Happier without wife

[SpunkyAmberReader]

My wife and I were both born here but our parents immigrated here. Her parents still have a large family back 'home' are travel back there frequently. Over the past few years, they've required some help travelling and my wife is the one who travels with them, as she is the one child who is a SAHM. Occasionally, our children will travel with them but usually the trips are during term time, so they tend to stay home with me.

She travelled for 3 weeks in November and has gone this Friday for a week.

I've realised that I am much happier when she's gone. I am more relaxed, happier, looking forward to the weekend etc. The house is peaceful; no one is shouting, complaining. I don't have to pretend to be interested in her friends' problems and I'm not on edge wondering if I say or do the wrong thing. One is going to moan that I left the milk out or the cereal box. It's a chill life.

Our children are both in the later stages of primary school, and are fairly self sufficient. We have a cleaner who does the house work and will help with the school run if required.

I shouldn't feel this way. Is it reasonable to feel this way.

Have you considered moving into the shed when she gets back?

But in all seriousness, sounds like the tip of the iceberg in actual parenting. It reads like you’re meeting the bare minimum standard of responsibility.

Yes, ‘nag’ is just man talk of ‘I couldn’t be bothered to listen to her the first time and now she has the audacity to keep saying it and irritate my precious man-brain’.

This is what I'm thinking.

It sounds like you don't even like her.

Sounds like a bad relationship. I miss DH when he goes to bed early. We’ve been together for fifteen years.

If you are so happy when she's gone then divorce !

Bin her then!

Divorce her then since you sound unhappy with her. You'll probably find that she's carrying all the weight of parenting and you're not even seeing it

I think you need to be careful with this. I'm quite happy when my DH is away, but that's because a change of routine is refreshing, I get a couple of weeks of evenings to just chill out and do what I want to do without having to consider anyone else, and it's like a bit of a holiday for me. It's actually got nothing to do with whether it's a good relationship or not. Is it the relationship or do you just enjoy a break, which would get old if she wasn't there permanently?

Also, you shouldn't have to be told to put away the milk.

Oh my god, yes. It drives me absolutely mental. It’s just a man’s way of curtailing your ability to say anything about their apparent laziness and inability to clear up after themselves.

I think just split up then? Life is too short

Lol, said every man, ever.

Surely the milk goes off while the kids are left to their own devices and you're enjoying your chill life.

I strongly suspect that there are two sides to this story.

I do all of this. Why are you making it seem raising children requires someone to be a full time SAHM?

I think I do my fair share. I am responsible for most of the life admin because she is away so often. I also work and she doesn't. I think I am putting in just as much as she is, if not more, and I am tired of feeling tired all the time.

When I broke up with my ex citing his refusal to ever take on board anything I was saying (which was making me very bloody miserable), he genuinely argued with me that ‘everything would be fine if you just stopped going on about things’. He wanted a relationship where it was never asked of him to do anything, especially more than once, any irritation should be kept to myself and that would mean both of us living happily ever after. Yeah, no thanks. This is the same guy who I left to take the kids to an appointment, when I came back a couple of hours later he was in the exact spot I’d left him, not even a toy put away - because I hadn’t told him to do anything before leaving…

Because you've said that the kids are fairly self sufficient. If you're doing all of that then then they're not self sufficient.

In terms of not having to tell them to brush their teeth or getting their school bags ready in the morning. That they can manage, everything else they cannot.

Have I walked into Reddit by mistake?

She sounds more of a hindrance than a help.

It doesn't @SpunkyAmberReader - both parents work FT in our household. But there can be a lot of invisible work.

I made the list because the I found the self sufficient comment jarring. If you do all these things, surely that's not a word you'd reach for?

But anyway the issue isn't really who works and who doesn't, and who covers what jobs. It's that she feels invisible and unsupported and you feel nagged and under appreciated.

Why don't you try couples therapy?

This has to be a wind up post

If you’re unhappy, that’s more than enough reason to divorce.

I would just say make sure you go into it with a mind to put the children’s needs first in terms of how you settle the way their time will be spend, financial split etc. Obviously you both should do this!

But equally I’m impressed by this household that runs itself!

You clearly don't like your wife never mind love her. What's the point of the thread?

How come she is a SAHM?
Did you both agree?