him to see. Hopefully he'll take the hint and start doing a bit more!!

I'm wondering what it is he likes to smoke in his room with his computer?
He sounds awful

It’s not you. It’s him.

Get a big laundry basket. All his clothes go in there so they're not everywhere. Dont do his laundry, just dump it all in his basket.
Pile plates up in the sink, wash one when you need it. If you want to cook dinner for yourself then cook dinner, wash your own plate and cutlery and tell him dinners ready for plating but there's no clean plates so he needs to wash one.
Hand baby over to him and walk off and leave him to it.
If he leaves stuff lying around then chuck it in his room.

So essentially just move his mess out of your way but dont actually fix it for him.