… to want more help from her?

[Dadwithquestion]

Long time lurker, first time poster.
Father to a young child. DW has always been clear that she wanted to be a SAHM when children were small, and I am supportive because my job involves irregular hours, and I want DC to have a parent at home.
However, as time goes by I have been picking up more and more of the responsibility for our family. Work is stressful and I also find myself doing most of the cooking, an equal share of household chores, and in my view an outsized share of the mental load (meal planning, budgeting and planning for our future, car maintenance, planning weekends, etc).
I’ve always been the “organised” one and DW has always been more spontaneous, but I thought that would change when we had children and she quit her job. She finds managing DC exhausting as nursery is currently only 4 hours a day, and thinks IABU to expect anything more from her.

Have you looked after your kids every day for a week? See what it's like? Not in a negative way just in a genuine try to understand what she deals with

How many children do you have and how old are they?

Do you have family support that would assist with childcare? You're already paying the mortgage alone and doing general household running, what would a split and 50/50 child custody look like for you?

Doesn't sound like she's spending much time at home if she's visiting GPs every other day and still exhausted with child in nursery 4 hours a day too.

A cleaner is an expense that is unreasonable with only one working parent.

She’s taking the piss and I wouldn’t be putting up with it but then I’d never agree to the SAHP set up.

It isn’t fair that she gets 4 hours a day to herself and you work FT, solely provide the financial load and come home to cook everything too.

There is only one child from original post.

@TomatoSandwiches We have one DC 2.5 years old.
We’d like to have 2 DC. If we had to pay for full time nursery and wrap around care for more than 1DC we’d probably be even worse off because DW is not a high earner.
So while we are better off together and I am certainly not considering leaving over this, I don’t feel like an equal partner at the moment.

Thank you, what would make you feel more equal and are you paying into her pension?

Hmmm...when I read your first post, I went into playing devil's advocate and wondered if you have quite high standards that aren't the same as hers.

What I find quite interesting is that the idea of her going back to work seems to be off the table. Juggling two jobs between you plus childcare would be worse, goes the assumption. But I wonder if it would be? If she's a sociable type (and it sounds like she is) then being in a workplace with other adults might be what she needs for her mood and motivation to pick up. Perhaps being at home hasn't turned out to suit her that well.

Is this a conversation that you could open up? A bit of relationship counselling might be helpful - having an independent third can make it easier to say things and also to listen with a more open mind.

I hope that helps. You sound concerned about your family and overburdened. It's best to take some sort of action. My DH suffered in silence and that did not end at all well.

@dobblevit in all fairness, i have never had to do this alone for a week, only on weekends and holidays and just a day or two at a time. It is tiring but not more so than my job.

Is there something you're not telling us?

Like - is dc a terrible sleeper and she's up all night for example?

Because the way you've written it, it's all very odd..

You. Full time work. Cooking. Half cleaning. Admin.

Her. Childcare for 4 hours whilst you're at work. 4 hours off. Sits around whilst you cook.

Who is looking after the child whilst you're both at home evenings and weekends?

I don't think YABU to feel frustrated but in the same breath, it can be very tiring living with somebody who has different expectations than you, that you are expected to live up to.

it sounds like you want things to be largely the same in terms of the home life day to day, whereas your wife is finding it tiring to keep up and would prefer to prioritise lowering expectations and being more relaxed.

try and reframe your frustration as a difference in priorities, then see what you can practically do together to make it easier on yourse lves

I do think your setup feels unfair. I have a toddler and have had to take care of them alone on weekends when Dh has been away- at that age they are able to self entertain whilst the parent cooks or sorts stuff around the house, so it’s definitely manageable?
she has 4h during the day to shop/prep for dinner and do a quick tidy of the house.
if she doesn’t like the idea of taking on the domestic load even though your child is at nursery 4h everyday then she should consider returning to work and then as a household you will have the income for a cleaner and ready meals…

myself and my husband both work full time whilst our toddler is in nursery full time, I cook the meals whilst he does bath time. I would not be happy if he suggested he stops working and I still had to cook all our meals after working all day …

I don't think not having crisps for dinner is too much of an ask. We only have the energy for simple meals (eg sausage and potato tray bake with peas) but that's five mins prep and chuck it in the oven. Feels achievable.

It seems like you both agreed to this arrangement but didn't talk about both of your expectations.

I don't think she is doing anything wrong apart from relying on takeaway too often.

She is a SAHM and primarily her focus should be the caring and enrichment of the child which it sounds like she does.

She sounds lazy to be fair.Tell her to get off her backside! She is taking advantage of you.

But the DC is in nursery for four hours a day?

She should be doing more. Making dinner is not a big ask even when you have a small child to look after. If she's so exhausted she cannot manage this then maybe she needs to see her GP.

So?

Low energy ? Sounds like laziness.

@Dadwithquestion im sure you know this but you really need to try and addresss this sooner rather than later - if you burn out from juggling too many things ( work and home responsibilities cooking mental load) your job will suffer and by extension your family as you are the sole wage earner.
and yes she sounds lazy, to put it bluntly

So in those 4h she can help her partner out by sorting some things around the house….

Op is working full time and doing nearly all the chores.Hardly sounds fair .

So she's got a pretty large gap in her "caring and enriching" schedule where, maybe, she could step up a little bit.

@arethereanyleftatall I may have left out a couple of things.
Child tends to sleep 10 hours at night but stopped napping earlier this year, just takes 10 minute kip in the car on way back from nursery.
Very active running around and climbing all over stuff so GPs (70s) prefer to have DW around and won’t take care of DC on their own.
DW has always had a tendency to be a bit low energy or as her sister puts it “nonchalant”. I married her knowing that she is like this which is why I’m trying to be measured in my criticism.

He has 1 child only.Dont agree he needs to outsource cleaning just because the wife is idle .