Husband's evening hobby making things hard

[IGB9723]

This is a long one.
Husband has a hobby that he used to, pre parenthood, attend 4/5 evenings a week. He would be out of the house from 17:30-20:30.
Once we had our child, this reduced to 2 times a week, with the occasional extra night in where he could.

I found that I was doing ALL the household chores etc and found it extremely overwhelming, trying to ensure dinner, bath and bed was sorted as well as everything else.
I am back at work 4 days a week. Currently, my daughter goes to my mums on a Tuesday for the night. On a Tuesday, we agreed my husband can do his hobby, as well as a Friday. As long as dinner was prepped for us. Daughter is at nursery Friday and an absolutely exhausted terror afterwards.
I collect my daughter on Wednesdays and as my mum is an hour away, this takes a large part of my evening as I finish work at 5.

Husband has been having issues and is now having therapy on Tuesdays. So hadn’t been doing his hobby on Tuesdays. My husband approached me and said his therapist has informed him it would appear he isn’t getting enough time to get his rush of adrenaline etc etc.

Come September, my mum can no longer have my daughter on Tuesday nights.

My husband has asked if he can continue going two nights a week come September. The issue is, it’s during dinner, bath and bedtime. And our daughter isn’t a great sleeper. Often taking an hour to get to sleep, and then waking numerous times before we go to bed ourselves.

my husband struggles with our daughter and doesn’t like to be left alone with her. I therefore find it very difficult to leave him with her as I feel guilty for both of them.

I find it very overwhelming trying to do everything and I think it’s unfair when my husband could try find a hobby for after bed time, or on a weekend!

i also have therapy on Thursdays for my anxiety issues and so don’t have those free.

am I being unfair?

Youre not being unreasonable. I can feel how exhausted and exasperated you are from everything you’ve written. You need more downtime for yourself to recharge. You know this. He doesn’t get to choose what you do in your downtime and if you want you can just crawl under the duvet with Netflix on your night off. Once you’ve recharged a bit (a) you might have the energy to choose a proper hobby you enjoy and (b) you may see your way through to making life easier for you.

your husband is a picky eater and this rules out a lot of batch cooking meals. He can sort out his own dinner on his hobby nights.

When you have some space and perspective on it you may think of ways to make life easier for yourself. Cooking seems to be unnecessarily burdensome. You may need a few more tips and tricks there in terms of easy meals that are healthy and everyone enjoys. A slow cooker might help. Or order some meals from Cook for the freezer, Sainsbury’s do a nice fresh bolognese sauce (taste the difference), frozen mash and sausages (or anything else!). You want things that are not labour intensive and create little mess or if they do require some more time that you can do it much earlier (like chopping veg for the slow cooker).

it sounds like you massively improve his life, not sure if the opposite is true.

This was my exact thought when reading the OP!

He is choosing to prioritise his needs before everyone else op. Not acceptable.

I would assume you are doing all bedtimes and cooking. Trying to negotiate this with him sounds fruitless and frustrating.

In exchange you can give him a list of things he needs to take the load off you in other ways. Lean into the military. You're the officer here. He's the squaddy who needs to get into line. With the military tendencies he should be good at laundry, bed making, cleaning and boot polishing.

If he doesn't then send him off to the marines so you can work out a better arrangement.

We each have two nights in the week for hobbies and the other does bedtime alone and it works for us. So I don't think it is the evening hobby so much (weekend TA is a bit much I think) but that you are doing all the household chores plus work plus all the bedtimes. I would aim to get chores and admin fairly shared

He's not struggling OP, he's opting out of family life and that's taking its toll on you and will take its toll on your child in due course.

No adult 'needs' an adrenaline rush. He wants it and is willing for his family to pay the price for him to have it. His therapist appears to have handed him all the excuses that he needs which suggests that either his therapist isn't very good or your husband is lying to you about what was really said.

Has he learnt any coping strategies ? Has he put them into effect ? Or is he just going to continue to use violence and anger to make himself feel good ? What happens if he gets angry and doesn't have access to martial arts or adrenaline fixes to cope ?

Any why don't you think that you and your child deserve better ?

Why is that relevant?

My child is disabled, that I have it hard doesn’t make it any easier for parents of non disabled children who are also struggling.

So you effectively are a single parent to 2 children. I think you know what you need to do.

You’re doing fine. There’s no shame in struggling with a child. Sometimes they can test us to the extreme and it can be difficult if you’re not getting any support.

Okay, I now feel less sympathy for your DH and a lot more for you. He expects you to put his needs first always. Have you ever asked him what does he actively do to help you with your own struggles? What does he give back to you? He's taking you for granted, unfortunately this happens far too often in relationships when DC come along.

You aren't meant to be in 2 different types of therapy at the same time.

I think the issue is that you aren't willing to accept that he is selfish
the only solution is to play him at his own game - exact tit for tat on free time
makes for a shitty marriage but that's what you have right now too
and you can both drop therapy - pointless waste of time and money since you're having therapy because of his behaviour and he's having therapy to justify his lack of interest in his wife and child

As a couple, you have one child who isn’t even at home with you all week. Assuming no additional needs, the two of you should be able to cope with this.

The reason you can’t is because your emotional reserves are depleted because he is either intrinsically broken (anger issues, endlessly searching for stimulation) or because he is a responsibility-dodging twat. Neither of these can be fixed, the huge amounts of therapy you’re all having shows this.

I think you should end it, OP.

Do you think your DD has additional needs? Or is she ‘just’ being hard work, as little kids are?

You're right that parenting a young child is not always easy. You're in the trenches right now. Lots of us are. There are moments when I am pulling my hair out, snapping at DH, dying for a weekend off. But the idea is that when we are on the other side of it, we will look back and laugh at how tired we were, how messy the house was, how many whispered arguments we had about laundry and lunches and whose turn it was to empty the bins. When you get past this stage and look back, will you feel better about your marriage or will you feel nothing but resentment?

Haven't RTFT so apologies if this has been covered already...

Where is YOUR downtime?

Astonishing level of entitlement on the part of DH here.

Starting a family means big changes.

He doesn’t seem to appreciate that.

Assuming you’re both working, he should be doing 50% of everything- childcare, chores, everything.

I would be frustrated by this situation.
We have a much easier bedtime set up than you and I struggle on my own because my daughter is really over tired in the evenings after nursery and its impossible to know what will set her off. And we have no baths to contend with and honestly do the easiest 'no cook' dinners possible to get some food into her asap before bed.
(My husband has a hobby 2 evenings a week but sometimes we/he manage to get her into bed before he leaves and then I just have to contend with the potential wake ups)
I do think reading your OP that I would've expected this scenario to rear its head - someone who did a hobby 5 evenings a week instead of spending any time with their partner was never going to happily reduce that for any reason, even their child.
I think your husband is prioritising his needs over the families which is always going to cause resentment when you're doing the opposite.
It sounds like you don't have many evenings together for dinner anyway so why don't you let him sort his own dinners during the week and do something super easy for you & your daughter on the nights you're doing bedtime. You can do family dinners on the weekend when things are less busy?
You need to leave him alone to do dinner/bath/bedtime when its his nights to look after your daughter. He might not like it but its the only way you'll get the same 'relief' during the week that he does.
It's obviously only going to get worse come September and I don't think he has any incentive to compromise so it's unlikely he'll give up the 2 weeknights activity without some sort of ultimatum if you feel the relationship has gotten to that point. (In his mind he has already compromised from 5 to 2 evenings)
Tbh I like doing things as a family so this 2 nights for just me, 2 nights for just him set up would feel really lonely to me, but I get it works for some people.

OP he needs to allow you the same time away. Even if you just go for a walk with the dogs three nights a week. My husband didn't enjoy trying to get a shrieking baby to bed either but he put his noise cancelling headphones on and did it. He complained a bit but he knew it was only right that we both got to do our hobbies.
Sounds like he is struggling with parenthood but I wouldn't be making too many allowances.

a few practical ideas

• Cook only for your self and DD the days he is doing his hobbies- something easy, can be thrown in the oven. No need to stress about what he is going to eat .
• really reduce the “chores” you have to do on these evenings.
• If finances allow it- hire a cleaner.

OP, i hope your contraception is absolutely bullet proof.

You do not want an accidental pregnancy with this loser.

I think you should look and see can you move back in with your mother and get away from this deeply selfish waster.

I don't believe his therapist has told him to opt out.
So he's a selfish liar too.

You need to look after you mental health.
Talk to your mum don't get pregnant again.

What is it you think she needs to do? She can’t cope on her own with her child for 2 nights so she certainly doesn’t want to be on her own with her child 7 nights a week, 52 weeks a year. He’s absolutely not going to be a 50/50 dad and she can’t force him to be… so, I really don’t understand this.

If she leaves she’s on her own completely which is her problem with the 2 nights a week!

Do you think the Marines thing is something he actually wants to do, or is he just using it as a threat, or a way to make you see how "well off" you are at the moment? I just wonder, because if he can't run because of his knees, then the Marines are going to have a problem with that, surely? Although I admit to not knowing that they had part-timers either.

Whatever the answer is, he is clearly (in his head) a man who "has" a family, rather than a man who is "part of" a family.

im not sure this is going to be fixable in the long run, and seems like the therapy (couples and alone) isn’t really going to fix the crux of the problem.
It’s not unreasonable for him to do a hobby 2 eves a week just as equally it’s not unreasonable that you feel burdened and overwhelmed because you do most of everything with your daughter.
If you try and get him to stay at home more it sounds like things escalate and do you really want someone to stay home with you when they’d really rather be doing something else.
You sound incompatible regardless of the fact he ‘fell apart’ when you did a trial separation. He is making your anxiety worse, and he sounds stressed, hyper and unhappy.
Personally I would live apart and co parent 50/50 because your situation is only going to lead to piles of resentment building on both sides.
Its hard when you have a child that is full on, not great at sleeping and working, but as they get older things do improve but in order to get through it you need someone to be on the same page as you, and you don’t sadly.

My husband approached me and said his therapist has informed him it would appear he isn’t getting enough time to get his rush of adrenaline etc etc.

How convenient. I call BS

What a shame he/she didnt say "you need to be a better husband and father" or "you need to grow the hell up"

Just for context I haven't rtft yet, but I just want to say in regard to what you said:

1. Daughter is at nursery Friday and an absolutely exhausted terror afterwards.
2. My husband approached me and said his therapist has informed him it would appear he isn’t getting enough time to get his rush of adrenaline etc etc.
3. There’s too much to do. We have two dogs that need taking care of too.

Let him get his 'adrenaline rush' on a Friday and he can dart around after your little DD.
He can also walk the dogs of a morning if need be for exercise.

He has therapy once a week, then hobby twice a week?

You do the same, have therapy once per week, and bugger off out twice a week (whether with friends, hobby or walking dogs) and leave him holding the fort with your DD.

He is old enough to realise that having children is a SACRIFICE, and you should not feel guilt when you leave your DD with her father. He helped make her, he can help raise her.