name change for this one
We have gone through quite a stressful time with everything general in it seems and things have been steadily getting on top of me.
For some background, we are a family of 4, me and my DP both have one child each, so the family is blended. His child is here either one day a week or every other weekend, mine is here usually 50%, however lately it’s been around 80%-90%.
We both have demanding jobs. I work from home so have it easier on that front, he works away and has to travel between 1-2 hours each day for his around work. He works extra on top of his day job (his choice) and between 3-4 days a week he isn’t home until 9-10pm, sometimes 11pm as it was last night (gone 11.30 I think!). He is always home early when his DD is here and does the pick ups etc.
My DD has been quite sick for going on 3 months now. They have had a harrowing time which has affected school, their mental health, our home routine. Holidays have had to be cancelled, I’ve had to have a lot of unpaid time off work etc.
I am really not coping. Due to the extra time doing the school run (she is back at school which is wonderful but I have to do the school runs Monday to weds and the occasional Friday pm now, which cuts in to work time this is due to the former after school plans being on hold due to her care needs) it means I’m having to make an hour and a half back work time each day. This is more on particularly bad days or if she has a medical appointment etc.
When we come home from school, due to her needing x,y,z I find myself attending to her before I start back at work, so I’m often up at 7 working before school to make this up but it means I don’t often finish until 8pm, then it’s bedtime routine. She has been particularly needy lately from no fault of her own, but it also means she struggles being left alone or on bad nights she will be upset and inconsolable and I’m in bed reading or talking to her until late at night.
By the time she’s asleep and settled, I’m too tired to make myself an evening meal, do any housework or even shower most days. I have had to shower on my lunch break in the day. It’s been like this most days for weeks I’m utterly wiped. I have not made myself dinner in the evenings for the past two weeks, I have had lunch and then nibbled. I’m struggling to shower or look after myself. There is dry washing in the washing machine that has been sat there for probably a week now. I can’t bring myself to sort it. Everything else is piling up. Because I’ve not been eating and have not been sleeping much due to anxiety over my Dd I have also been physically ill on and off since august. Just general run down, migraines, UTI etc.
I feel like I need my partner to be home more to help out with her or just the general housework and the cooking, but I don’t feel like i can make this demand when he will be sacrificing work and money. He has been struggling with a steady income lately due to the nature of his work. I know he does not expect me to be home if I don’t need to be on the nights his DD is here, although I often am, it’s not a necessity as he is the one who does the pick ups and makes her tea sorts the evening school routine etc.
would I be unreasonable to ask him not to work as much and to help out at home instead? It feels ridiculous now I’m writing this down, and I’d feel totally different if we shared a child I’d expect him to 100% be here but the matter of fact is, we don’t